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.
Preview: Hundreds of Bowlers Set to Strike Again at MHSAA Finals
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
February 26, 2026
Hundreds of high school bowlers will once again converge this weekend for the MHSAA Bowling Finals, the 23rd edition of the season-ending tournament, led by three returning singles champions and three teams seeking repeat titles.
Teams compete the first day and singles the second, with action both days beginning at 8:25 a.m. There’s a slight scheduling change to note, however: While Division 2 at Waterford’s Century Bowl, Division 3 at Jackson’s Jax 60 and Division 4 at Taylor’s Skore Lanes will compete Friday and Saturday, this year’s Division 1 Finals at Allen Park’s Thunderbowl Lanes will be competed Sunday (team) and Monday (singles).
Below is a look at possible contenders for all 16 championships, team and singles. Find the full list of qualifiers and come back all weekend for coverage from all four Finals sites on MHSAA.com.
Girls Division 1
Team: West Michigan has earned the last two Division 1 team championships – won by Grandville in 2024 and Zeeland in 2025 – and Rockford is the top-ranked team rolling into this weekend as it pursues a first Finals team title in this sport. The Rams won their Regional at Sherman Bowling Center in Muskegon with a 3,063, one of four Regional scores topping 3,000 across all of Division 1. No. 3 Oxford and No. 10 Davison rolled the first and second-highest scores last weekend – 3,371 and 3,158, respectively, at Grand Blanc Lanes – and Livonia Churchill rolled a 3,110 to win at Super Bowl Lanes in Canton. Churchill is pursuing its first Finals championship, Oxford its first since 2018 and Davison its first since 2017. Neither reigning champion Grandville nor 2025 runner-up Holt qualified this time around.
Singles: Rockford is paced by junior Sofia DeLuccia, who finished as Finals singles runner-up last season and won her Regional last week with a 1,254 that ranked fourth across all of Division 1. Utica junior Ava Mazza also made the singles semifinals last season and was a Regional champion last week. Belleville junior Madison Thomas and Taylor senior Aria Ragland both made the quarterfinals a year ago and bowled against each other in last week’s Regional at Skore Lanes in Taylor, Thomas winning and Ragland placing third. Churchill senior Sophia Best – another Regional champion – also made the singles match play in 2025. Lake Orion junior Emma Brennan, White Lake Lakeland junior Savannah Reed, Caledonia junior Riley Kalacanic and Holt senior Emma Cadwell also are coming off Regional wins, Cadwell with a Division 1-best 1,391, one pin more than Best’s score last week. Cadwell was the Finals champion in 2024.
Boys Division 1
Team: Top-ranked Jenison finished second at the Sherman Bowling Center Regional last week to 2024 champion Grandville, and they are an intriguing pair this weekend. No. 10 Grand Blanc rolled the highest Regional score in Division 1, 3,713, to outpace No. 2 Davison’s 3,676, and No. 6 Macomb Dakota and Dearborn also topped 3,600 pins in winning their Regionals. After Grandville two years ago, Dakota in 2012 is the team competing this weekend that most recently won a Finals title.
Singles: Reigning champion Lyman Derrick III is back as a Wayne Memorial senior after defeating the 2024 champion to win last year’s title. Salem junior Andrew Fsadini also will return after making the quarterfinals last winter, and Dakota senior Cole Rogus is back after making the match play in a bracket that otherwise was filled with now-graduated seniors. Derrick finished third at his Regional and Fsadini second last week, while Rogus was a Regional champ and joined by Wyandotte Roosevelt sophomore Malachi Attard, Dearborn senior Christian Lamb, Grand Blanc senior Lucas Knowles, Detroit Catholic Central sophomore Gavin Trudeau, Hudsonville senior Mason DeWeerd, Troy Athens junior Gaige Gajewski and Grandville senior Ethan Brown.
Girls Division 2
Team: Swartz Creek is the reigning champion and Flint Kearsley won in 2024, and they are ranked 1 and 2, respectively, and coming off another epic matchup at their Regional at Richfield Bowl in Flint as Swartz Creek rolled a winning 3,187 with Kearsley just 40 pins off the pace. Tecumseh at 3,374 and No. 10 Bay City John Glenn at 3,061 were Regional champions as well and the only other teams to break 3,000 in Division 2. Tecumseh has three championships and four runner-up finishes at the Finals, and John Glenn has finished second six times including two years ago.
