Ernie Johnson is an Emmy Award winning sports anchor and a veteran in the sports television landscape for the past 40 years. But Johnson is also the son of a famous baseball play-by-play announcer in his own right, Ernie Johnson Sr., and his most important job is to serve as a caretaker along with his wife for their adopted son Michael, who has muscular dystrophy.

Johnson was profiled by ESPN about his life, his struggles with taking care of Michael, his love story with wife Cheryl and the family dynamics involved between being a caretaker and having a successful career. After receiving lots of feedback from many viewers and fans, Johnson decided to go more in depth through his new book Unscripted: The Unpredictable Moments That Make Life Extraordinary.

He titled the book Unscripted because of the various unscripted moments that have happened in his life as well as the unscripted moments that make up the show he’s most well known for – Inside the NBA. The book came out this week and Johnson took some time to talk about the book, his life and his career.

You talk a lot about ‘blackberry moments’ in your book. Without spoiling the book, what are those?

The whole blackberry thing goes back to my Little League days when I was 8 or 9 years old and one of my games delayed for a little while because two of our outfielders scaled a fence to go find the ball and then instead of looking for the ball they found some blackberries and they were just out there eating them behind the fence. It was years later when I thought about that and it kind of turned into a modern day parable for me.

Sometimes we get so tied up in the game that we lose sight of the blackberries that are right there. The sweet moments that are right there to be had but we’re just too focused on what we’re doing whether it’s our job or the next conference call or the next meeting or the next sales trip and we see things that are right there within our reach and we neglect them. Blackberry moments can be anything that makes somebody else’s day, that makes your day, that are just sweet moments that you always remember.

ON Blackberry moments that happened in his personal life while battling cancer:

When I went through the cancer episode between 2003 and 2006, there were lots of blackberry moments where you’re not having a great day and suddenly you check your email and there’s an unexpected note from a friend wishing you well or there’s a voice message from Charles (Barkley) saying ‘just thinking about you’ because earlier in the day you’re kind of sitting there getting your infusion and you know sitting in the chair for six hours and kind of out of touch and suddenly you check your phone and there’s a voicemail from Charles saying ‘boy, just thinking about you and hope everything is going well and we love you.’

What is the funniest most unscripted moment that has happened between you and the Inside the NBA guys?

The reason I even chose the title Unscripted for the book is because not only does it apply to the life my family and I have led and having these unexpected moments come up but it’s the way we do that show. I mean that is an unrehearsed, spontaneous off the cuff let it rip kind of show and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We don’t want to rehearse what we’re going say.

We want everything to be gut level and we want it to be unscripted. There are things that happen on that show all the time the unscripted things that never come up in the production meeting. Shaquille O’Neal coming out and saying while we’re doing the Golden State highlight…I said “Let’s go to Oakland for the highlights.” Shaq: “EJ why do you keep saying Oakland?” EJ: “Because that’s where the Warriors play.” Shaq: “I had no idea I always thought we were in San Francisco.” You can’t script that kind of stuff it just happens.

On an intense moment with Charles Barkley on set during commercial

We’re in the playoffs and we had taken the show on the road and what I have instead of carrying a big old format of the show in front of me with the computer print out, I just kind of jot down a roadmap for the show on these 5 by 7 cards and break into first segment, second segment, third segment and then if we have to make changes – Tim Kiely who’s the producer can say hey we’re going to switch that highlight from segment two to segment three and we have some sound of Gregg Popovich on segment four so I’m jotting this stuff down so I know when we get to it what the traffic is.

In between the third and the fourth segment, Kenny’s just like Charles I dare you to rip those cards in half. This is in a commercial break. Charles is like ‘you really think I should?’ and I said ‘Charles, this is my preparation for the show this is important to me this is my roadmap for where we’re going next. I need this stuff.’ He reaches over and rips it in half. Then we’re like 30 seconds from coming back on the air and he knew I was ticked off. I told him I said, ‘man if you do that again this hot coffee is going all over you.’ Kenny’s like ‘Man, I ain’t ever seen Ernie this hot Charles.’

We come back on the show and I just iced him out. I didn’t talk to Charles that segment. I wasn’t going to ask him a question, I was going to Kenny and Shaq with everything. Charles finally was like ‘hey, hey, hey’ I said ‘look I ain’t talking to you we had something going on here and if you want to take part in the show you won’t do that anymore.’

Did Shaq go too far with JaVale McGee?

The JaVale thing became a problem when this Twitter back and forth started. I texted Shaq in the middle of that and apparently I texted him after his mother had already texted him. I told him I said look man you’re in the Hall of Fame you don’t need to be doing this stuff.

Twitter to me can be a great thing. If you use it in a positive way I think you can encourage people with that. But when it’s used for something like that it came down to it was two grown men acting like kids. Thankfully we’re able to put it behind us. Hopefully that’s all done.

Will Lonzo Ball become a target in the league next year?

Enough has been said right now that everyone in the league knows how his dad likes to promote him. It’s the way he’s always done things. I saw a feature on CBS and he likes to talk, he loves his kids and he loves to talk about how great they’re going to be.

I just think you’ve got to be cautious. One thing my dad always told me was number 1 is be humble. He said everything in moderation. Let’s not go over the top. I don’t that’s going to make Lonzo’s life any easier to have the radar of players in the league ‘okay this is the next real deal? Well let’s see.’