Playing by her own rules: "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts talks to Mississippi Magazine about her high-profile career, her inspirational new book, and memories of growing up on the Gulf Coast.

Robin Roberts spins around in her desk chair, looking out her Manhattan office windows at views of midtown skyscrapers and the plazas of Lincoln Center. But in her mind, the "Good Morning America" co-host is more than a thousand miles away from the city, dreaming of her childhood home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

"I miss the people, more than anything," she says. "I miss my family, but it's the people, it's the culture, it's the way of life. It's the little things--the things you don't even realize--food, fun, just being. There's just something about the South."

Despite her remarkable success in one field after another--first college basketball, then sports broadcasting, and now being welcomed into millions of living rooms each day on ABC's popular morning show--Roberts is comfortable enough to look toward a day when she'll give it all up to be right back in the Magnolia State.

"I'm not going to be one of those gray-hairs, knock on wood, to still be doing this," she says. "I just have so many interests.... I'm going to love to be able to say, good Lord willing, (when I'm) old and gray, 'You know, I used to work in Times Square, sonny. I did, I did. I was Robin Roberts, I was Robin Roberts! Now get my teeth!'"

It isn't difficult for Roberts to envision the things she'll enjoy most when she returns for good. "I want my gumbo, and the warm weather, and walking around outside in my bare feet, people looking you in the eye and saying 'Hello, how are you doing, how's your family?' and meaning it. I want that."

But that dream will have to wait, for Roberts has too many plans for the present to slow down now. Still crossing over to her former television home at ESPN for special projects from time to time, she has also branched out with a new venture she admits she never imagined: writing a book that aims to offer lessons for life using examples from her own amazing experiences.

Roberts was moved to put pen to paper for what would become From the Heart: Seven Rules to Live By after Hurricane Katrina hit her hometown of Pass Christian. Though she had been asked to write a book in the past, she never felt compelled to do so until after the devastating storm destroyed so much of the coast and at the same time highlighted the resiliency of its residents.

"I was down for the count, and I was hurting.... Then something clicked with me, and I just started to go back to the basics, and for me, that was this book," she says. "It helped me get back to what I had done before, that I didn't even realize I was doing, but I'd lost my way because of the hurt after Katrina."

For Robin, the experience of the 2005 hurricane was in some ways a reminder of her childhood introduction to south Mississippi. Led by an Air Force officer father who had been a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the Roberts family lived all over the world before landing on the coast in 1969, just three weeks before Hurricane Camille's impact. Robin, the youngest of four children, was only 8 years old. "I don't really remember it that well, which is a tribute to family and all the people who wanted the kids then to have a childhood," she says. "I knew it was bad, but I was so sheltered from that."

With their father's military influence, Robin and her siblings grew up in a household that combined discipline and structure with encouragement, love, and an unshakable Christian faith. Robin was a standout among her peers even at a young age. At 12 years old, she was the Mississippi bowling champion, and she played tennis with a goal of one day competing on Wimbledon's Centre Court. But with a body better suited for basketball--in eighth grade, she was already 5'10"--she moved seamlessly from one court to the other and quickly attracted the attention of college scouts. After being named Miss Pass Christian High School her senior year, as well as Most Likely to Succeed and Most Athletic, she left the coast for Southeastern Louisiana University. She set her sights on a career in sportscasting, working at a radio station in the early morning hours before class and hosting a sports show between basketball practice sessions. She excelled in all areas, graduating cum laude and being named Most Valuable Player of the team for two consecutive seasons. "Doing what you love makes everything possible," she writes in From the Heart.

Robin's professional career began back in Mississippi with a part-time sportscaster position at a Hattiesburg television station; she soon moved to Biloxi's WLOX, where she turned down a primetime news anchor job in favor of sticking with sports. At WSMV in Nashville, she served as sports director on a morning variety program. That gig included such unlikely duties as hosting paddleboat and outhouse races before a live audience. "It taught me invaluable lessons that I use to this day: how to think quickly on your feet; how to effortlessly transition from one subject to the next; and, most importantly, how to not take yourself too seriously," she writes. "You never know which experiences are going to be of value.... You've got to leave yourself open to the hidden opportunities in life."

