Powerful Voice for High School Sports
December 19, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Paul Carey was home from the U.S. Army only a few months and just shy of 25 years old when Beal City embarked on its first trip deep into the MHSAA boys basketball tournament.
On the call for local radio station WCEN from gyms at Saginaw Arthur Hill and Lansing Sexton, Carey served as the voice of the previously “laughable” Aggies as they reached the Class D Semifinals before falling just six points short of playing for the title.
“All of Beal City emptied out. They’d never had anything before,” Carey recalled during his annual Thanksgiving weekend visit to the MHSAA Football Finals at Ford Field. “When I got home, within the next two weeks I got a letter from every citizen of Beal City thanking me for broadcasting their games. That’s the kind of appreciation that meant so much.”
During 42 years on the airwaves, Carey was best known as a voice of the Detroit Tigers bounding out of transistor radios all over Michigan, thanks to WJR’s powerful signal.
But for the state’s high school sports community, his legacy is similarly memorable as the voice of the longtime football and basketball scoreboard show and a voter for various all-state teams and wire polls over the decades.
Now 86 and retired since 1991, Carey remains a regular during the first day of the Football Finals, taking in games he broadcast for the MHSAA during the late 1970s and that continue to hold his eye as they have for more than a half-century.
“It was a passion of mine. High school sports always has been,” Carey said. “I think because my dad was a high school coach, and teacher initially, and my brother was a high school coach and teacher, I just grew up in families that appreciated coaching and athletics. I was not a great athlete, but it kept my hand in following sports that way.”
Now, the scores
Carey partnered with Ernie Harwell for Tigers radio broadcasts from 1973-91, including during the march to the 1984 World Series championship. He was named Michigan Sportscaster of the Year six times and to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.
But Carey’s early career included sitting on top of a car, plugged into a phone pole, for a Sacred Heart football game at old Fancher Field just a few blocks from his family’s Mount Pleasant home. Among many more accolades are a Distinguished Service Award from the Michigan High School Coaches Association and a place in the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan Hall of Fame.
In fact, the start of his weekly announcing of statewide football and basketball scores preceded his baseball career by 16 years and ended two months after he announced his final professional out.
The Michigan High School Scoreboard show was a staple of WJR’s late Friday nights from 1957-91. Carey would read every score he could collect from a variety of sources, often organized by league and with state rankings and context mixed in.
His idea came from something similar read by Len Colby for Kalamazoo’s WKZO. Carey’s brother Terry was coaching at Niles during the second half of the 1950s, and he and other coaches would get together to listen to the Friday night scores from the southwestern part of the state.
Carey, who left WKNX in Saginaw for WJR in 1956, explained to then-sports director Bob Reynolds that the station’s strong signal could provide for a truly statewide scoreboard experience.
Carey then connected with Edgar Hayes of the former Detroit Times, who gave the OK for Carey to call the paper on Friday nights to get scores from the Detroit metro area. For the rest, Carey relied on wire services – there were three at the time – who relied on newspapers from all over Michigan to call in scores over the course of an evening.
Before every Friday during high school football season – and later Tuesdays and Fridays during boys basketball season – Carey typed up lists of games based on schedules in the newspaper, with spaces to add scores. More than a few times, Carey raced down a back ramp at Tiger Stadium after a Friday night game, back to the WJR studio, with 15 minutes to prep for the show’s 11:30 p.m. start.
“If the Flint Journal, the Grand Rapids Press, the Traverse City paper didn’t call in scores to the AP, then I was out of luck too. And that happened all the time,” Carey said. “I would call back occasionally, say, ‘Did you get anything more?’ It was a rat race.”
The show originally was set for 10 minutes and then extended to 15. American Airlines sponsored a record show that followed, and Carey’s scoreboard show had a sponsor only once in 35 years. Finishing up on time was expected, even with more than 200 scores to read.
But Carey said he always went 20 minutes, sometimes 25.
“Because I wasn’t done. I just kept right on going,” Carey said. “Jay Roberts did the all-night show most of the time, and he was patient with me. He didn’t say too much on the air about ‘that guy ahead of me took all of my time.’”
Carey continued the “rat race” until his final scoreboard show, Dec. 20, 1991. He retired from WJR at the end of that calendar year. And it's important to note: Carey was never paid a dime extra for doing the program. .