Singles: We could see a rematch of last season’s championship pairing, as Tecumseh senior Kierra Pinter will return seeking to repeat and Carleton Airport senior Abby Hill will be back after finishing only 14 pins off the pace a year ago. St. Clair Shores Lake Shore junior Sara Augustitus made the quarterfinals last season and is coming of winning her Regional by 55 pins last week. Cedar Springs senior Phoebe Fisk, Flint Kearsley junior Olivia Hurst, Swartz Creek sophomore Allison Temple and Sparta senior Shallan Momber all will bowl again after reaching the match play as well in 2025. Fisk joined Augustitus as a Regional champion last week, along with Bay City John Glenn senior Lacy Jamrog, Tecumseh junior Katherine Sullivan, Lowell freshman Emerson DeWit, Kearsley senior Delaney Vanier, Three Rivers junior Jayna Larson and Dearborn Divine Child junior Julia Sovinski.
Boys Division 2
Team: No. 3 Kearsley is competing for a fourth-straight Finals team championship and rolled a 3,762 last week at Richfield Bowl to win its Regional by 533 pins and outpace the next-best in Division 1 by 120. No. 8 New Boston Huron finished runner-up last season and in 2023 and also will be back, and Tecumseh has two Finals runner-up finishes over the last seven seasons and rolled that second-highest Regional score of 3,642. No. 4 Carleton Airport also cleared 3,600 pins, winning its Regional at Westland Bowl by nearly 600, and No. 2 St. Clair Shores Lake Shore just missed 3,600, falling six pins shy to win at 48 in Commerce. Top-ranked Bay City Western also was a Regional champ and is seeking its first Finals title.
Singles: Vicksburg senior Jordan Butler is back seeking a repeat after claiming last year’s title by 13 pins. Kearsley senior Jameson Vanier just missed making the match play last year after winning the Division 2 championship as a sophomore, but he’s back after winning his Regional last week by 96 pins with a 1,412, the highest score at any Division 2 Regional. DeWitt senior Griffin Lindemann is back after making the semifinals, New Boston Huron junior Hunter Wyszynski and Lake Shore senior Gregg Winters will return after reaching quarters, and Bay City Western senior Aiden Archuleta adds to a strong returning field after also bowling in the match play a year ago. Wyszynski joined Vanier as a Regional champion last week, as did Bay City Western senior Stefano Clifford, Adrian junior Aiden Voelkle, Sparta senior Gabe Fowle, Grand Rapids Christian junior Ryan Jonker, Lake Shore junior Ethan Edwards and Marshall senior Ayden George.
Girls Division 3
Team: Top-ranked Grass Lake is seeking not only its first Finals team title, but also to become the ninth school in nine years to finish first in Division 3. Neither reigning champion Livonia Clarenceville nor 2025 runner-up Adrian Madison will be in this field, but No. 10 Ishpeming Westwood and No. 4 Flint Powers Catholic are back after reaching the semifinals last year. Grass Lake’s best finish at a Finals was runner-up in Division 4 in 2022, but its Regional-winning score of 3,057 last week at Royal Scot in Lansing was 166 pins higher than anyone else’s in Division 3.
Singles: Maggie Smith finished runner-up at last season’s Final and may be the favorite among a loaded field after claiming a Regional championship at Lenawee Rec Bowling Center in Adrian. Madison Heights Bishop Foley senior Jacey Thibodeau also will be back after making the 2025 semifinals, and Flint Powers Catholic sophomore Payton Swanson, Grass Lake junior Marielle Schafran, Imlay City senior Morgan Robertson and Armada senior Maggie Fradle all are returning quarterfinalists. Armada senior Reese Cecil and Grand Rapids West Catholic senior Mylee Dykstra and junior Ashley Van Linden also advanced to last year’s match play, and Dykstra, Fradle, Napoleon freshman Jada Gallagher, Belding senior Mackenzie Swan, Ovid-Elsie junior Brooke Pugsley, Midland Bullock Creek senior Trinity Rowe and Ogemaw Heights senior Elena Martinez also are coming off Regional titles.
