Sunday, Jan. 24th on WDeV FM and AM

Mike Donoghue has been an award-winning news and sports writer with The Burlington Free Press for four decades.

Mike is the immediate past national president of the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association -- the largest national organization to bring together the two crafts of sportscasting and sportswriting.

He is also a former president of the Vermont Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association (2001-2003) and serves as its executive director.

Mike has had an extraordinary career as a journalist. He started off as a part-time sportswriter in high school, moved into the newsroom for more than 25 years and returned to sports in 1998. During the school year he is the primary high school writer and each summer is the beat writer for Vermont ’s minor league baseball team.

Mike and the Free Press have won countless awards for his news and sportswriting work. Mike’s work has been credited in the arrests in two murder cases and also the jailing of the world’s largest deadbeat parent. His writing has helped change the Vermont criminal justice system, including tougher drunken driving laws.

Shortly after transferring back into sports, Mike broke the story about hazing of freshman hockey players at the University of Vermont . The resulting scandal eventually led to the cancellation of the university’s hockey season in January 2000, criminal convictions for players and a toughening of the hazing law in Vermont .

Mike has won the Sportswriter of the Year award for Vermont nine out of the last 10 years. His work has been honored by numerous groups at various levels, including the Vermont Soccer Coaches Association and both the Vermont and New England Basketball Coaches Associations, the Vermont State Athletic Directors Association, the National Women's Sports Foundation, Norwich University.

In 2000 he was selected as a charter member of the New England Press Association Hall of Fame. He also was inducted into the Southern Vermont College/St. Joseph College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000. He was one of three charter members selected by the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Freedom of Information Coalition for their National Hall of Fame founded in 2003.

Both the Vermont Principals’ Association and the New England Basketball Hall of Fame inducted him into their respective Halls of Fame in 2009.

He is a frequent speaker and master of ceremonies for athletic and media events and team functions. He also is often invited by sportscasters and announcers on radio to provide analysis for games or events.

Besides his Free Press work, Mike has been an adjunct professor at St. Michael’s College in the Journalism Department, where he has taught a variety of courses since 1985.

He also serves as the Executive Director of the Vermont Press Association, which represents the interests of the 10 daily and roughly four dozen non-daily newspapers circulating in Vermont . While serving as president of the VPA (1983-85), Mike was a driving force in getting cameras and recording equipment into Vermont courtrooms.

He lives in South Burlington with his wife, Ann Marie, who he met on in church on Christmas Day.

George "Roadie” Rodecker - www.collegechalktalk.com is a 20 year member of the United States Basketball Writers Association (U.S.B.W.A.) and has closely observed the amateur & professional basketball scene world-wide for the past 21 seasons.

He’s covered the NCAA Final Four, the FIBA World Championships, the Goodwill Games as well as the Portsmouth, Phoenix, Chicago and Orlando NBA Pre-Draft camps and is a regular attendee at private Pre-Draft workouts. Roadie’s also a regular at the NBA Draft Lottery as well as the NBA Draft itself.

He's reported on college basketball and specifically the NBA Draft on behalf of CBS, hoopville.com, collegeinsider.com, hoopshype.com, Sportsline, basketballtimes.com, Basketball Times Magazine, and Eastern Basketball Magazine.

Additionally, Roadie has appeared on NBA-TV, as well as making hundreds of appearances on sports talk radio stations around the US as well as internationally.

On average he attends around 125 games each season and watches an additional 100+ games on tape.

He makes his home in New York State’s historic Hudson Valley where he recently completed a cooking/good living book and enjoys cooking, fine cigars, Pink Floyd & bird watching – often all at the same time!

Ernest Johnson, Jr. (born November 5, 1956 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is a sportscaster for TNT and TBS.

Biography

Childhood

Johnson went to Mother of Good Counsel (MGC) for his grade school. In Atlanta, he graduated from the Marist School (Georgia).

