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.
Pair of 4th-Year Standouts Helping Fuel Bronson's Rising Expectations
By
Scott Hassinger
Special for MHSAA.com
December 3, 2024
BRONSON – Kam Brackett and Boston Bucklin are hoping to close out their Bronson basketball careers with a Big 8 Conference title and more postseason hardware this winter.
Brackett and Bucklin, who both begin their fourth seasons on the Vikings' varsity, are confident they can accomplish some lofty goals.
Both Brackett and Bucklin and their teammates are riding a wave of momentum following a successful football season that saw Bronson finish 6-4 and make the MHSAA Playoffs.
Eighth-year Bronson boys basketball coach Damien Loveless is excited to see how far his two senior leaders can take the Vikings, who finished 14-9 last winter.
"Kam is a phenomenal basketball player. He came in as an physically undersized freshman, and we asked him to go in there and bang with bigger guys. By the end of the season he became our starting point guard," Loveless said.
Loveless had another solid scorer at the time in then-junior Aiden Hathaway.
"It was around game 11 that we needed someone to relieve some of the pressure on Aiden. We put Kam at point guard and bumped Aiden off the ball, and the switch was very instrumental to our success and we ended up winning Districts,” Loveless explained. “This undersized kid (Brackett) thrived in that role. and he could've cared less if he scored and did a nice job distributing the ball to the other guys. He showed right away that he understood the game of basketball. When you have someone like that in your lineup, you're going to be a pretty good team.”
Brackett averaged 5.8 points, 2.7 rebounds and a pair of assists his freshman year. As a sophomore, he averaged 12.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.3 steals per contest as Hathaway remained as Bronson's main scoring threat.
After losing Hathaway to graduation in 2023, Loveless asked Brackett to shoulder more of the scoring load as a junior. The son of Dave Brackett, a past all-stater at Burr Oak, Kam Brackett didn't disappoint as he finished his junior campaign averaging 23.7 points, 7.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 4.5 steals. That performance earned the 6-foot-0 Brackett all-state honorable mention in Division 3, along with a runner-up finish for the Big 8 Conference Player of the Year honor. He is a two-time first-team all-league player.
"Last year we asked Kam to become our scorer, and that's a role he willingly stepped into," Loveless said.
Brackett poured in 37 points during Bronson's 2023-24 season opener and later posted a season high of 42 and another game with a triple-double with nine steals.
"Halfway through my freshman year I moved up and earned a starting spot on varsity. Ever since then I've been working to continue growing as a person and increasing my basketball skills," Brackett said. "My biggest strength is definitely getting to the rack. When my teammates find me open, I'm looking to drive and score or dish the ball off to our big guys when the defense collapses in on me. Coach Loveless and my teammates show a lot of trust in me when I have a good shot.
“I feel like we're going to go far in the tournament this year. We have a real good group of guys with different abilities and a bunch of underclassmen who will contribute greatly. There are a lot of people who can score, rebound or make a good pass. This team has improved a great deal over last season. We have to focus on league and Districts first, but a big step to putting our mark on this program would be to win a Regional title."
Going into the season opener against Battle Creek St. Philip last week, Brackett had 963 career points and was just 37 shy of going over the 1,000-point milestone for his career.
"Kam's instincts on the basketball court are so incredible. I love watching him play,” said Loveless, who during the school day serves as White Pigeon High School principal. “He's a great defender and takes a great deal of pride in that. Many of his points come off transition, but he can just flat out shoot, scores the ball very well and can play the game at the rim. He just loves the contact, pressure and intensity and thrives in the moment. Having someone like that on your team makes everyone around him better."
Brackett is looking to continue his academic career by studying business in college focusing on finance or accounting. Following a big football season this fall as a wide receiver, Brackett is weighing his options and considering continuing his gridiron career at the next level.
Bucklin, a 6-1 power forward, averaged 5.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1.7 assists and one steal per game his junior season.
"Boston has always been a big and athletic kid. He's physical, our strongest guy on the team and is going to move bodies out on the floor. He is good at just about everything he puts his mind to," Loveless said.
Bucklin is anxious to help put his stamp on the Bronson program as well.
"Like every year we are hoping for a Big 8 championship and a District title. Our conference is pretty tough, and our team is one of the most skilled teams I've ever been on,” Bucklin said. “Kam is one of those players that just makes everyone around him better. Everyone is always double-teaming him, and he still finds a way to score or he passes off to that open guy.
“Our team doesn't have lot of size, but it’s about how hard you are willing to work to be successful. I'm more of a rebounder than a scorer and prefer to get that rebound and get the ball back out to Kam or another teammate because I know they are going to do something great with the basketball. Everyone on this team is so positive when we're together."
Besides basketball, Bucklin has participated in football, soccer and track & field. He has been accepted and will attend the University of South Florida where he plans to study to become a physician's assistant.
Basketball runs in the Bucklin family genes. Boston's father Steve Bucklin and his uncle Jeremy Bucklin both played at Bronson. Jeremy Bucklin recently served as Sturgis' varsity girls coach. Boston's cousin Aaron Bucklin, another Bronson grad, is the varsity boys coach at Coldwater.
Brackett, Bucklin and Tyler Wilber, another senior, will serve as the Vikings' tri-captains. The remaining seniors on the roster are Drew Norton and Keegan Krebs. Other key players are sophomores Layne Arver and Warner Wotta, juniors Matt Anderson, Spencer Losinski, Stevie Wilson, Zeb Olsen and Carter Sikorski, and freshman Owen Losinski.
Bronson finished second in the Big 8 Conference last winter and fell in the District Semifinals to league rival Union City. The Vikings have not won a league title since joining the Big 8 Conference, but Loveless expects this team to be in the hunt.
Bronson finished 6-15 a year before Loveless took the reins of the program beginning with the 2016-17 season. The Vikings have won at least 13 games the last three seasons.
"To see the change in our kids' expectations the last few seasons has been remarkable and has set the tone for our program," Loveless said.
Loveless, an Olivet native and a Grand Valley State University graduate where he served as a student assistant, served as director of basketball operations at Olivet College before coming to Bronson.
While a student at GVSU and working at Olivet College, Loveless conducted research on the correlation between yoga and sports injuries. Along with weightlifting, Loveless has included yoga as part of his team's workouts twice a week at Bronson.
"When I was at Grand Valley we did a lot of stretching, and that led me to do some research. I found that there was this college that had implemented yoga in its sports program, and they had a 70 percent injury prevention rate," Loveless said.
"Yoga helps with your flexibility and injury prevention. It also makes our athletes a lot stronger."
Scott Hassinger is a contributing sportswriter for Leader Publications and previously served as the sports editor for the Three Rivers Commercial-News from 1994-2022. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Bronson senior point guard Kam Brackett (11) looks to score against Sturgis during a game his junior season. (Middle) Bronson senior post player Boston Bucklin (35) battles for a rebound in a District game against Union City last winter. (Below) Vikings head boys basketball coach Damien Loveless, left, is joined by his two returning four-year senior standouts Brackett (middle) and Bucklin. (Top photo courtesy of Brandon Watson/Sturgis Journal. Middle photo courtesy of Troy Tennyson/Coldwater Daily Reporter. Loveless/Brackett/Bucklin photo by Scott Hassinger.)