Dr. Phil is an absolute tennis nut, playing for two hours or more on an almost daily basis for the last 30 years.
"If I didn't, I'd weigh 400 pounds and probably go nuts," he says. "It's my decompression."
He loves everything about the game. Well, maybe except for the just-concluded U.S. Open. For the second year in a row, extended coverage of the tournament preempted Dr. Phil's season opener. That meant he had to scrap his plans for broadcasting his first-ever live show from New York.
Instead, Philadelphia got that honor yesterday morning, as America's therapist delivered his program live from Independence Mall - the only live show he has planned.
Staffers with headsets and "Dr. Phil Loves Philly" T-shirts arranged part of the crowd into two long lines facing each other. As the show began, the host walked to the stage through this cheering human gauntlet, slapping hands like a boxer entering the ring.
Dr. Phil - Phil McGraw - certainly pulled no punches during the first segment, a discussion of controversial football player Michael Vick and whether the Eagles were right to hire him after his release from prison after serving time for animal cruelty.
While panelists like Gov. Rendell and sportscaster Beasley Reece took measured on-the-one-hand positions, Dr. Phil insisted that Vick suffered from a "sociopathic adjustment to life" and was probably incapable of empathy.
The good doctor also served as a peacemaker. During a later segment to air tomorrow, he got the owners of rival cheesesteak meccas Pat's and Geno's to swallow their bile and finally sample each other's fare. Mangia!
Dr. Phil is carried locally on CBS3 and every one of the station's on-air personalities, from Leslie Van Arsdall to Chris May, seemed to be at the event, either taping standups or merely registering face time.
There were so many National Park Service rangers on the fringes of the crowd in their olive uniforms and straw hats that you'd swear Yogi Bear was the next guest.
While Oprah gridlocked Chicago for three days when she commandeered Michigan Avenue for a block party to celebrate her new season, her more practical protege barely slowed traffic on Fifth Street.
The prospect of going live was not a source of trepidation for the TV pyschologist.
"It's not that big of a step for me," he said during an interview in his Center City hotel suite the previous day. "In the studio, we might run over sometimes but we don't ever redo anything, and I have no script. Going live just means you have to watch your mouth and watch the clock."
For the last week, he's been running back and forth from New York, doing segments for this week's other shows, which will be on tape. He even got a segment out of talking to people on the Acela.
"I've been literally walking up and down the street talking to people at bus stops and on sidewalks," he said of his time in Philadelphia.
"We went to the Reading Market, which is great by the way. Boy, I could eat my way through there. In fact, we did because [his wife] Robin and I left there swearing we'd never eat again."
The visit is part of a new strategy to spend more time out of the studio, which is located on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles.
"We said we physically want to take the show to the street and see how people are living," he said, "what are their challenges every day and what are they focused on."
It's not the only change as the eighth season begins.
"I'm, like, technologically challenged," he said. "But if we're going to meet the people where they are, which is something we really wanted to do, that means doing a lot of Internet things. So I am now Twittering. I do have a Facebook account. I started a new blog called Turning Point and I write posts on there as many as three times a week."
The show's format - counseling and confronting people face-to-face on behaviors and beliefs that are crippling their lives - will not change.
On this day in Philadelphia, the guests are pretty cooperative, but does he ever come out on the stage, size up a guest and think, "Boy, this is going to be a long hour?"
"Yeah, I'd say about half the time," he said, laughing. "But it seems like the most resistant guests are actually the best teaching tools. They may not get it, but the person at home is going, 'Oh, my God, I just said that to my sister yesterday. It looks a lot worse on her on her than it does on me.' And a lightbulb goes off."
A few more lightbulbs wouldn't hurt on this grimly overcast morning on the mall.
The broadcast ends promptly at 9:57 and Dr. Phil is ushered to a custom tour bus along with Robin to await the taping of a second show.
During the break, a mere 20 minutes after a segment on the importance of a healthy diet, the Dr. Phil staff is handing out copious packages of powdered Hostess doughnuts to the crowd to tide them over.
Then it's showtime. Dr. Phil returns in a new suit and tie to walk between the welcome lines again. Only this time there's a glitch: The audio goes dead just after he hits the stage and they have to start over from the beginning.
Reform the gauntlet! Good thing this isn't live.