This week our ITG Next Georgia “4 Questions” guest is Cary Clayborn, who serves as the PA announcer for Buford Wolves home football games. Cary isn’t limited to just Buford sports, however; he fills the same role as the PA announcer for the Gwinnett Stripers, the Minor League AAA affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. Clayborn recently tried out for the Atlanta Braves PA announcer position, making it to one of the final rounds before being eliminated from competition. Now Cary is ready to take on yet another exciting chapter behind the microphone, which we’ll let him tell you all about here.
Q. Cary, thank you so much for agreeing to be our guest for this week’s 4 Questions segment. I do believe you are the very first public address announcer we have featured in this space. Can you tell us a little about yourself, particularly how you got into public address announcing? What was the first job you had, and when was that?
A. I have always been an avid sports fan, and while in college at Georgia Southwestern, I got my first taste of sports production as the play-by-play announcer for the live TV broadcasts of our men’s and women’s basketball teams. I learned a lot and we had a blast doing those games. Then “life” happened, and I got married and had two beautiful daughters.
Several years later, when my oldest daughter started cheerleading for Buford youth football in first grade, I noticed that the PA announcing for those games was, shall we say, sub-par. So I volunteered to be the PA announcer for their Buford team the next year. After other teams heard my announcing, I began to be asked to do more and more games on Saturdays. This year I announced for my youngest daughter’s team (fourth grade), as well as fifth grade, sixth grade, and both of Buford’s eighth-grade teams.
When the opportunity to be the PA announcer for Buford’s varsity football games came, I jumped at the chance and threw my name in the hat. I consider it an honor to be in the press box on Friday nights at Buford. I have announced for Buford football, filled in for Buford men’s and women’s basketball, called too many youth football games to count, and announced for the Southeast regional tournament of FBU’s national championship.
Q. At Buford, which spent much of the 2023 season near the top of our Classes 4A-7A rankings, is football the only sport in which you serve as the PA announcer, or are there more, and what goes into the preparation to do the games? It’s a bit more than meets the eye, I would guess?
A. I am the primary announcer for varsity football, but I have also filled in for some basketball games. Buford has a great team of announcers across the various sports, and they all do a fantastic job. I am blessed with a phenomenal athletic department that ensures everything is ready to go by gametime on Friday nights. They always have a binder ready for me that includes any promotional reads, both teams’ rosters, and any special announcements being made that week.
I always take time during the week to look over the rosters of the visiting team coming in the following Friday. I try to familiarize myself with the names, and especially try to focus on the skill players who seem to get most of the playing time. If I know there is a big announcement happening that week, like Senior Night or recognitions of special guests, then I try to get that script ahead of time so I can read through it and be ready.
Q. I mentioned the fact that you work with the Gwinnett Stripers, the Braves’ minor league affiliate, but you also tried out for the Braves’ public address announcer spot when the position came open recently. What was that whole process like, trying out to be the voice of the Braves home games?
A: Prior to January of 2023, I had never pursued any announcing opportunities outside of Buford. I received an email about the Atlanta Braves looking for a new PA Announcer, so, completely on a whim, I filled out the application and recorded my audition at my dining room table. I had never announced a single baseball game in my life, but I figured why not? A few weeks later, I got an email that they wanted to move forward with a virtual interview. I did the interview, and then later that night, I was told they would like for me to come to Truist Park for an in-person audition.
That audition was crazy! They whisked us in, sat us in the booth, a script would pop up on a screen for me to read, and that was that. They never asked if I had ever announced a baseball game before. Regardless, I made it to the Final 12 out of over 500 applicants, and it was all a lot of fun. In the end the gig went to their Stripers announcer, and he obviously left a vacancy in Gwinnett, so here we are.
2023 was my first season announcing in professional baseball and it was a blast. I got to introduce players like Michael Harris II, Travis D’Arnaud, Max Fried, Kyle Wright, Jazz Chisolm, and my childhood hero, Dale Murphy. The highlight was getting to introduce White Sox pitcher Liam Hendrix as he made his first appearance back in baseball after a cancer diagnosis. That’s one I will never forget.
Q. I mentioned that you have just landed a new position in the world of public address announcing. I’ll let you tell our ITG Next readers about that.
A. There are always new PA announcing opportunities popping up, but most of them are too far away from where I live north of Atlanta. A few months back, I found out that Georgia Tech was looking to add new announcers to their PA announcing team, so I sent in an audition. As far as I can tell they had about 30-40 of us come in for in-person auditions based on our online submissions. I gotta admit, it was pretty cool to audition at the scorer’s table at McCamish Pavilion – that was a thrill in and of itself.
I recently found out that I am officially on their team, that I will be announcing eight home baseball games for Georgia Tech this spring at Russ Chandler Stadium, and I am very excited about that opportunity. This will be my first experience announcing for a D1 university and I am looking forward to it.
