It was a pleasure a couple weeks ago to meet Jim Nantz, the highly successful CBS sportscaster, and to listen to him address the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters (NSSA). Nantz was in Salisbury, NC to accept the award as National Sportscaster of the Year.

It was the second straight year he’d won the award and the fifth time overall. That puts him in the class with the top sportscasters of our day – Bob Costas, John Madden, Al Michaels, Brent Musburger, Dick Enberg. He also won the Emmy Award as Outstanding Sports Personality, Play-by-Play this year.

Nantz has roots in New Jersey. After he was born in Charlotte, NC, his family moved to Colts Neck where he attended Marlboro High School. He was co-captain of the basketball team and played on the golf team. He was a member of Bamm Hollow Country Club.

At the University of Houston, Nantz played on the golf team. One of his roommates was Fred Couples. Starting as a sophomore, he was a sports anchor for the local ABC-TV affiliate.

Before he began doing NFL play-by-play for CBS, Nantz was the host of NFL Today, the network’s studio show. It was there, during the 1998 season, that he worked with Mike Lombardi, the former Ocean City High School athlete who has earned a great reputation in the area of player personnel in professional football.

“The one thing about Jim that I tell everybody,” said Lombardi, “is that as nice as he appears on TV, he is even nicer in person.” Nantz has visited Lombardi in Ocean City a few times.

“He is just a genuine person,” Lombardi added. “He has a great ability to make people feel at ease and to make them feel important. He is not at all wrapped up in his celebrity or his talent. He has a way of projecting his kindness to everyone around him. You are with him for a minute or two and you feel like you’ve known him your whole life.”

On NFL Today, Lombardi was one of the experts who offered opinions on the games of the week and brought fans up to date on possible personnel changes around the league.

“Jim is very talented,” he said. “When you watch him work you just marvel at his skill. His ability to recall things is legendary. And he has a great sense of history.”

At the NSSA event, Nantz talked a lot about the book he has written, “Always By My Side”. Released successfully one year ago, the book is being released in paperback form. It is about his career and the people he’s met along the way who have helped him. Many of them reminded him of his father, who died a little less than a year ago after battling with Alzheimer’s disease.

The book is also about dealing with that situation, a loved one who is in the grip of a disease that strips them of their memories and their personality. Alzheimer’s is a much discussed subject today. Maria Shriver has produced a four-part documentary for HBO centering on her father, a former candidate for Vice-President. Michael Caine stars in a film (“Is Anybody There”) about the disease. Brooke Shields is faced with helping her mother deal with something similar and local radio sports celebrity Tom Getzke lost his mother recently after a battle with Alzheimer’s.

Throughout the book, Nantz relates stories about some men who have also been like fathers to him – like the late Jim McKay, one of the all-time great sportscasters, and former President George H.W. Bush, who writes the book’s forward.

Nantz tells the story of the father-son relationship beautifully, though the book is primarily a trip with him through some of the great sports events and sports seasons we’ve all experienced in the last two decades. This is a guy who has broadcast the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, Master’s and so much more. A guy who played golf with former Presidents Bush and Bill Clinton. He tells all the stories in his book. (Except for one – he doesn’t tell about the time he lost to Matt Lombardi in miniature golf on the Ocean City boardwalk).

Jim Nantz is, indeed, even nicer in person than he seems on the air. He is a New Jersey guy who has lived the life most sports fans could only imagine. And, with all his success, he is still very much like the high school kid from Central Jersey whose father encouraged him to pursue his dreams.