TNT host Ernie Johnson’s speech to Alabama football has a touching message

Inside the NBA’s Ernie Johnson is usually trying to focus his three wild co-hosts to row in the same general direction.

Keeping Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith on course appears like a fun gig on the surface. And that’s what Johnson is most well-known for doing.

But Johnson revealed more about both his professional and personal life to the Alabama football team. The TV host was invited by head coach Nick Saban to give a motivational speech to the Crimson Tide, and the message hit heartstrings before going viral.

🤟 – Love You Too @TurnerSportsEJ

"Make somebody's life Better."#BamaFactor #RollTide pic.twitter.com/h7aN8YbLwj

— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) August 11, 2021

Johnson related his own job at TNT with the Alabama players. Working as a team, finding roles and appreciating an opportunity are all fine lessons to learn.

“What I’ve got is a get-to job, not a got-to job. I get to do that,” he said. “When you look across the room and you lock eyes with a teammates and are wearing the same colors, that’s a get-to, not a got-to.”

But then, speaking about the value in everyone on a team, Johnson gets personal. His son, Michael, was adopted from Romania with what was later determined to be muscular dystrophy.

“The nurse who handed this boy to (my wife), you know what she said? She said, ‘Don’t take this boy, he’s no good.’ Can you imagine? And I said bring him home,” Johnson said.

In high school, the high school basketball coach at Michael Johnson’s school wanted Johnson to join the team. The coach found value in Michael, a role.

Though Michael requires a wheelchair and struggles to move and communicate, the coach believed Michael could teach his team to give maximum effort and how to have a heart for others. Michael’s favorite phrase, “I love you,” was taught by the coach to his other students.

Ernie Johnson explained that he could see the impact his son made on senior night, when Michael was honored as part of the team.

“… I look up in the student section and they’re standing like this (signing ‘I love you, too’), because this kid, this Romanian orphan and this coach from Indiana somehow got together in a gym in Braselton, Georgia, and taught this huge school about love,” Ernie Johnson said.

“Remember: ‘Don’t take this boy, he’s no good.’ Right. (Find) value in everybody. When you step away from your agenda and notice there are moments that can make somebody’s life better … be a better human. How you gonna do it?”

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