Jim Nantz Talks Father's Battle with Alzheimer's, More in Exclusive Interview
Jim Nantz is a planner. You can hear it in his broadcasts, the way each word is carefully crafted, the way every turn of phrase seems to have a perfect sense of the moment. His prose is so detailed, so precise that some have even taken to guessing what metaphor he'll use for each potential Masters champion.
That preparedness has pushed Nantz to heights rarely seen in sports broadcasting. In April, Nantz will cover his 30th Masters Tournament, adding to a resume that already includes multiple Olympic Games, Super Bowls, NCAA Final Fours and nearly every other major event on the sports calendar.
Nantz gets his attention to detail honestly. His father, also named Jim, was a renowned planner himself. From the time the younger Jim was growing up in their Houston home, he had a plan: His son would someday take over the family business selling wholesale office furniture. Not the sexiest job in the world, sure, but it put food on the table for his family and they'd be doing it together—father and son.
"My father was very athletic. He was a life-of-the-party kind of guy—walked into the room and there was a presence about him," Nantz said in a recent interview with Bleacher Report. "He was a great storyteller, just a terrific sense of humor. Having said that, he never put all of those talents or abilities into some public arena. He was never interviewed, never on television. His family was everything."
As his only son began realizing the dream he'd first told his father at age 11, things changed. Soon the discussion pivoted away from how father and son would run the family business into how a son could repay his father for all the lessons learned. A retirement party would be followed by the two gallivanting across the nation, taking in golf tournaments, Super Bowls and basketball games afforded by Nantz's rising profile at CBS.
Then in 1995, the two planners were dealt a tragedy for which no one could ever prepare.
In Fort Worth visiting Jim for a PGA Tour tournament, the elder Nantz suffered a stroke. While he would slowly recover to regain his speech and other motor functions, a series of other symptoms left the family worried. They then visited Dr. Stanley Appel, a renowned neurologist in Houston, who diagnosed Nantz's father with Alzheimer's disease.
Nantz described the next 13 years as "torture" for his family. The disease, a degenerative neurological disorder for which there is no cure, slowly stripped away the traits that made Nantz's father his idol. Gone was the gregarious life of the party. In his place was a man with a fleeting memory who needed care nearly 24 hours a day.
He died June 28, 2008, at the age of 79. The father and son, who planned a years-long bonding expedition to all the great events in American sports, barely got to see their plans get off the ground.
"We missed out on a lot. That’s all I can say," Nantz said. "We missed out on some really wonderful times. Anyone who’s ever lost a parent or a loved one knows what I’m talking about. Those years—they were 13 horrible years for my family. Trying to suddenly deal with the leader of a household, who was completely whole, who had this incredible robust presence and personality, suddenly compromised into half the man he used to be."
In wake of his father's disease, Nantz has used his platform to become one of the leaders in Alzheimer's research.
His 2008 memoir, Always by My Side: The Healing Gift of a Father’s Love, details Nantz's two-month journey of becoming the first play-by-play broadcaster in history to call the Super Bowl, Final Four and Masters tournament. More than a recollection of sports moments, the book tells the story of Nantz and his father—about how even when they're not together, their memories and his teachings can be found everywhere.
"To this day I’ll walk out of the booth at a football game or a tower of a golf tournament or out of an arena at a basketball game and someone will have brought the book and asked me to sign it," Nantz said. "The book came out seven years ago, but it still lives as a reminder—it’s a father and son love story."
The book also inspired Nantz to bury himself deeper in the search for a cure. In 2011, he co-founded the Nantz National Alzheimer Center, which has become one of the nation's leading care facilities for Alzheimer patients. Based in Houston Methodist Hospital, where Nantz's father was treated and first diagnosed, the center has made strides improving the quality of lives for patients and slowing their loss of cognitive abilities.
“I want to see a difference in our lifetime,’’ Nantz told Dwain Price of The Star-Telegram last year. “I want to be able to get our hands around this insidious disease and find a way to ultimately one day find a treatment and, of course, even better, one day find a cure.’’
On Thursday, Nantz officially took his next step in helping treat those like his father. As a spokesperson for Genworth, Nantz has joined celebrities Angela Bassett, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Shriver, Rob Lowe and Zachary Quinto as part of the "Let's Talk Now" campaign. The campaign encourages an open dialogue between family members about their plans should any of them need long-term care.
For Nantz, the message is personal. He watched his mother and sister work day and night as the primary caregivers for his father until it became a job too big for them to handle. It's something he says he'll never allow to happen to his family.
"I had first-hand experience watching my father’s health decline over the stretch of 13 years," Nantz said. "As my father went through a really, really long and dark period of his health declining and falling deeper into the abyss, I knew I was never going to let my family and my children experience this without any long-term care."
Though Nantz's most vivid recent memories of his father are of his final days, there are still times when he finds himself looking back fondly. At this month's Northern Trust Open, the event came down to a three-way playoff between Dustin Johnson, Paul Casey and James Hahn. All three players were either fathers or preparing to have their first child within a few months.
On the broadcast, Nantz made the observation that all three men seemed at ease—that fatherhood (or impending fatherhood) made them realize there is more to life than playing for trophies.
"I see it all the time in the sports I cover—the NFL and golf in particular," Nantz says. "How these players in that position, the whole parenthood thing becomes a trigger point for people to play their best. It’s all gone. All the intensity and internalized pressure disappears because they’re playing for something bigger in their life—and that’s being a father."
These moments, Nantz says, are among his most cherished. That some seven years after his father's passing, the lessons of his memoir still hold true. That the building at Houston Methodist bears his name, a lasting tribute to his father that will go on long after he passes. That through the Center and campaigns like "Let's Talk Now," he can help others avoid the more than a decade of pain he and his family went through.
"My father is truly always by my side," Nantz said. "This campaign, that I’m proud to be one of the spokesmen for, I feel my father’s presence as a spokesman for this."
Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter
.jpg?w=600 "Browns Rejected Cowboys Trade Offer")
