Voice from Above

In the announcer’s booth at First Energy Park, Lakewood Blueclaws’ PA announcer Kevin Clark is focusing his smartphone’s camera to capture a shot of a tiny toy Indy car, with the ball field as a background.

“My 5 year old son gave me this before I came here tonight,” Clark explains, gesturing towards the child’s toy car. “I had to send him a photo as proof.”

The conjured image of his young son seems fitting, as the 49-year-old Barnegat resident mentions that ever since he was a young boy, he found his ears tuning into the PA announcements made at every game he and his father would attend. An avid sports fan from the beginning, Clark had an early admiration for those whose voices call the action over the stadium’s public address.

While most children were zoned into the live action or were busy wiping popcorn crumbs off their shirts, Clark was absorbing the voices of such PA greats as the New Jersey Devils’ Bob Arsena.

“I didn’t realize it as a kid,” Clark says, “but I did listen [to the PA announcer], and in a weird way it helped me out when I started doing this. Just by osmosis and listening to what was going on, it was training for what I am doing now.”

Clark admits that, just like anyone else who begins by emulating their idols, Arsena’s was the voice he has always been trying to embody and project. “I tried to really pattern what I did after him,” Clark says.

Although an employee for the local electric utility for 21 years, Clark has found his true calling with announcing. Clark’s professional career began up in Sussex County for the now disbanded New Jersey Cardinals, a minor league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. After having done some artwork for the team (Clark is an avid painter as well), he noticed the job posting for a PA announcer on the team’s website.

Clark informed them of the work he had done during his days as a Toms River North student, where, as he participated in most sports other than basketball, he would do the announcing for the basketball games.

In lieu of a live singer, he would keep a recorded version of the National Anthem on a little tape recorder and simply hold the microphone up to the speaker as the crowd stood and placed their hands on their hearts. He learned how to organize rosters and how to take command of the microphone.

After two years of working with the Cardinals and honing his voice, the inception of the Blueclaws came about and organizers contacted Clark to man their public address.

Having to assemble a ball club staff entirely from scratch, they found that Clark met the experience necessary to take on the job. Eleven seasons have gone by since, and Clark is one of only a handful of people left who have been with the club since day one.

Clark remains a busy man in the world of announcing, taking on the prestigious position of New Jersey Devils PA announcer four years ago and remaining in the position to this day.

The hockey announcing came about in 2001, when Clark started working for the Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies, part of the East Coast Hockey League. He completed the job there in 2005, and wanted to announce for the Trenton Titans, who were in the same league. While not immediately hired for a permanent job with the Titans, he was called to fill in occasionally.

“I’ve been pretty lucky,” Clark says, regarding his career. “The person who heard me fill in in Trenton wound up working for the Devils, and he remembered me, he called me, and wanted to know if I’d be interested.”

In 2007, Clark’s dream became a reality as he took over the position originally held by his idol, Bob Arsena. “Everything that I’ve done with the announcing part of it has really led up to me being able to get to the NHL. To me that’s just…,” his voice trails off searching for the word we all look for when explaining success.

“Since 1982 there have only been three PA announcers in Devils’ history, and I’m the third. That’s a big deal to me.”

Still, after his years of work in the announcer’s booth, Clark does not believe in being wholly comfortable in the job.

“The minute you sit here and you feel comfortable and think ‘Oh, I’m going to have a great game,’ you’re going to mess up,” he says. He explains that in his job, there is a fine line between being anxious for announcing a game, and being nervous.

Nervousness, as Clark sees it, involves a lack of preparedness; not only being unable to predict what will happen, but being totally uncertain as to how you’re going to react. Clark errs on the side of over-preparedness, as that deep stomach-churning anxiety signals that he is ready for anything that can happen during a game.

The feeling of comfort in the announcer’s booth inevitably leads to worry, in Clark’s case.

In the beginning of his career, Clark’s wife of 26 years, Lisa, would help him to hone his voice and critique his early work. “I really needed that,” Clark says, revealing his gratitude for the support from his spouse. Like anyone who is passionate about their profession, Clark is always aware of how he is doing and is always receptive to feedback from fans.

“I’m my own worst critic,” he says. “I hear myself; I don’t like my voice. I know what I want to sound like, but when I hear myself, it’s not the voice I want people to hear. So it’s good to get feedback — positive or negative — to know what people like or don’t like.”

He speaks fondly of the fans who recognize him and who show their appreciation. As the fans walk by him after a game, they recite their favorite lines ala Kevin Clark, and the imitation as flattery is proof positive for Clark that he is continuing to do a fine job in the booth.

But Clark’s second passion has always been painting.

Clark’s father was in the United States Air Force, so although he was born in New Jersey’s Fort Dix, he spent the first 10 years of his life growing up in Colorado (hence Clark’s intense devotion to the Denver Broncos, of all teams; “Out there, it was a religion,” he says).

The family picked up and came back to New Jersey to settle in Toms River, where he lived until moving to Barnegat in 1998. Whenever his father would bring home the Sunday edition of the New York Daily news, the young budding PA announcer/artist would eagerly flip to the artwork of Bruce Stark and attempt to copy Stark’s work line-for-line.

“My parents were really supportive of my artwork,” he says. “My folks didn’t have a lot of money, but they said, ‘Whatever you need for your artwork, you tell us and we’ll get it for you.’”

He kept at it through high school and taught himself how to use watercolors. His artwork is centered almost completely around sports figures, with opaque lifelike images of players dominating much of his work.

In 1994, he achieved a big break with his art during Philadelphia Phillies’ pitcher Steve Carlton’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, where a portrait of Carlton that Clark had painted hung in the Hall for a year.

From there, Clark painted for the New Jersey Devils, contributing to their “Milestone Paintings” and also lending his talent to the game’s program booklets. He has also donated paintings for charitable causes, working with foundations run by the likes of Jake Plummer, Jason Elam, Martin Brodeur, and Ken Danico.

However, with an announcing career that started to take Clark places he didn’t previously believe possible, and with the a young son to attend to, he's had to put his art on hold for the time being.

When asked about whether or not he will return to painting, he says, “Never say never. But as long as I’m announcing, this is kind of my outlet. Art was my outlet, but announcing has taken over that.”