Edwards, who spends his days as the executive pastor for operations and planning at Cornelius' Grace Covenant Church, made a return to the microphone after two decades last year, when Hough opened its doors. And he's not your typical high school game announcer. He's a veteran on the mic and was the original Charlotte Hornets' PA announcer, where he became known for accentuating the names of crowd favorites such as Kelly Tripucka and Kurt Rambis.

Edwards graduated from North Meck High in 1975 and felt the impact of then-North Meck principal William A. Hough, the man whose name now appears on the second-year high school on Bailey Road. When Edwards learned the new school would be named for the man he so respected, he wanted to get involved and honor Mr. Hough's legacy.

"He walked with integrity and a quiet confidence," says Edwards. "Students knew he was the principal, but he was always engaging, encouraging."

The timing of stepping back into the announcer's chair was also right and appropriate, says Edwards, a man of deep faith who walked away from all of his announcing and freelance sports reporting roles when he discovered they had become disproportionately high on his life's priority list.

Wake-up call

There's a stone on John Edwards' desk at Grace Covenant, one that includes one word carved into the front — audience. The back reads "To the glory of God."

It reminds him of where his priorities need to be.

"It's not 23,000 in the audience or stadium," says Edwards. "It's not about high-sounding praise. For me, the center of everything is an audience of One, capital 'O.'"

Edwards was a busy man during the Hornets' second season. Along with announcing the Hornets' 41 home games, he was also announcing college basketball games at UNC Charlotte and serving as a freelance reporter for those UNCC games and some at Davidson as well.

"That basketball season, I did probably, conservatively, 70 to 75 basketball games," says Edwards. "It was crazy."

At the time, Edwards was the community relations and development director for The Salvation Army's North and South Carolina Division, a job that required much travel throughout the region. Edwards says he was trying to do too much, and often found himself placing more significance on his announcing gigs than his day job.

One night in the Coliseum, his busy lifestyle caught up to him.

Edwards wasn't feeling well during that particular Hornets' game and decided to stand up to stretch on press row during the first media timeout. But when he did, he almost collapsed.

"I stood up, and the place was spinning," says Edwards. "I have never before or since had vertigo. It was a one-time experience, and I don't want to have it again."

Edwards had to be treated by doctors, and someone else stepped in to announce the rest of the game. But the physical discomfort of that night is not what Edwards most remembers. That night was a wake-up call.

"Some switch got flipped for me," he says. "When that happened, I realized the priorities were upside down for me. I just realized it was upside down, and the audience was misplaced. I had to come back to the right priority."

So after completing his commitments for that season, Edwards walked away from the microphone and press row, for what turned out to be a pretty long time.

"I had to back away from it cold turkey — all of it," says Edwards.

On the mic

Edwards' first announcing job was in an unofficial capacity.

When playing basketball alone as a kid outside his home near Sunset Road in Charlotte, he not only imagined himself as a star player, such as North Carolina's Charlie Scott, but as the booming-voiced PA announcer calling the action. He was a one-man game production.

While attending Ranson Middle School, Edwards emceed pep rallies and did the daily announcements. And at North Meck, where he began announcing games, he was influenced by two coaching legends, Wil Campagna and Leroy Holden.

"In ways they didn't know, I watched them," says Edwards. "Both of them were focused and tenacious and always interested in seeing others excel."

Years later, Edwards emceed the retirement dinners for each man, something he says was very special.

Edwards was a scorekeeper for Holden's basketball team and in later years coached the Viking junior varsity team. During his time as a student, Edwards spent a lot of time with Holden in the gym and on long rides home from games.

"I watched him winning and losing and knew what all that looked like," says Edwards. "He didn't like losing, but continued to be a man of integrity through it."

Edwards spent his first two college years at UNCC, which just happened to be when the Forty-Niners made trips to the NIT Final and NCAA Final Four in back-to-back years. At the age of 19, Edwards was part of an on-air crew for a radio broadcast in New York's storied Madison Square Garden.

Edwards transferred to the University of North Carolina, where he earned a degree in broadcast journalism. But as he soon learned, there's little patience for a Southern accent in professional announcing. If he was serious about announcing, Edwards had some work to do.

"I spent one season over-pronouncing things in order to sound Midwestern, when in reality, I ate livermush and loved grits," he says.

His first jobs out of college were in radio, as a news and sports correspondent at WSOC News Radio 93 in Charlotte and as news director at WCHL in Chapel Hill.

During his career, he has announced NCAA men's basketball regionals, the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament and for various pro and semi-pro teams that have come and gone from Charlotte.

And there was the Hornets.

Alive at the Hive

Edwards was announcing basketball games for UNCC when Lake Norman Citizen editor Andrew Warfield, then the media relations director for the Hornets, recruited much of the game day staff, which also included stat crew chief Micah Fuller of Huntersville, to the Hornets' operation. Fuller, like Edwards, also now helps out at Hough contests.

The Hornets were the first major sports franchise in Charlotte, and given the basketball heritage of the Tar Heel State, the Hornets were an immediate hit in 1988-89, setting the league's attendance record.

"I've been blessed to be part of some exhilarating sports events, but I've never been in an environment anything like the first season of the Hornets," says Edwards. "It was electric every night. A relatively mediocre expansion team and nobody cared. It was a party."

The inaugural Hornets roster included many veteran castoffs and misfits, and one talented-but-aging scorer named Kelly Tripucka, who was on the home stretch of his pro career after playing the previous seven years in Detroit and Utah.

The Hornets' leading scorer that year, Tripucka was a crowd favorite because of his grit, long-range shooting and multiple 40-point games. He quickly became an Edwards' favorite, too, and not only because of his obscure name.

"I just could sense that he was laboring to play, and he was tenacious," says Edwards. "I really admire folks that have an inner drive and tenacity about them."

When Tripucka scored, Edwards was amped and ready. The result was something like this: "KELL-ee truh-PUUUUUUUUU-kuh foooooor threeeeeee!"

"Any name that has a hard consonant or two or three distinct syllables that you can emphasize is great fun," says Edwards. "... He scored often enough that it gave me the opportunity to play it, to embellish it."

Balance

When Edwards announced Hough's first football game last fall, it was the first time he had called action on the gridiron in 25 years.

"It really was like getting back on a bicycle," he says. "It was seamless. I don't know how to explain that."

These days, Edwards is a father, husband and pastor who just happens to announce games at the local high school. And he stays plenty busy before ever stepping foot inside a gym.

He and his wife Marie have eight children between the ages of 6-26. This weekend, the second-oldest Edwards child is getting married. The youngest Edwards is in the first grade. At Grace Covenant, Edwards' passions are directed to church health and talent stewardship, neither by coincidence.

Edwards says he keeps his life balanced by focusing on a verse from the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 4:2: "Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful."

To Edwards, that means being a good steward of the gifts that God gave him and doing it all for God's glory. For the fans at Hough, that means they will hear and see the same intensity from Edwards that he once took to the now-leveled Coliseum.

They will also see him focused on the action and having a blast.

"It's great fun," he says.

Within the appropriate parameters, that is.