Early career

Johnson's career began in 1977 while he was still a student at the University of Georgia, taking a job as the news and sports director for the radio station WAGQ-FM in Athens, Georgia. He held that job until 1978, when he graduated from UGA with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. In 1979, Johnson began his broadcasting career in Macon, Georgia, joining WMAZ-TV after graduating. He worked there as a news anchor until 1981, when he moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina to work as a news reporter at WSPA-TV. Johnson moved back to Georgia in 1982, this time taking a job in Atlanta at WSB-TV as a general assignment news reporter. He became the station's weekend sports anchor and reporter in 1983. He held those jobs until 1989, when he left to join Turner Sports. From 1993 to 1996, Johnson called Atlanta Braves baseball games for SportSouth (now FSN South), where he had a unique broadcaster partner — his father, Ernie Johnson Sr., a former Major League Baseball pitcher and Braves play-by-play announcer.

Turner Sports

The NBA on TNT

Main article: NBA on TNT

At TNT, Johnson is also known as "E.J.", works as the studio host for the network's coverage of the NBA, working pregame and halftime shows, as well as hosting the network's famous studio show that airs after each NBA doubleheader, Inside the NBA. At the end of each broadcast, Ernie presents "E.J.'s Neat-o Stat of the Night," which has become a popular part of the show but is sponsored by no one, hence the sign that says "Your logo here"; This changed in May 2007 when vitaminwater stepped in as a sponsor for the segment, replaced by Panasonic's Viera line of televisions for 2008. It should be noted that for the 2005-2006 season, his segments were sponsored by Intel Centrino and most recently Suzuki. In the 2008 NBA Playoffs, his segments were presented by Geico and vitaminwater. For all NBA-related shows, Johnson is joined by former NBA stars Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley, and, on occasion, Magic Johnson, Chris Webber, and/or Reggie Miller.

Non-NBA assignments

In addition to working basketball, Johnson is also the play-by-play announcer for TNT's PGA Tour coverage. At TBS, Johnson works as the studio host for their coverage of college football. In 2002, Johnson was co-winner of the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality, Studio Host, tying with Bob Costas of NBC and HBO. It was the first time Johnson had been nominated for a Sports Emmy. In 2006, Johnson won the award again, this time on his own, snapping Costas' six-year stranglehold on it, including the year the two shared the honor. Since October 2007, Johnson has worked as the studio host alongside Cal Ripken, Jr. for TBS's coverage of Major League Baseball.

Past TNT assignments

Johnson's past work at TNT included roles as studio host for The Championships, Wimbledon from 2000 to 2002, studio host for its National Football League coverage from 1990 to 1997, and various duties at the 1994, 1998, and 2001 Goodwill Games, as well as the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France and the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. He also co-hosted Barkley's now-defunct talk show, Listen Up! Past work at TBS also included working as studio host for their NBA coverage. Johnson also called weightlifting for NBC's coverage of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Personal

Johnson Jr. and his wife, Cheryl, a licensed professional counselor, live in Atlanta and have two biological children (one son, named Eric, and one daughter, named Maggie) and two adopted children (Michael, adopted from Romania, and daughter Carmen, adopted from Paraguay). A Christian since 1997, he works on a regular basis with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), Athletes in Action (AIA) and Samaritan's Feet, a nonprofit organization which has a mission of putting 10 million pairs of shoes on 10 million kids' feet worldwide over the next ten years.

Cancer

In 2003, Johnson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but continued his work through June 2006, when he began treatment.

Due to his cancer, Johnson Jr. missed TNT's coverage of the British Open and PGA Championship, the last two golf major tournaments in 2006. Mike Tirico replaced him in the British Open, and Verne Lundquist in the PGA Championship.

Johnson returned to Inside the NBA on October 31, 2006, while continuing his chemotherapy treatments. He had lost his hair due to chemotherapy.

(courtesy of Wikipedia)

Playing "pro" ...

April 14th I'm taking part (playing) in a Habitat for Humanity benefit, playing against the Harlem Ambassadors at Barre Auditorium, 6 PM.

Check it all!

www.centralvermonthabitat.org

www.harlemambassadors.com