“I think Paul is really just a sports fan, and that came across to the listener on his broadcasts,” MHSAA historian Ron Pesch said. “Paul would gather as much as possible off the wire. He'd interject if scores were missing from sections of the state. Press polls from the Free Press, News, AP and UPI were big, so he could point out close calls and upsets.
“He provided immediacy, or the closest thing to it in the days before cable TV and the Internet, and because of his scoreboard show, you could get the results before the morning paper. For listeners, he brought life to something as simple as game scores.”
First team all the way
Carey, who resides in Rochester, also served as the engineer on Tigers broadcasts for 16 years, through 1990. He broadcast Pistons games on the radio for six seasons and did the first broadcast of a Central Michigan University football game, in 1949.
Harry Atkins, covering Detroit’s teams while with The Associated Press for 29 years including the last 21 as its sports editor for Detroit, took note of his colleague's hard work – and especially that Carey was one of few broadcasters who was a journalist in addition to a voice.
That made Carey's other major role in high school sports a natural fit.
Atkins split The Associated Press all-state selection panels for football and basketball into 11 regions, and Carey represented the Detroit area for a number of years. He also was a longtime voter in those sports' weekly polls.
“Paul is just that kind of guy. He thought it was important and he made time in his busy schedule to do it,” Atkins said “And it had an impact on the other 10 voters on the All-State panels, too.
“Some of them were from small out-state newspapers or radio or TV stations. Yet every one of them knew who Paul Carey was. And when he spoke, of course, with what often is called "The Voice of God," those voters paid attention.”
And he still does, as well.
At the end of each fall, Carey still puts together a compilation of the three high school all-state football teams – Associated Press, Detroit Free Press and Detroit News – and files them with years of research and results.
“It’s important to me. Nobody sees it but me, but I get a certain kick,” Carey said. “Once in a while I’ll see a kid playing at Central, Western or (Michigan) State or Michigan, and they’ll say he came from Clawson. I’ll go into my all-state collections, say that would’ve been 2009 he played, and I find a name.”
In addition to the Football Finals on WJR, Carey was part of the Baseball Finals broadcasts into the early 1990s, continuing to contribute even after his retirement from his fulltime gig.
He spent high school games over the years sitting next to legends like the Free Press’ Hal Schram and remembers when current Free Press longtime scribe Mick McCabe was just a rookie. One of Carey's final broadcasts was a 1992 Baseball Final with his nephew Mike Carey, who continues to broadcast MHSAA championship games to this day.
“I am eternally grateful to Paul Carey. His contribution to high school sports in Michigan has been great and significant,” Atkins said.
“We are lucky to have him.”
PHOTO: Paul Carey (left) and nephew Mike Carey broadcast the MHSAA 1992 Class D Baseball Final between Hillman and Athens for PASS.
Century-Old Postcard Inspires Researcher to Tell Story of Athens Baseball Dynasty
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
June 25, 2026
Shortly after graduation from little Athens High School in 1969, Larry DeBow had the chance to head east for a three-day music festival. Held that August on a dairy farm in upstate New York, Woodstock attracted some 400,000 and became one of the most famous cultural moments of the 1960s.
“I didn’t know what it was and blew it off,” he recalled. “I’ve always regretted that.”
That fall, DeBow left the Calhoun County village south of Battle Creek and made his way to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. There, he crammed four years of education into three, then, starting in Tecumseh, began a 41-year career in industrial sales with various companies and bounced around the world.
He retired in 2013, took up photography, and started a small business.
“In 2016 I added video when a friend and I decided to take a just-you-and-I road trip,” said DeBow, capsulating life’s path. Their destinations: Woodstock and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“We were at Woodstock, and my friend Dave – he always talked like this – said ‘Dude, we gotta make a movie about this.’ So, I just started to snap pictures, and I used my iPhone taking video. Then I got home and go, ‘What am I going to do with this? I don’t know how to make a video.’ But on my computer was Movie Maker 7. I created my first video … I think it (runs) only about 10 minutes.”
After producing about 15 more videos, he found Movie Maker couldn’t keep up with his growing technology needs. Now tinkering with AI tools, DeBow is preparing to debut his latest work – a baseball documentary – in July.
