MILWAUKEE — When you see TNT's Ernie Johnson, he looks like he has it all together until you realize he's had two cancer scares.
"My faith, my family, my friends. That's what gets you through times like this," Johnson says.
Born and raised in Milwaukee until age 8, Johnson will return to accept the Vince Lombardi Award of Excellence after battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and prostate cancer.
"Look, I'm a Christian and I was a little shaken when I first got the first diagnosis," Johnson says. "I sat down with my Pastor and he and I talked. He said, 'you trust Jesus with your life, what does that trust look like right now?' I was like, it doesn't look good. I'm kind of shaking my fist at God, saying why me? And he said, so how does that trust look? He says, are you trusting if, are you trusting when, or are you trusting God period? And so if you get an email from me, that's at the bottom of every one of my emails is trust God, dot dot dot, period."
Growing up in the Enderis Park neighborhood, and can't wait to visit as he did nearly four years ago.
"There are a lot of changes in the city, but the neighborhood looked exactly the same," he said. "I was stunned, and I think that hit me the first time that I went up to Whistling Straits and then I made some time on the way back to go through the old neighborhood. I was amazed at how it looked just like it did in the home movies and the way I remembered it."
Clearly, Johnson still holds his Milwaukee roots near and dear and is a very deserving winner of the 32nd Vince Lombardi Award of Excellence.
