MDCC Gridiron Streaming Voice Jay Gary

Trojan Gridiron Streaming Play-by-Play – MDCC’s Jay Gary

By Mark H. Stowers

Working the radio and streaming airways, MDCC alum Jay Gary helps paint the picture for Trojan fans every home game on Thursday nights. On Friday, you can find him on Friday nights in the Indianola Academy Colonel broadcast booth, both home and away. The Inverness native and resident spends his days on the Moorhead MDCC main campus as the Dean of Enrollment over Financial Aid, Advising, Recruiting and Admissions. But the former athlete enjoys his time behind the microphone bringing gridiron action to those who can’t make the games in person. His introduction to the broadcast booth came through a mutual friend and first on the high school level.

“Last year I was asked by Guy Burke. He had lost his play-by-play guy and he's the color commentator for Indianola Academy,” Gary said. “This was a week before we started the season. I thought about it over the week. I was like it might be fun. I'll take a stab at it.”

Gary’s “stab” was on target. After the duo met and hammered a bit of a script and in his own words, “The rest is history.”

His color commentary role would soon shift to the other chair as Burke was to be out of town and off the mic the third game of the season. Gary stepped up to the play-by-play chair, filled the airwaves with his knowledge and wit and even found a halftime guest to interview.

“I ended up interviewing my daughter, Amelia Cate. And it was funny. Because that really lifted me up. And from that point forward, it's been pretty easy. Obviously, it's getting better over time. But first, I was nervous with all the ‘uhs’ and the dead air for a minute,” Gary said. “But I think we finally hit a rhythm, Guy and myself, and doing good over there at IA. It's been a lot of fun.”

Kyle Wilson, who owns Rapidplay Productions had set up the Colonels and he called Gary with the same request – but for MDCC.

“He called me the week before the season started. Kind of the same scenario. And he's like, ‘Look, you want to do the Trojan games?’ And I said, ‘I don't know if I can be traveling on Thursday nights.’ He's said, ‘It's just home games.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, sold.’ And I was going to be here anyway, watching the ball games. I might as well talk on the livestream. And that's what happened.”

The voice of the Colonels' radio and live stream and the MDCC live stream, Gary enjoys both media.

“It's easier in regard to the live stream because with radio you have to describe the whole scene to the listener. And with live stream, you're not really describing what they're seeing on the screen. You do want to mention formations and where they made a cut or made a man miss. But more or less, the viewer's able to see all that. I still find myself describing ‘ It's an I formation, two receivers left, one right, sending the slot man in motion' just because of my radio experience. I'd say as far as a scale of 1 to 10, 8 on a scale of difficulty for radio and 7 for live stream just because the viewer is able to see what I'm describing.”

Gary does have a monitor that's in front him to see the action but “I like to just watch out the window. It's a lot easier to gauge what yard line, the down distance. I look at the monitor to get the number of the person who made the tackle or made a run, and then of course, look at my depth chart and see whose number to call. But I like to look out the window more than I do to look at the screen.”

And like a good teammate, Gary is quick to point out he’s the voice but it takes plenty of folks to put him on his athletic commentating stage.

“Kyle, he's in the production truck down there and he's listening to everything that I have to say and it was funny because the last time he gave me my compensation, he sent me an extra dollar because I made an Office (TV show) reference. So, that's pretty cool. Just to know that he's down there, and he's got me covered. He goes to commercial whenever I need to. He's able to pull us out to make sure that we get all the plays in and counts me in. He takes care of me. And, yeah, I just appreciate him. And we've got three cameramen, all they've nicknamed themselves – Jay Sneezy, Big Mo, and Keevo. It's quite funny just listening to them back and forth and talk about the shot they're going to get and where they're going to come in. They give me a heads-up as to what I'm going to be referencing whenever we come back into play after commercial break. It's pretty cool.”

He's also aware of who’s listening and is always looking to make a good impression.

“My mom, Toni Berryhill Gary (retired MDCC teacher), is my biggest fan always listening and watching. Gotta shout out my mom,” he said.

Gary enjoys “adding in color commentary” at the appropriate spots during the games.

“I was actually impromptu making up stuff for Jack's Burger. They are brand sponsors, so, of course, the referees were huddled and they were trying to figure out what the penalty was and where they're going to mark it and I just go off on this tangent saying, ‘I wonder what they're talking about. Maybe they're talking about their Jack's order. One of them’s going to get a cheeseburger and the other one's going to get fries. And what's your side? Your side's going to be onion rings? All right.’ And then they come out of the huddle and make the call. And somebody said on the stream comments, ‘Man, you're really making me want a Jack's Burger.’”

For now, Gary is the gridiron voice but with basketball as his passion, he may find a way to the broadcast streaming table during roundball season.

“I love basketball more than any sport. Football is a close second. I love basketball. But baseball, I love watching baseball. I would find it difficult to call baseball because I can't tell what the pitcher's throwing.”

Each football team has found wins hard to come by this season and that can make for an interesting night behind the mic.

“It is somewhat difficult to be optimistic when you're in the booth. Two things that I find the most difficult is to not be critical of the refs and to be optimistic when you're down 30 points. And I find that in high school as well,” Gary said. “But, you know, just kind of switching it around and I think my marketing background – I have a bachelor's degree in marketing – I find a lot of times when we’re down 30, I end up talking about different things. I started talking about the Happy Gilmore 2 movie coming out, the sequel to the Addams Family movie. And then I realized I'm talking to myself. I like to try to put some pop culture references into it. There was this one fellow on our team, number 95, Tyler Bailey, has a big cast on his hand. And right now, the popular TikTok trend or sound is, ‘In the club, we all fam.’ And so, he made a tackle, and I said, ‘In the club, we all fam.’ Maybe the younger people would appreciate that.”

And Gary enjoys time on campus when he sees athletes going from class to class.

“Seeing the athletes around and saying, ‘Hey, man, saw you make a big sack last night’ or whatever. It's really cool to interact with. It's like, ‘See you tonight.’ And some may say it's JUCO level but I think a JUCO ball, whether it be baseball, basketball or football is probably the most entertaining. You're an excellent quality athlete, especially with NIL. You know, nowadays, Prima Donnas and NCAA football, you know, these are real athletes trying to make it big.”

And with a live mic, things can happen that aren’t part of the game.

“The most memorable thing actually comes from the IA booth. We were on the live stream. We were at the Kirk Academy and they have a big train horn but didn't warn us about it. And so, of course, I'm complaining about the train horn. And during one break and another break, I'm singing a Michael Jackson song, because I'm hearing it play in the background and the mic was still live during the break while I’m saying all of this and singing.”

The man behind the mic for the Trojans and Colonels, an alum of both schools, getting it done for all the gridiron action – Jay Gary.