Broadcasters by Year 1924 2006

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Lindsey Nelson was a sportscaster best known for his broadcasts of college football and New York Mets baseball.

Born on May 25, 1919, in Campbellsville, Tennessee, Nelson broke into broadcasting in 1948 following a short career as a reporter in Columbia, Tennessee for the Columbia Daily Herald newspaper. He was the first play-by-play announcer for the "Vol Network" which was set up to broadcast the games of the University of Tennessee. He subsequently did the play-by-play of the Cotton Bowl for 25 seasons and for 13 years he was the voice of Notre Dame football, and called the Mutual Broadcasting System's Monday night radio broadcasts of NFL games from 1974 to 1977.

Nelson's baseball broadcasting career began with the NBC television network in 1957. In 1962 he was hired by the Mets, and for the next 17 seasons did both radio and television with Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy. In 1979, he moved on to the San Francisco Giants, for whom he worked for three seasons. He also worked with CBS radio broadcasts of Major League Baseball in 1985. Nelson is remembered for being the announcer during the first NFL game, on CBS, to feature the use of "instant replay", which he had to explain repeatedly during the game, reminding viewers that "this is not live".

Television broadcasts featuring Nelson were notable for his psychedelic sports jackets, 335 of which he was reputed to have owned at one time. They often clashed with the set and his other surroundings and caused scintillation to the picture when his image was being broadcast, the television technology of the time being inadequate to represent them accurately.

Nelson's honors include induction into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in Salisbury, North Carolina in 1979; induction into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1984; induction into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 1986; the Tuss McLaughry Service Award for sports broadcasting in 1988; the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988; the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990; and an Emmy Award for Life Achievement in 1991. 

After his retirement from active broadcasting he moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to an apartment across the Tennessee River from the University of Tennessee campus from which he had a view of Neyland Stadium, the Vols' home field, and wrote an autobiographical memoir.

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