SJ Sports: Careers in Sports

Ladies and Gentleman-- A Teacher Who Addresses The Public
As a seventh grade teacher at Ann Mullen Middle School in Gloucester Township, Kevin Casey encourages students to chase their dreams. He also urges area sports fans to root, root, root for the home team.

The Mantua resident is the public address announcer for the Camden Riversharks at Campbell's Field. He's also the voice of the Philadelphia Kixx indoor soccer team at the First Union Spectrum, the Philadelphia Charge women's outdoor soccer team at Villanova Stadium, and the Philadelphia Wings indoor lacrosse squad at the First Union Center.

While attending Eastern College in St. Davids, Pa., the 1994 Highland graduate played soccer during his first two seasons. His coach and the school's athletic director, Wayne Rasmussen, served as the college's public address announcer during basketball games and according to Casey, Rasmussen "was bad by his own admission."

"I thought, 'Hey, I could do that,'" said Casey, the former soccer and basketball player who decided to give it a shot as a sophomore in the early months of 1996. "As soon as I asked him, he told me that I had the next game. I had a week to prepare. I brought my own music out to the game. I thought the whole thing out in my mind and drew from past experiences and the style of John McAdams and of course Dan Baker, the voice of the Phillies and Eagles."

The crowd liked what he did that first night, so he continued to do it for the remainder of his college career, handling the PA system for men's and women's hoops, and occasional baseball, soccer and volleyball contests. "In my junior year, Rasmussen had some contacts with the Kixx. I started to do volunteer work for the youth games the Kixx sponsored prior to their games. Then during the actual Kixx games, I would sit with their PA guy, Adam Hertz and I would assist him. "I learned a lot from him and eventually took over for him doing all of the Kixx games," said Casey, who recently finished his third full season with the team. As Casey pursued his bachelor's degree in education during his final semester, he also pursued announcing baseball. "I wound up getting the announcer job for the Allentown Ambassadors at Bicentennial Park."

On the day of Allentown's season opener, an electrical storm caused a power outage at the stadium. "I thought that was a bad omen," said Casey, who turned 26 in April. It's been anything but for Casey, who did the PA for the Atlantic City Surf the following two seasons, 1999-2000, then landed the same gig with Camden in their 2001 inaugural season. "In all of the other PA jobs, I was replacing someone else. It was nice to be first for a change," admitted Casey. Meanwhile, he was hired to do the Charge's inaugural season in 2001 and took over for Matt Cord with the Wings after Cord, a disc jockey at Y-100 radio, was tabbed to be the voice of the 76ers.

Casey, who is pursuing a master's degree at Temple University in Sports and Recreation Administration, aspires to become a PA announcer for one of what he calls "The Big Four" teams — the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers and Sixers. But he's also branching out. Casey has also landed some non-sports work such as voiceovers for pharmaceutical company videos and educational films. "Time gets a little tough to manage but the thing that allows me to be able to do all of these things is that I have a very amazing and understanding wife," says Casey who will be married to Aimee, a kindergarten teacher in Pitman, for three years this July. The two met thanks to sports and even got engaged with sports. Kevin enlisted the help of 10,000 Kixx fans. The crowd was instructed to read exactly what they saw on the scoreboard. The first two times it flashed, "Let's go Kixx!" The third time it said, "Aimee, will you marry me?" Kevin then swooped down the aisle to her seat while family members watched from the front row of the upper deck.

"That was one of the few times I've been nervous at a game," Casey said. "I look back to that first game at Eastern with about 200 people and I was nervous then, but now I can go to a Wings game with 16,000 and not even think about it. But what if I didn’t have the courage back at Eastern to say 'Listen, I want to do this.' I would've missed out on something I truly enjoy."

That's a lesson worth teaching.

Content provided by South Jersey Sports Club.

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Author: SJ Sports Club-Mike Shute