Subject Matter
Following the road trip, DeBow experimented with technology and posted short films to YouTube. In 2017, at the suggestion of another Athens graduate, John Royer, they started assembling material for 1969 – A Celebration of Accomplishment, a documentary initially shared at Larry’s 50th class reunion. The Indians had fielded two pretty good sports teams during DeBow’s senior year.
“John was a year behind me (in high school). He was on the track team … and was (one) of the four guys who still hold the mile relay record for the school. I was on the basketball team, although I was the 12th man,” recalled DeBow, laughing. “I was far from a star. We were the first team to win a Regional game in school history that winter. In the spring, the track team took second in the state Finals.”
Running 26 minutes in length, the finished video included interviews, snapshots, memorabilia, and some old family 8mm film footage from the state track meet.
DeBow followed the production up with another documentary on the Athens’ 2022 girls volleyball team, runner-up in Class D in the annual MHSAA tournament. While digging around on that project, he came across a real picture postcard. It would set the stage for the current project.
A Baseball Dynasty
The image features members of a team riding on a horse-drawn wagon. Inscribed is, “Athens High School State Champions, 1910, Base Ball Team.”
“Tom Doubleday doesn’t like the title,” states DeBow. “I give it to him anyway. He’s like the curator of the sports section at the Athens Area Historical Society. He asked, ‘Can we do something with this (to tell their story).’ “
DeBow immediately recognized the challenge. “If this is all we’ve got, I can’t do anything with that.”
With Doubleday’s assistance they dug into the Society’s archives. The story grew. Intrigued, DeBow was quickly hooked. But this one would highlight the challenges and requirements needed to tell a story cast over 100 years ago.
Sharing stories
For roughly 30 of the 45 years that I’ve delved into the history of high school sports, the vast majority of time was spent perched on a chair in a library, mostly in Michigan, occasionally somewhere in the Midwest, scrolling through the pages of microfilmed reels of newspapers and periodicals or scanning old school yearbooks, searching for data.
That frequently included trips from Muskegon to the State of Michigan Library in Lansing, where a warehouse of nearly pristine reels of microfilm is maintained for a majority of the state’s newspapers. Over the last 15 years, dramatic changes have allowed searchable scans of the nation’s newsprint to be moved online. Initially, it was a handful of smaller long-defunct publications. Today, the archives of most of the state’s largest dailies are now included in subscription databases, and the listings continue to grow.
One of the great joys of serving as the MHSAA historian is sharing knowledge and resources with sportswriters, coaches, players, school administrators – past and present. Often, individuals reach out, looking for information and guidance on projects on which they are working. Occasionally, we strike up friendships, mostly via telephone calls and email, where we each cheer on each other’s projects and share news of our successes and challenges. Sometimes we meet in person.
In February 2024, I received my first email from DeBow. With the subject line, “Athens Michigan HS 1907 thru 1918 Perhaps a Michigan Baseball Dynasty?”
Come July, I will meet Larry in Athens.
A Cutout
Tapping into the collection of the Athens Area Historical Society, they found additional postcards and artifacts that would visually expand the lost tale from the early days of prep baseball, featuring an interesting cast of characters.
“They found some posters or bills saying Athens was playing North Adams, or Athens was playing Marshall or Athens is playing somebody,” recalled DeBow. “These would be displayed in store windows. There was a poster for (a) 1909 (championship) game with Mt. Pleasant. I don’t know where they found it … but it was literally cut off a wall. None of us had really noticed it before in the historical society. It could have slapped you right in the face because it was right on the side of a doorway going from one section (of the building) to another. I’ve got a lot of that stuff in the documentary.”
Hitting the internet with searches on high school baseball from the era, DeBow came across a list prepared by Kevin Askeland, a staff writer at MaxPreps.
Using research from multiple sources, MaxPreps has retroactively chosen national champions back to 1910, designed to recognize a single champion for each year. The compiled list is a consolidation of previous work produced over the years by various organizations and historians, according to Askeland. MaxPreps credits those individuals and expands on their work via research using modern day access to online newspaper databases that now allow deeper dives into the scanned recorded print history of cities, towns, and villages, with tools previously unavailable.
DeBow asked Askeland if the list was malleable. Askeland said it could happen but would require documentation and detail that strongly made a case for a change.
Contact
DeBow’s conversation with Askeland added a new dimension to his research and led to our connection.
