Courtesy The Columbia State

(April 6, 2009) Jim Powell remembers being 12 years old and crawling under the covers with the lights out at bedtime. He was supposed to be sleeping, but instead he was listening to Atlanta Braves broadcasts.

His heroes in the late 1970s, however, were not Phil Niekro, Jerry Royster or Dale Murphy. His heroes were the broadcasters: Ernie Johnson, Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren.

The Roswell, Ga., native loved the storytellers who could make a game come alive for him as vividly as if he were watching it in person or on television.

At 8 tonight, when the Braves take on the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies in the opening game of the 2009 season, the 44-year-old Powell will take his place on the other side of the broadcast. He will be the one weaving stories for young Braves fans across the Southeast as the team’s new play-by-play man.

Powell, who spent the past 13 seasons as part of the Milwaukee Brewers’ broadcast crew before being hired by the Braves in January, realizes the special connection he provides for a team’s fans.

“That’s where I fell in love with baseball. There’s a responsibility here,” said Powell, citing his holy trinity of Johnson, Caray and Van Wieren. “I wouldn’t be in broadcasting if it weren’t for those guys. The fact my dreams have come true are surreal. It’s like being part of a big family. Those guys were so familiar. I’m not going to be Ernie, Pete or Skip. I’m going to have to be myself.”

Powell should have no problem doing that. He developed his professional style working alongside legendary broadcaster and humorist Bob Uecker in Milwaukee. In Atlanta he will team with Hall of Fame pitcher Don Sutton, who rejoins Braves broadcasts this season after a two-year stint in Washington. They will be calling games for the team that has the largest radio affiliate network in Major League Baseball, reaching 140 stations in eight states, including WCOS-AM 1400 in Columbia and WPUB-FM 102.7 in Camden.

He’s still pinching himself after returning to his home state to call the games of his boyhood favorites.

“I’m pretty lucky,” Powell said. “This is a big job. I was flattered they would even talk to me. It still hasn’t sunk in — the magnitude of this. I’m just trying to focus on the baseball and go day-by-day.”

FROM TV TO RADIO

After graduating from the University of Georgia in 1986, Powell got his start in the Columbia media market. His first job came at WOLO-TV as a reporter. Before long, he got the opportunity to move to WVOC-AM 560. He figured he was a better-suited for radio than television.

“I looked like I was about 12,” he said.

He continues to maintain his youthful appearance. When he was introduced at the news conference to announce his hiring with the Brewers in 1996, Uecker quipped, “Now, when is it you get out of high school?”

It did not surprise Dave Aiken, WOLO station manager when Powell started out that Powell moved quickly to radio, which proved to be a perfect fit. Over the next 10 years, Powell became one’s of Columbia’s best-known and well-liked personalities on his weeknight sports-talk show.

He jumped on every play-by-play opportunity to broaden his resume, from the Columbia Mets to the Charlotte Knights to USC baseball to Davidson basketball. In the end, they were all small steps on his ladder.

“I was lucky the WVOC people allowed me to be so flexible,” he said. “I was paying a lot of dues, and all the little things I was doing led to this job. ... I spent a lot of time on two-lane roads.”

Powell occasionally wonders what things would have been like if he had been chosen by then-USC athletics director Mike McGee to replace Bob Fulton as the voice of the Gamecocks in 1995. McGee, as he did in hiring coaches, selected a veteran in longtime SEC broadcaster Charlie McAlexander .

“I do think about it,” Powell said. “I was really disappointed at the time I didn’t get it, but I wasn’t totally surprised. I think about how my life would have been different.”

He might have been entering his 14th season with the Gamecocks, but a year after being passed over, the Brewers tabbed him to join their broadcast team.

“The path of Jim’s career falls under the heading, ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ It’s worked out for both Jim and the Braves,” said Dave Stewart, the program director for four Columbia-area radio stations and morning man on Rock 93.5. “It doesn’t get more Cinderella than calling the games of the team you listened to as a kid.”

A DIFFICULT GOODBYE

Stewart’s friendship with Powell dates to their college days at Georgia, where Stewart served as the program director at the campus radio station, WUOG-FM, and Powell worked as the sports director. Powell was the best man in Stewart’s wedding.

The duo’s path also crossed again in Columbia in the early 1990s, when Stewart did his first tour of duty in town. Even then he had the feeling Powell was destined for bigger things.

Aiken remembers conversations with Powell at WOLO that foreshadowed what was to come.

“He had goals. He wanted to do sports, he wanted to do play-by-play, and he wanted to work in the Atlanta market,” Aiken said. “When you have a young person that spells out what he would like to do, and then does it, that’s pretty good.”

Powell admits he had it good in Milwaukee, too. Sharing a booth with Uecker — celebrated for his mediocre playing career and his roles in beer commercials, sitcoms and movies such as the “Major League” series — for nearly 200 games a season proved to be the ride of his life.

“He’s the funniest human being — just naturally funny — on the face of the earth,” Powell said. “I could go in any direction without having to worry about Bob having the right lines.”

Leaving Uecker wasn’t easy.

“He’s been a very good friend and treated me very well. It was a great experience working with him,” Powell said.

Leaving the city of Milwaukee, where he came a popular fixture, wasn’t easy either.

“Actually, it was a very difficult decision, more difficult than people would surmise,” he said. “We made friends there we’ll have the rest of our lives.”

He and his wife, Emmy, a former news director at WLTX-TV, became involved in the community. It was the only home his three young daughters knew.

But there was the pull of working for his home-state team, one with a large and loyal national following. He also liked the idea of working for the club instead of the radio station that contracts with the club, as he did in Milwaukee. Then there was the matter of being close to extended family in the Atlanta suburbs.

“We were not looking to move, but it was a perfect storm of factors,” Powell said. “I wouldn’t have done it for anywhere else.”