After a sports reporting stint in Atlanta, Roberts was lured to the athletic broadcasting mecca of ESPN. It was a perfect fit for her interests, and she stayed with the cable network for 15 years. "It didn't feel like work," she writes. Still, she shied away from offers to move from sports into news--until "Good Morning America" asked her to do some sports stories in the 1990s. That led to opportunities to fill in for the show's Sunday host and later for regular host Diane Sawyer. Audiences embraced Robin's warm, easy-going personality, and the network recognized a good thing when they saw it, too. News executives asked her to serve as a full-time co-anchor for "Good Morning America" in 2005, and after some admitted trepidation about leaving her lifelong passion for sports, Roberts accepted the job without looking back. "There is a difference between running from something and running to something," she writes. "For me, 'Good Morning America' definitely represented running to my future."

Just as she was getting settled into her new role, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, turning Roberts' world on end once more. After retiring from the military in 1975, family patriarch Lawrence Roberts and his wife, Lucimarian, had decided to stay in Pass Christian ("Of all the places in the world they had lived, this one felt the most like home," Robin writes), and Lucimarian, now widowed, lived in the storm's path. Within 12 hours of Katrina's touchdown, Robin flew to the coast. She had been unable to reach her family members by phone, so their reunion was an emotional moment for the anchor, who had to appear live on "Good Morning America" less than an hour later. "I broke down and cried on the air," she writes. "At first I thought, 'Oh no, I'm going to lose my job.' You're not supposed to show emotion on TV like that."

But the breakdown had a very different effect than Roberts expected. Hundreds of viewers called and e-mailed ABC, touched by Roberts' reaction and wanting to help coastal residents. "Good Morning America" producers decided to "adopt" Pass Christian, facilitating rebuilding efforts and coordinating fund-raising and volunteers for a full year. Instantly, her initial reluctance to accept the co-anchor position just a few months earlier turned to clarity and resolve. "Katrina hit, and I looked to the heavens: 'God, okay, I get it,'" she says now. "Because had I not been in that position, I would not have been able to have my hometown adopted, linking people together as our program did.... So I knew I had made the right decision."

Back in the studio, Roberts has enjoyed tackling challenging story subjects and meeting people she wouldn't have encountered in the world of sports. "It was a thrill when I interviewed Oprah Winfrey for the first time, being a fellow Mississippian and somebody who's using her power for good and wanting others to benefit as she has," she says. "I had so many powerful people in my own home--my mother and my father were such great role models that we didn't have to look outside for that, so I've never really been star-struck. Oprah was an exception."

Even after venturing away from sports, Roberts hasn't left behind her first love entirely. Her recent projects have included a special program on the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the baseball color barrier and a profile of retired tennis stars Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, and she plans to be part of ABC's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Through all of her undertakings, Roberts' one constant is the faith she shares with her family members, who all still read from copies of the same devotional book, Streams in the Desert, that her grandmother used many years ago. "It puts everything in perspective," she says. "It sustains me."

Roberts' "rules," sprinkled throughout From the Heart, inspire readers to ready themselves for opportunities, focus on small goals, take chances, be persistent, and keep faith and family close to the heart. But she offers encouragement for breaking the rules as well. "There is no playbook for your own unique, wonderful life," she writes. "Ultimately, you've got to live it for yourself."

Asked about the overall message she hopes readers will glean from reading about her experiences, Roberts replies quickly and enthusiastically: "Go for it! Live life. Enjoy it. Anything is possible. The feeling 1 have of such gratitude and appreciation that I'm living the life that I'm leading ... I just want everyone to have that same kind of feeling, like putting their fist up in the air, going, 'Yeah, this is what I'm meant to do, this is what I want to do, and I'm doing it.'"

FROM THE HEART: SEVEN RULES TO LIVE BY By Robin Roberts. Hardcover, $19.95. Hyperion, www.hyperionbooks.com.