Nantz's father is never far away

CBS Sports announcer writes about dad, battling Alzheimer's, in new book

Last Sunday afternoon, when the CBS Sports telecast of the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte came to life, the television was on in Room 201 of the assisted living center in Houston where Jim Nantz Jr. lay. The audio was turned to 75, three-quarters of the way between 0 and 100 on the set, loud enough to reach across the quiet room.

That's the way Jim Nantz III wants it when he's on the air, loud enough so that perhaps some little piece of the voice that has narrated so many sports moments will register someplace deep within his father, who is spending his final days lost in the fog of Alzheimer's.

"My voice at least is going to be in his room," Nantz said, sitting in a CBS production truck at the Quail Hollow Club three hours before air time.

Thirteen years ago, Nantz's father, 79, suffered a stroke as he left the tower behind the 18th green at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, where his son was calling the golf tournament.

Nothing has been the same since for Nantz, the son.

His voice, as familiar as the road home, has told us the stories of the Masters, the Final Four, the Super Bowl. He has taken viewers where most could never go. Nantz has become the pre-eminent broadcasting voice in American sports and he has done much of it with a sadness he has kept hidden until now.

Nantz, who was born in Charlotte almost 49 years ago, has written a book "Always By My Side, A Father's Grace And A Sports Journey Unlike Any Other" (Gotham Books, $26) that was released May 6 and tells his story largely behind the camera.

It is a book that starts and ends with his father -- what happened when he was first stricken and how his life will end, perhaps soon -- and blends in stories about the places Nantz has been and the people he has befriended.

He tells about relationships with former President George H.W. Bush, and fellow broadcasters Ken Venturi, Jim McKay, Pat Summerall and others. He tells their stories because they have influenced his life, often profoundly.

"I got to talk about what I think is very important in that you do lean on people to guide you. In my case, surrogate fathers, mentors, guiding lights. Father figures I always looked up to," Nantz said.

It is not a maudlin book nor is it a recounting of anecdotes from his access in the closed world of athletics and television. It's a gentle, amusing, warm book about the people who have most influenced his life in the years since his father began to fade away.

And his father, who was born in Mount Holly and married Doris Trull from Charlotte, is never far away.

The idea for the book came, Nantz said, when he was preparing for the greatest run any sports broadcaster has ever had -- a 63-day journey in 2007 in which he was the lead announcer on the Super Bowl, the Final Four and the Masters, a broadcasting first.

Nantz realized he had everything but his father, who used to sit in television booths, headphones strapped on his ears, watching his son rather than watching the action.

"When my career is over, when it's all said and done, I'm going to look at that book and say I'm more proud of that than anything I ever did. I got to tell people how my father looked at life," Nantz said.

N.C. ties run deep

The Nantz ties to Charlotte run deep. Even after the family moved away in the early 1960s, they returned every summer to visit relatives. Nantz's grandparents on his mother's side lived in the same two-bedroom, one-bathroom house on Camp Greene Street for 63 years.

Last October, when Nantz was in Charlotte to broadcast the Carolina Panthers game against the Indianapolis Colts, he reached a peace about his father's condition, which he describes today as "barely, barely alive."