You might have seen on Channel 4 this week that I’m celebrating my 20th year at WJXT. It also marks the 20th year Tom Wills, Deborah Gianoulis, George Winterling and I have been the anchors at Channel 4, the longest running four person anchor team in television history.

There are many people to thank starting with my family for the sacrifices they’ve made, the management at the station and Post-Newsweek for creating an environment where we can flourish, and Tom, Deborah, and George for their professionalism and friendship over the years.

They’ve been running a couple of highlight clips of my career over the past 20 years on the air, and when I see them, there’s no wonder I think I have the best job in the world. Covering all kinds of fantastic competitions, from the Super Bowl to the World Series, The Masters and seemingly every other major sporting event in America, what’s not to like?

There have been exciting times, like when the city was awarded the Jaguars and the Super Bowl, the national championship seasons of the Gators and Seminoles, the great basketball runs by both schools and many others. And there have been difficult times as well, bringing news about sports figures who have lost their way, or tragically, lost their lives either in or outside of competition.

I’ve learned a lot from the people I’ve reported on and there is a common thread that runs through all of the successful people I’ve covered. They all have a desire to find out just how good they can be. They’re never really satisfied with their final effort, figuring out just how much better they could have been by tweaking this and refining that. They don’t compete against some rules in a book or against the other team, but rather against a standard of excellence they knows exists. They know what’s good and what’s not, and they don’t need somebody to tell them when they haven’t performed at their best.

And they’re passionate.

Passionate about what they do, about life, and about their own achievements. When you’re around people like that all the time, it inspires you. I know it inspires me every day to perform a little bit better, to try a little harder, to not come up with an excuse for why not, but rather to figure out a way to make things happen.

I’ve been honored to have breakfast with Muhammad Ali, lunch with Richard Petty, beers with Arnold Palmer and spend time with a whole myriad of other famous stars in and out of the sports world. I even had a chance to sing with Huey Lewis once at a post-concert party!

What has always impressed me isn’t their money, or fame, but when they’re nice. Without being schmaltzy, it’s true. And with most of the really successful, that’s the case. They’re talent is usually only outweighed by their kindness and understanding.

Outside of sports, easily the most exciting and interesting things I’ve done at Channel 4 are the stories on fighter pilots and other Navy aviators. To have the chance to fly with the Blue Angels, then go through enough training to be “back seat” rated in the FA-18, getting a trap and a launch off an aircraft carrier are things I can never match. Being a Navy town, Jacksonville has given me a chance to get to know the pilots, the surface warriors at Mayport and the submariners at King’s Bay. Any time I think I’m working hard, I only have to remember the things they’re asked to do, and it makes my job look like a snap. Commander Pat Rainey asking me to be the keynote speaker at his change of command ceremony remains one of the highlights of the last 20 years.

Most importantly, thanks to all of you. Doing this job in a vacuum would be no fun. Getting to share your joys and disappointments is a rare privilege, and I’m glad you’ve let me along for the ride.

My Dad throws like a catcher. Kind of a short stroke, not much follow through. I have been on the receiving end of his throws many times. Mostly baseballs, but footballs too, the occasional Frisbee or nerf ball, all thrown with that short stroke.

I’m lucky to have been on the receiving end of those throws.

After school and my paper route, I’d while away the time in the front yard, playing curb ball, throwing at the six short bushy pines that guarded the front of the house (Raymond Berry and Jimmy Orr were the two on the ends, John Mackey in the middle, Lenny Moore stood right next to the stairs, and other unidentifiable Colts filled out the rest).

Like a million other young boys, I was waiting for my Dad to come home from work. He’d drive up; the catcher’s mitt would already be laid out near where his car door would open.

I’d fire my best fastball and hear the occasional, “you’ve got to back up, you’re hurting my hand!” Which, of course, would make me throw all that much harder.

My Dad, in IBM issue white shirt and tie, dark pants and wingtips, caught my first curveball, saw my first failed attempt at a knuckler, and laughed at my imitations of Jim Palmer, Luis Tiant and Juan Marachal.

“Let me go see what you’re mother’s doing,” usually signaled the end of our session, but never before an encouraging “I think you’re going to win the Heisman,” or “you’ll take over when Brooks retires” was mentioned as he bounced up the front steps.

The youngest son of immigrant parents, my father and his brother were the only siblings born in the United States. My Grandfather stowed away numerous times on ships out of Greece before finding a suitable place to bring his family. Known as “Gleeka” (The Sweet One), he finally settled on Baltimore leaving behind a hard life in the Greek islands. By trade, he was a housepainter, a steeplejack, but actually, he spent his time making wine from wildflowers, growing figs and grapes in the small backyard of his row house in downtown Baltimore, playing double pinochle at the coffee house, and watching over the neighborhood, making sure other Greek immigrants had a place to stay and enough to eat while they got on their feet.

My father learned a lot of lessons from his dad early on. They didn’t speak English in the house, and everybody in the neighborhood was Greek. “Two eggs and a bacon,” was the extent of my grandfather’s English, although he never had any trouble communicating. When my father came home from school with a vocabulary test in the first grade, he had no idea what the words meant. “What should I do?” my grade school Dad asked. Rather than march to the school and demand he be taught in Greek or some other silly solution, my Grandfather (Popou in Greek) logically responded, “Learn English fast.” Understanding the power of an education, my father kept his nose to the grindstone (mostly) eventually graduating from Johns Hopkins using the GI bill.

I saw some of these things as a kid, but most I know from stories my Dad has told me. He’s the best storyteller I know. With a bent toward hyperbole, he takes poetic license, as all good storytellers do, but never deviates from the truth. Many times I’ve heard stories about my grandfather fighting the Turks and the Nazi’s. About the first time he met my mother (on an ice skating rink) and about the day I was born.

No matter how many times he tells me that one, it’s always with the same emotion, the same passion. How he and another guy were in the waiting room (long before they allowed husbands in delivery) and decided when their kids were born to go across the street to the “House of Welsh” to have a drink. But when the doctor called the other man to the corner of the room to say his son had died at birth, those plans faded away. And how he decided to name me after himself, (my mother’s idea) and not after his father (his dad’s idea.) And how it was one of the four best days of his life (I have two sisters and a brother.) I never really understood that story until I had children of my own, and now the passion and emotion he tells it with makes complete sense to me.

My father has never been rich, yet he says he’s the wealthiest man in the world. “I have four great children who have never given me a day’s trouble,” is his answer when asked how successful he’s been.

I had a friend who once said to me “you Greeks have the weirdest combination of machismo and sensitivity in the whole world.” That about describes my Dad perfectly. He’s ready to fight if necessary, but is much more interested in compromise. I’ve seen my Dad cry, but not often, and I’ve seen him pretty angry, but not often.

I’m lucky to have witnessed so much of this with my father. Some of my friends never knew their Dads; other’s lost them when they were young. I’ve had a relationship with my Dad as a kid, and as an adult. His business advice has been sage, his personal words wise. Like most men of his generation, he doesn’t like the modern-day ball player, and doesn’t see much on television that appeals to him, except on The History Channel. I told him the best invention ever for him was the remote. “Now if I don’t like it,” he beams, “I just change it.”

“As I got older, somehow my father got smarter,” my Dad used to tell me through a laugh.

You know what Dad?

I think you’re a genius.