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.
Peck Bands Together to Honor Welch's Memory as Pirates Return to Diamond
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 15, 2026
Bill Kerr didn’t need to spend much time back at the Little League fields in Peck before his childhood friend James Welch caught his ear.
Not in conversation, but from the dugout, doing one of the things he loved most – coaching kids.
“When I got back to Peck 10 years ago, he was coaching Little League. We started talking about how we could get him in front of more kids and doing more,” said Kerr, the Peck superintendent. “I always joked that I was recruiting him. I’ve been around coaches forever, evaluated coaches forever, and you could just hear it, even at the Little League fields. You could hear his message and how strong it was.”
Kerr brought Welch on board at Peck, first as the baseball coach and eventually as athletic director, and over a few short years he made an out-sized impact on the kids he worked with and the community at large.
Welch died unexpectedly on Nov. 6, 2025, but that impact is still being felt today on the baseball diamond and beyond.
“He was always so authentic and positive with (students),” Kerr said. “In this day and age, a lot of adults are kind of hesitant to kind of address some of the things that don’t apply on the field. He and I talked a lot about making them good people and leaders rather than worry about what type of athlete they were. That was the most important thing to him, with his baseball players, he wanted to make sure they were good people.”
The Peck gymnasium was required to host all the people who showed up for Welch’s memorial service, and school was canceled the day after his passing.
His players were there, however.
“The next day we had school off, but the school was open because staff had to report,” said Jen Kluger, Welch’s friend and assistant coach. “All the boys came in. We all sat in James’ office and talked and cried. We were just together.”
Kluger, who began working in Peck in 2023, was surprised at how much the community came together in the days after Welch’s passing.
“It happened on a Thursday, and that Sunday we had a booster meeting because the funeral was going to be at the school and the boosters were going to handle everything,” Kluger said. “Normally, we have five or six people show up, and on that day, I don’t even know how many people were there. I was blown away. Jessica Royle is the booster president and we were texting a couple days later, I was like, ‘I am blown away by all these people that just showed up.’ She was like, ‘That’s Peck. That’s what they do.’”
While the entire community was mourning Welch, it was also there to support his family – his wife Shane and son Grady, who is a junior at Peck.
“I would say it definitely helped,” Grady said. “I felt like I wasn’t alone in grieving. Everyone in the whole community knew him, knew everything about him and what he stood for.”
The Welch family was part of the Peck community long before James began working at the school. He was a star athlete for the Pirates during the 1990s, playing football, basketball and baseball. He was part of the 1995 Peck football team that advanced to the Semifinals, and the 1994 baseball team that advanced to the Quarterfinals.
That 1994 team was inducted into the Peck High School Hall of Fame – something Welch worked with Kerr to establish – shortly after his passing.
“He was like one of those five-tool guys,” said Kerr, who graduated from Peck a year before Welch. “His best sport was football, but he was a very good baseball player.”
Now, while weather has not allowed them to get onto the field much for practice let alone play a game, Welch’s players are together again for the start of baseball season. Kluger has taken over the program as coach, which was announced in December.
“The day before we went on Christmas break, I called them all down to the gym, and I couldn’t say anything until the board approved it, so I had to sit on it for three weeks,” Kluger said. “I sat them all down, and I didn’t know how they were going to react. They didn’t seem upset about it. I got some hugs, got some claps, got some high fives.”
Not only were the players not upset, it’s the move they wanted as they had to move into a world without their coach.
“It definitely helped a lot,” Grady Welch said. “She knew how my dad ran practices, everyone knows her and she’s a nice person. It definitely helps to transition into baseball season knowing that things aren’t going to change.”
Of course, for Grady, it’s much more than simply not having a coach. He admits that the beginning of the season has been difficult – as does Kluger – but his teammates have been there to lift him up when he needs it. Many of them have been his teammates, and played for his father, since T-ball.
“I always have my space if I do need to take space,” Grady said. “But we’ve always been a group that’s been together all the time. We have a very good friendship between all of us.”
To honor James Welch, Kerr said supporters are working to create a scholarship in his name, and that his former high school number will be hung on the outfield fence at Peck.
Welch wore No. 9, as his father’s favorite player was Roger Maris. That number has been worn the past two years by Grady, who switched to it in middle school because of his dad.
Stepping onto the field in a game for the first time – which would be Thursday if weather permits – is certain to be an emotional moment for Kluger, Grady, his teammates and everyone in attendance. But it will also be the next step in honoring Welch by being together and playing the sport he loved.
“There’s a few that are going to struggle (emotionally),” Kluger said. “But I think at this point, they all want to be on the field and want to play.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Peck baseball coach James Welch, left, talks with son Grady during a game from a recent season. (Middle) Welch, far left, stands at the plate for a pregame conference before taking on Capac. (Photos provided by Jen Kluger.)