Ernie Johnson Jr.

I grew up going to Catholic school and I was altar boy even going back to the days where the altar boys had to learn the Latin clergy for mass.

This is baseball, this is in my blood, this is what I grew up with.

I don't work for a sports network, per se. I'm on once a week for the NBA and then we only do a handful of golf events - the PGA, the British and the Grand Slam.

I started broadcasting in 1977 in radio and 1979 on TV.

I thought I'd be an English teacher and a baseball coach somewhere.

I was a baseball player growing up and wanted to play ball.

You really don't consider it work when you are doing what you like to do.

If you focus your thoughts on what you do have and not what you don't have you will always be grateful.

I love watching players who, you know when you go to see them, everything is going to be left out on the floor.

You can recognize that you've been gifted in certain ways and be very thankful for that, but it doesn't mean that you brag about it.

I hesitate to ever, as one dad, tell another dad how to raise their kids.

That's real life, what is at home.

I had kind of written the script for my life, I thought. I had the great job, great wife and a boy and a girl and then here's this script that we're following and suddenly adoption comes into the picture. That was the huge unscripted moment in my life which led to many, many others.

As it turns out, because of the kind of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma I had, there was no need for treatment right away. So I could continue to keep working and doing my thing until it got to the time where my oncologist and I determined it was time for treatment.

I understand any time you mention Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Jesus Christ in the same two minutes, people are going to talk.

If you feel like your voice is going, you have to have hot tea and honey and plenty of water.

I'm a coffee guy but I don't think I've had a full cup of coffee. I'll grab one and then I'll have a few sips of it then go back to work and it's cold then I'll throw that away and go back later and get another one.

We're blessed we're working in sports, it's all fun and I never lose the fact there are three billion guys out there who would take my job in a second.

My favorite player back then was Joe Adcock. I don't know why he was my favorite player. He just was.

I'm the worst guy to ever talk about ratings and number of households watching.

I remember all the old catwalks and stuff at County Stadium.

I was hopeful and I was encouraged that there will be a difference between the President Trump and the campaigning Trump.

I'm a Christian. I follow a guy named Jesus, you might have heard of him.

I used to let my job define who I was. I like this version of me now, the one that values his job but doesn't put it at the top of the heap.

There was a time I worshipped at the altar of Rudy Martzke.

You're more apt to criticize an NBA player than you are a college players. Some of these guys are freshmen. They are learning the game. The other guys have taken it to the biggest stage there is. That's the NBA. So they are going to get more heat if they don't perform.

On the NBA show we are dealing with millionaires. On the college level we are dealing with some teenagers.

I've been called a point guard, I've been called a traffic cop, I've been called a ringmaster, a lion tamer, whatever. And I guess the thing about the traffic cop is I'm more of a rogue traffic cop because a good traffic cop doesn't want any fender benders.

I just wish Twitter was used in a more positive way.

I mean, it just seems to me that everybody wants to get on each other, everybody wants to attack everybody.

I believe people can change and I believe through the power of prayer, God can change people and people's outlooks.

There was a time in my life that I thought prayer did not matter either. There was a time earlier in my life where I did not give God a second thought.

I believe whoever is in the White House, God is in charge. That's me. And I voiced that on TV.

Some people say doing a studio show and doing play by play are two totally different animals. And to an extent, that's true.

You can salute the flag. You can revere the flag. You can respect the flag. And all of those are fine. What you cannot do is use the flag as a blindfold. You can't use the flag as a blindfold and not see the things you've seen with your very eyes that tell you that what's keeping this country held back is systemic racism.

There's no act. That's the whole Charles Barkley package. That's why people like him.

Calling Jack Nicklaus's last trip to St. Andrews was a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

There were trust issues with Hillary Clinton I couldn't get past, and there was this inflammatory rhetoric from Donald Trump, which to me was incomprehensible and indefensible.

Oak Hill is a classic golf course. There aren't a lot of tricks to it.

I love a place packed with history.

Our family life is a circus without a net. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

My sister and mom are both cancer survivors. If they're going to whip it, so am I.

Sometimes early in my career I thought what I did was who I was. As you mature, I've learned that is not the case. This is what I do, this is not who I am.

If I ever complain about my job, hit me with a rubber hose.

I never had brothers.

You have to be intentional about slowing down and not rushing to your next meeting.

I am a dad who happens to be a sportscaster. Not the other way around.

Be on time for James Dolan - no excuses like Zebras in the road.

I listen to everything. My playlists are wide-ranging. I listen to classic rock, gospel, Christian, soul.

I listen to a little bit of hip-hop, but I mainly go back to what was big when I was at the University of Georgia in the '70s. I'm a big Emerson, Lake & Palmer guy, a big Jackson Browne guy, the soundtrack of college.