(Note: Information for this article was provided by Fordham alum North Callahan)

Bronx, N.Y. - Eighty years ago, Keith Jackson, a long-time ABC college football announcer, was just about to celebrate his ninth birthday when something happened that would have a profound impact on his future. On September 30, 1939, Fordham hosted Waynesburg (Pa.) College in a college football game at Randall's Island Stadium in what appeared to be an ordinary Saturday afternoon college game. But only it wasn't.
 
That afternoon, the approximate 9,000 fans in attendance saw two iconoscope cameras, which had just been patented by RCA,  on the sidelines, broadcasting the game for W2XBS (now WNBC). Now it wasn't that strange to see cameras on the sidelines back in those days but these cameras were different. They were actually sending a live signal to a relay station 10 miles from the stadium and then, by cable, to the top of the Empire State Building, where a large transmitter broadcast the game to the lucky few who owned a television (it was estimated that about 500 people saw the broadcast). A top-of-the-line set in 1939, a Clifton, sold for about $600 (over $11,000 today). Thus, the game became the first to be broadcast by a television network which would have surely solicited a "Whoa Nellie" from Jackson, had he not been eight years old at the time.
 
It should be noted that there is evidence of a game shot with television cameras in 1934 as well as a 1938 Penn game that was broadcast from Franklin Field to the Philco laboratories in Philadelphia. But the Fordham-Waynesburg game is believed to be the first to be broadcast by a television network.
 
Notable Fordham players who appeared in the game include Len Eshmont, Dominic Principe, Lou DeFilippo, Vince Dennery, John Kuzman, Raymond Riddick, Lawrence Satori and Joe Ungerer, who all went on to play in the professional ranks, as well as Ralph Friegden, father of former Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen, Peter Carlesimo, who would later serve as Fordham Director of Athletics, and Donald Lambeau - son of Green Bay Packer legend Earl Louis "Curly" Lambeau.
 
Bill Stern, who was one of the leading radio broadcasters of the day, handled the announcing for the game and soon learned the difference between announcing for radio and for television. Stern, who was used to spicing up plays on the radio found he couldn't do the same when viewers were able to see the play he was announcing. Stern's television broadcasting career was short-lived.
 
As for the game, Waynesburg surprised the Rams by taking a 7-0 lead before Fordham evened the score on a Steve Kozlo rushing touchdown, the first of 34 unanswered Fordham points as the Rams won, 34-7. Friedgen scored twice for the Rams while Eshmont, who led the NCAA in rushing that year, and Principe each scored once.
 
Later that fall, the NFL broadcast its first game on TV when the Brooklyn Dodgers held a scrimmage as part of the World's Fair. Four other college games were also broadcast but administrators at the colleges were afraid that the broadcasts would keep fans away from the game. Whoa Nellie, how times have changed as conferences now fight for their teams to be on television and reap the huge financial rewards that come with the television exposure.
 
That winter, the Rams were also involved in the first college basketball to be televised live when Fordham took on Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden on February 28, 1940.
 
It's safe to say that televised football has come a long way from that day, with the addition of skycams and sideline reporters. But just remember, it all started on a crisp fall day back in 1939 when Fordham hosted Waynesburg on Randall's Island.