Boys Division 3
Team: The top-ranked team and reigning Finals champion both didn’t make the field this weekend, but the qualifiers from Strikers Entertainment in Richmond might be the pair to watch. Croswell-Lexington enters the weekend ranked No. 7 but also was the Finals runner-up a year ago and won last week’s Regional just ahead of No. 2 Armada with a 3,356 – the second-highest score in all of Division 3. The highest Regional score in Division 3 was 3,378 and belonged to Olivet, which is unranked but shouldn’t be concerned as only three top-10 teams advanced to this weekend’s tournament.
Singles: Croswell-Lexington senior Carter Ramage won his Regional with a Division 3 second-best 1,337 last week and is the only bowler returning who made at least the quarterfinals a year ago. Olivet senior Michael Fitzner is the only other qualifier this weekend who reached the 2025 match play. But another large wave of standouts has arrived. Shepherd freshman Brody Veale rolled the highest Regional-winning score, 1,342, and was one of four freshmen Regional champs, joined by Durand’s Noah Wood, Adrian Madison’s Bently Richard and Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s Myles Ott. Ishpeming Westwood senior Roman Yuhas and Bronson junior Clayton Shortridge also won their Regionals, both among five bowlers total in Division 3 who broke 1,300 pins.
Girls Division 4
Team: Top-ranked Ravenna is coming off its first team championship in this sport and might be in line for a second straight after winning its Regional at Muskegon’s Northway Lanes with a 3,044 – nearly 1,000 pins higher than the runner-up at its site and 139 higher than any other team in all of Division 4. Last season’s Finals runner-up Bad Axe – ranked No. 7 this time – will be back as well, and No. 2 Jonesville could provide the strongest challenge after winning its Regional at Jackson’s Jax 60 with a 2,905. Bad Axe and Jonesville are both seeking first Finals championships.
Singles: Ravenna junior Taylor Nutt and Byron junior Kara Chapman both made the semifinals last season and won their Regionals last week – Nutt by 69 pins and Chapman by 92. Bax Axe senior Jasmyn Ranquist is another strong contender after making the quarterfinals last season and winning her Regional last week by 283 pins, and Allen Park Cabrini senior Kourtney Downham could make another move after also making the 2025 quarterfinals and finishing second at her Regional. Ithaca junior Estes Purvis, Ravenna sophomore Gabby Nutt and Sandusky senior Victoria Shea are back after also advancing to the match play, Purvis coming off a Regional title. Other Regional champs last week were Hudson junior Ellie Loar, Jackson Lumen Christi junior Allison Wheeler, Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central senior Chloe Orris and Alcona senior Makayla Prince.
Boys Division 4
Team: Jonesville is the top-ranked team in Division 4, won its Regional at Jax 60 and is seeking its first Finals championship since 2018 in Division 3. But No. 10 Blissfield is riding high and could provide a significant challenge after winning its Regional (also at Jax 60) with a 3,568. Traverse City Christian – the Finals champ in 2024 – and 2022 title winner Plymouth Christian Academy both won their Regionals as well, and Ithaca and Burton Atherton joined PCA and Blissfield as Regional winners that topped 3,200 pins. No. 2 New Lothrop was the runner-up to Atherton but missed 3,200 by just three pins.
Singles: Taylor Trillium senior Le’Veon Greenwade was the only non-senior to reach the quarterfinals last year, and he’s back after winning his Regional last week. New Lothrop sophomore Dominick Dilts, Atherton senior Brennen Eaton and Detroit Loyola senior Cody Champion also reached the 2025 Finals match play and will return, Eaton also coming off a Regional title and Champion after finishing runner-up last week to Greenwade. Blissfield sophomore Alex Kudlac, Coloma senior James Anthony, Holton junior Aiden Reilly, St. Charles junior Brenden Servantes, St. Louis junior Thailan Raby and Maple City Glen Lake senior Tanner Crick also won Regional titles, Kudlac with the division’s high score of 1,376.
PHOTO Saginaw Nouvel Catholic Central’s Alex McCarthy celebrates during his run to the Division 4 singles championship last season.