Wiedmer: Ernie Johnson Jr. a role model for us all

Having secured nationally renowned basketball power Oak Hill Academy for this weekend's inaugural McCallie-Dr Pepper TEN Classic at McCallie School, Blue Tornado coach John Shulman knew he wanted a Friday luncheon speaker to mirror the Virginia school's fame.

"I'd just watched the ESPN E:60 film on Ernie Johnson (Jr.)," Shulman recalled Monday afternoon. "I told our people, 'Would he not be phenomenal?' He's who you want your kids to grow up to be."

So he called the longtime host of TNT's "Inside the NBA." And Johnson said what he usually does when asked to speak: "If you want someone to give you 45 minutes worth of (fellow hosts) Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal stories, I'm not your guy.

"But if you want someone to talk about love and hope, someone to talk about adoption and overcoming cancer, someone to talk to young people about checking your compass and trying to head in the right direction, I think I have a pretty good message to deliver."

Said Shulman of Johnson's appearance at noon this Friday during a luncheon on the bottom floor of McCallie's Sports and Activities Center: "We wanted to make an impact with this event. We hit a home run with Oak Hill and we've hit a home run with Ernie Johnson Jr."

His father's job during his eight years as a Milwaukee Braves relief pitcher was to prevent home runs. When that paycheck ended, Ernie Sr. became a Braves broadcaster for 37 years, most of that time spent in Atlanta.

It was there that young Ernie's values were formed as he watched his father's dedication to his job, his wife of 60 years (Lois) and his children, with Ernie Jr. as the baby of the group.

"I could sum up what he taught me professionally in two words: Be yourself," Johnson Jr. said. "He also said, 'Don't think you're special (because you're on television and rubbing elbows with famous athletes). This is a job, just like everybody has a job.'"

So Johnson Jr. listened and learned. He became a fixture on Turner Broadcasting television. He began hosting "Inside the NBA" in 1990. He did Braves baseball with his father from 1993 to 1996. He added golf to his resume. He worked the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and has served as a studio host for Turner Sports' coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament. He's won or been a co-winner of three Emmys for best studio host.

A single window into Johnson's soul: He forfeited his 2015 Emmy to the late ESPN talent Stuart Scott, who died of cancer in January of last year.

Then again, who better to understand Scott's heroic fight than Johnson, who began his own four-year battle with cancer in 2003 after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma?

But it's the adopted son who entered Cheryl and Ernie's life in 1991 to join their two biological kids (they would add three adoptees later) that best frames the broadcaster's heart and soul and character. Touched by a documentary on the orphans of Romania, Cheryl brought home a nearly 3-year-old Michael, knowing he was a special needs child. He didn't speak until he was 8. He later developed muscular dystrophy. The Johnsons were told Michael wouldn't live to see his 20th birthday.

Then in 2011, a month after Ernie's father was buried, Cheryl called him on a Sunday morning in Milwaukee, where the Braves were wrapping up a series with the Brewers. Michael was in the hospital, unresponsive, reportedly about to die. Cheryl called Ernie, who caught the next flight home. Knowing how much her husband would want to say goodbye to Michael, she had the doctors put him on a ventilator to keep him alive.

ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, the E:60 show's narrator, said during the film, "Michael never came off the ventilator; instead, the ventilator came home with him."

Five years later, Michael still on a ventilator 24 hours a day, the Johnsons still forced to shower him, help him go the bathroom and mechanically suction his lungs of liquid, Ernie says of his son: "Michael's doing OK. He's a happy 27-year-old who just happens to be living on a ventilator in our home. Every day with him is a blessing."

Perhaps that's why Barkley has said of the man known as "EJ" to his co-hosts: "Ernie's the nicest guy in the world, but what he's taken on in his personal life is what makes us all respect him."

This isn't to say Johnson will not mention basketball in his talk. Like most of us, he's become mesmerized by Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.

"My dad used to take me to watch Pete Maravich when he was with the Hawks," he said. "He could create something magical off the dribble with a shot or a pass every time you saw him. It was amazing. I feel the same way now about Curry. You turn on a Golden State game and within five minutes you'll see him do something incredible you've never seen before."

Of course, the whole reason TNT exists is because of the incredible mind of McCallie grad Ted Turner.

Referring to Turner's vision for a "super station" and the 24-hour news network that became CNN, Johnson said, "Ted's an example of having a dream and seeing it through. Someone telling him a 24-hour news network wouldn't work was all Ted needed. He thrives on people doubting him. Ted was thinking outside the box before people used that phrase."

But the phrases Johnson wants most said about him are that he's a good husband and a fine father, just as Ernie Sr. was to his wife and kids.

"It wasn't so much what he said as what he did," Ernie Jr. said of his dad. "I saw the respect he always had for my mom. I saw how much time he'd make for his children when he didn't always have a lot of time. You can learn a lot by watching."

Especially if you're watching how Ernie Johnson Jr. lives his life.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.