PORT ARTHUR — Editor’s note: The following column from the Best of West collection was originally published in the Port Arthur News on April 16, 2008.

Father’s Day is still nearly two months away, but I’ve got a tip for an extra special gift guaranteed to warm the heart of both the giver and the receiver. Especially if they are sports fans.

Buy dad the soon-to-be released book from Jim Nantz of CBS sports — Always By My Side: A Father’s Grace and a Sports Journey Unlike Any Other. My second tip is to purchase it far enough ahead of June 15 so you can read it yourself. It won’t take long.

Nantz, with the assistance of Eli Spielman, delivers what is likely to be a slam dunk best seller. Already, weeks before the May 6 delivery date, publisher Gotham Books has backed up a huge initial printing with a second order, strictly on advance purchases and the buzz being generated by reviewers.

The book, which will sell for $26, is so captivating on several levels that I read all 273 pages Sunday night after Nantz signed off the Masters telecast from Butler Cabin. I was so wired after finishing it, mainly from thoughts stirred up about my late father who was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s when he died of a heart attack, that I spent a mostly sleepless night.

Before going any further, I should say that it would be impossible for me to be totally unbiased about anything Jim Nantz does. As most Port Arthur News readers and Sportsrap listeners know, Jim and I have a connection dating back to doing a four-hour weekend talk show together in 1980 on KTRH in Houston.

We have stayed in touch over the years, as he made a remarkably rapid ascent to the top level of CBS sports. During that time, he came to Port Arthur to host the Jimmy Johnson Roast in 1988, has generously given me time out of a hectic schedule to be a Sportsrap guest and once filled out a foursome at Westchester Country Club in New York as part of my oldest son’s high school graduation gift.

Beyond that, I had the privilege of knowing and playing golf with Jim Nantz II — the inspiration for Always By My Side. After 18 holes, he was one of those people you felt like you had known all your life, one of those guys who made you feel good about yourself.

Goodness, was he proud of his only son. Sadly, due to the insidious ravages of Alzheimer’s, he slowly deteriorates in a Houston special care facility, totally oblivious to who that son is or what he has accomplished.

Always By My Side, then, opens with the first hint of the elder Nantz’s Alzheimer’s while Jim was working CBS’ telecast of the Colonial in Fort Worth in May of 1995. Woven throughout the son’s triumphs as a three time National Sportscaster of the Year is the tragedy of coming to grips and dealing with a disease whose relentless cruelty knows no bounds.

Jim, at the time his dad was stricken, was planning to make a pitch to him to become his full-time, on- the-road business manager.  Given their closeness and the fact he never made an important decision without consulting his dad, it seemed like the one thing that could make his dream job even sweeter.

Alas, it just wasn’t meant to be. Instead, Nantz must settle for opening every telecast by saying “Jim Nantz here,” knowing the TV set where his father stays is tuned to CBS, and hoping somehow, some way hearing the name will rekindle a spark of memory.

While the younger Nantz’s ongoing struggle to cope with his dad’s disease are sobering, his trip through the world of big-event sports is fascinating and entertaining.

The book follows his rise from a senior at the University of Houston, where he shared living quarters with Fred Couples, to his somewhat brash approach to NBC golf producer Don Ohlmeyer at the Houston Open, to landing a sports anchor job at the CBS affiliate in Salt Like City to, at the tender age of 26, being hired at the network level.

For the avid sports fan, a significant chunk of Always By My Side is Nantz’s historic 63-day journey in 2007 when he became the first announcer to call the Super Bowl, the Final Four and the Masters in the same year. He brings one inside those events with the kind of information that enhances and enlivens happenings still fresh in the mind’s eye.

Readers, meanwhile,  will revel in the stories Jim shares about some of the most famous people in both sports broadcasting and from the playing fields.

Nantz cuts a wide swath from boyhood hero Jim McKay, to Ken Venturi, to Billy Packer and others in the TV business. From the sports side, there’s up-close-and-personal looks at Couples, Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, Arnold Palmer and many, many more.

His story about Tiger crawling around on the floor of a TV tower playing hide-and-seek with Jim’s bashful, young daughter is a classic.

A couple of his best tales involve former president George Bush, who wrote the forward to the book, and actor Sean Connery. That’s Connery as in Bond, James Bond.

Bush 41, who became somewhat of a surrogate father to Nantz as their friendship deepened, told Jim he would like his help in putting together a golfing foursome that would involve another former president, Bill Clinton, and New England Patriots QB Tom Brady.

It’s a hoot to read the account of how Nantz psyched Brady, his partner for the final six holes of a round-robin match, to kick some presidential butt.

Hitting closer to home is a chapter about Super Bowl XLI in Houston, the uplifting Houston Salute he conceived and orchestrated to honor the city’s 41 greatest sports figures and the aftermath of a thrilling game New England won late over the Carolina Panthers.

Nantz was the CBS host, rather than the play-by-play man for the game. Less than two minutes after signing off the telecast, with revelry and celebrating going on all around, he was in the Reliant Stadium parking lot to meet a police escort for a quick trip to the facility where his dad resides.

He walked into a room where a TV was tuned to Houston’s CBS affiliate, as it always is, and awakened his father from a deep sleep. We’ll let him take it from there.

“Dad, I said slowly, I hosted the Super Bowl from right here in Houston.” ‘With kind of a half smile, half chuckle his eyes opened wide and stared right at me. I took it as a sign that somehow, at some level, he comprehended what I had just told him.’

Trust me on this. If you liked Jim Nantz before, you will hold him in much higher esteem after absorbing Always By My Side. And you will encourage every father and every son you know to read the book.

Sports editor Bob West can be e-mailed at rdwest@usa.net. His Sportsrap radio show airs Mondays at 8:05 p.m. on KLVI (560-AM).