Shortly after his email, we spoke on the phone. At the time, DeBow’s initial newspaper research was limited to the Athens Times microfilm stored at Lansing’s State Library. Purchasing database subscriptions allowed DeBow to conduct research on the first two decades of the century behind a laptop without the road trip. He keyed in countless combinations of words and phrases in search of clues. Before long, he was waist-deep in a long-forgotten and expanding story. Hours flew by. By June of 2025, he had a strong outline, focused on the 10-year span 1907-1916.
By August 2025, DeBow estimated he had viewed approximately 500 individual articles. Larger newspapers from nearby Battle Creek and Marshall included scores from games. Kalamazoo, Saginaw, and Detroit papers provided additional hints. The Times provided much of the color and detail.
Certain questions hovered above his research. Claims over eligibility of certain players often surfaced in newspaper game coverage. What were governing rules during those days? How did playing “summer ball” affect eligibility? Were there age rules?
Without question, baseball was the “national pastime” during the era. Reports of games in the state of Michigan appear in print as early as 1860. Old Reach and Spalding Baseball Guides help explain the hierarchy, structure, and importance of the sport in these years as foundry, city, independent, and semi-professional minor league teams dominated the landscape in many cities and towns.
The teams competed for talent. The game was popular in high schools, but certainly not sponsored by all schools. Initially governed by a subcommittee of the Michigan State Teachers’ Association, and then from 1909 through 1924 by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) – both predecessors to the MHSAA – prep athletics at member schools voluntarily cooperated with regulations of eligibility pertaining to amateurism, enrollment, semesters of athletic competition, and school scholarship.
DeBow mentioned he had come across articles that spoke of state champions in track and field, football, basketball, tennis, and summer independent baseball … even MARBLES. But there was no mention of an official “state high school baseball champion” for the years he studied.
Outside of track & field championships, the MIAA did not sponsor postseason tournaments. Hence, all other titles claimed by schools in other sports were generally made by the press, school administration, and/or admiring followers, justified by outstanding results in the win-loss column. That led to challenges from other schools elsewhere in the state making similar claims, and often contests between the schools were arranged, meant to resolve the debate.
Utilizing modern tools, DeBow collected schedules and final results, and compiled folders full of detail. Slowly, he distilled data into a narrative covering forgotten games and players who represented Athens, and the opponents that they faced. His focus narrowed to a remarkable four-year span – 1909 through 1912 – where the Indians compiled a stunning 42-0 record. Before stellar crowds they triumphed over bigger schools including Dexter, Millington, Mount Pleasant, Battle Creek and Saginaw Arthur Hill.
In September 2025, DeBow penned an e-mail to Askeland, detailing the Athens seasons in a 51-page document. The 1909 team finished 12-0 after defeating Mount Pleasant, 1-0, in a title game at Athens, while 1910’s squad downed Arthur Hill in Saginaw in another 1-0 championship contest, to finish 11-0. Both teams featured the Fox brothers – Loyd, pitcher/outfielder, and Roy, catcher – perhaps the team’s top players. As a sophomore in 1910, Loyd struck out 16 in the title game – the first loss in three years for Arthur Hill.
So, DeBow pitched the 1910 squad to Askeland for consideration as a replacement to 9-1 Commercial High of Brooklyn, N.Y. as the list’s new national champion. Impressed with Athens’ accomplishments, this past February, MaxPreps updated its list accordingly.
Thrilled by the news, since then DeBow’s focus has been on final details to wrap up the documentary in preparation for release. Among the tools he’s used on this one is some limited AI.
He will bring the story to life with a public showing of the documentary at the village of Athens’ annual Homecoming, scheduled for July 24th – 26th.
After, DeBow plans to submit the story to a film festival. “My goal has been to keep this under 30 minutes,” he said.
Now that he’s near the end, he’s given up pretty much all the software subscriptions he’s used on the project – except one.
“I’m probably going to convince myself to keep Chat GPT,” DeBow noted, “just because I’m having too much fun doing other stuff!”
PHOTOS (Top) The 1910 Athens baseball team poses for a photo celebrating its championship season. (2) The 1910 team is welcomed during a parade through its hometown. (3) A sign advertises a matchup with Lansing that season. (4) Brothers Roy and Loyd Fox pose for a photo together in 1911. (Team photo courtesy of the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. All others were gathered by Larry DeBow and the Athens Area Historical Society.)