MSU Broadcaster Cristil Retires
February 24th, 2011 10:08 AM║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink
║ Schools: Mississippi State
Tags: Jack Cristil, Longtime Mississippi State, Mississippi State, SEC
It’s a sad day for the SEC. Longtime Mississippi State play-by-play man Jack Cristil announced last night that he is retiring Saturday after nearly 60 years as the voice of the Bulldogs.
Cristil said that a “deteriorating health situation” will require him to go on kidney dialysis. “Doing this treatment will restrict me to the point where I cannot represent this university the way it should be represented. And when I cannot do that, I have told many people over the years that I would step aside. Now it’s time to step aside.”
Any time one of the league’s long-tenured announcers retires it’s a loss for the entire conference. Fans literally grow up and grow old with men like Cristil serving as a neighborly connection between themselves and their favorite school.
In Cristil’s case, he called 636 Mississippi State football games from 1953 through 2010. According to The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, that’s 59% of all the football games ever played by State. His final call at Tennessee on Saturday will be his 1,538th men’s basketball game.
Unreal. Best wishes to Cristil as he leaves the SEC to take care of his health.
Below are a few of his most-famous calls. And you can wrap it in maroon and white.
Knock, Knock who's there? Clarksdale and WROX on Saturday night with Jack Crisitl at the mike. Bobby Friedman and Billy Campbell call in to continue their Knock- Knock joke series to lighten a heavy Delta summer night before Billy leaves for college. Fast forward 20 years: Bobby is with the Dallas Cowboys, Billy has graduated several times over and is a professor at Ohio State University, and Jack is the voice of the BullDogs. Fast forward to Jack's final call at UT Knoxville: Bobby and Joyce are gone, Billy and Lynn pull up the UT/State game and learn of the historic occasion, and Jack is still the same Jack. I regret that I was not able to attend his last game, especially since I am 10 years his junior, but I never found his fountain of youth. Jack, may my words remind you of your lasting influence and gracious gifts to this KId. God bless.
Billy
COL William B. Campbell, Jr. (Ret)
M.D., Ph.D., PE
Knoxville, Tennessee
John, MrSec, thanks ever so much for the tribute to Jack C. His career has been exceptional in that he has lived through all the many ups and downs of MSU sports....football especially...again, thank you.
What a shame that nobody told Jack Cristil that dialysis has become obsolete.__In 2002, I published how to prevent 90% of dialysis (1). If word ever gets out (2), there will be so few kidney patients left that there’ll be more than enough cadaver kidneys to go around. No more waiting lists for a kidney. No more need for living donors. The world will be dialysis-free. That's my company's goal for 2020.__So if you know somebody with diabetes or high blood pressure, please tell them about GenoMed (www.genomed.com) so we can tell them how to stay off dialysis.__I really wish somebody had done Mr Cristil a favor and told him.__References__1: Moskowitz DW. From pharmacogenomics to improved patient outcomes: angiotensin I-converting enzyme as an example. Diabetes Technol Ther. 2002
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