Voice of the Tigers says farewell

Perhaps no one else's voice has become as associated with high school football in Northern Nevada as that of Ken Carr.

Part fan, part teacher, part coach and every bit the showman, the voice of the Douglas High School athletic department for the better part of the last 20 years has hung up his microphone.

"He's the most recognizable voice in the whole league," Douglas football coach Mike Rippee said of the longtime public address announcer. "He does it from his heart and he has a true passion for what he does.

"Ken fell into this about 20 years ago and we've never looked back. He's as much a part of this program as anyone that has ever been. He picked up the same duties for basketball and softball along the way.

"If there ever was a voice of the Tigers, Ken epitomizes what we'd want it to be."

Carr, who spent 29 years of his 32-year teaching career in the Douglas County School District, will teach his last class today as the school year comes to a close and he heads into retirement.

He and his wife, Joy, plan fulfilling a longtime dream of taking some fall trips around the country. With that, Carr said it seemed like a good time to make a clean break since he wasn't sure when he'd be available for the football games.

"Fall Friday nights, basketball and softball, it's been a fun, run ride," Carr said. "I've seen some incredible things and I'm coming away with some great memories."

JUST SEEMED LIKE A GOOD FIT

Of all things, it was coaching a Little League baseball team that got Carr into teaching.

"I was 23 and I had dropped out of college," he said. "I was driving heavy equipment and just living kind of an empty existence - go to work, get your paycheck, spend it and wait for the next pay check."

A friend of Carr's convinced him to help him coach a youth baseball team over the summer.

"I started helping him and I though, this is it, this is the fit," he said. "I went back to school and it took me two years to finish and I started teaching in 1975."

Carr said the students from the first class are now 43 years old.

He taught in Michigan for three years and then moved to Nevada, where he's been ever since.

"Out here, one kid from my second group of kids is teaching at the high school," he said. "I've got two ex-students teaching there and two here at Pau-Wa-Lu. That's fun to see."

He wasn't long in Nevada before he met a young middle school teacher named Mike Rippee, who at the time was an assistant coach for the high school football team.

"When I first met Mike, I thought what a character this guy is. He's been a good friend ever since.

The atmosphere of the football games was an instant hit with Carr.

"It was like it was back in Michigan for me," he said. "Back there, football is a religion. Here, the whole town came out to the games, literally. No one stayed home.

"It was just a case of my town against your town, so everyone had to see what happened."

He began keeping the defensive statistics for Douglas and a time came when Dan Hickey, who did all of the announcing for the Tigers, got sick.

"I filled in for him and it was fun," Carr said. "Dan had always done a super job but he decided to pursue some other things the next year so I started doing it. I just loved it from the start.

"I knew most of the coaches already, Mike, Steve Wilcox and Bob Bateman. It was a quick fit."

EVERYBODY UP FOR THE KICKOFF

"It was a slow evolution, really," Carr said of his routine dialogues before every kickoff during football games. "Everybody at Douglas has always stood up for the kickoff.

"When I first came here I went to my first game over at Dressler Field at what is Carson Valley Middle School now, everybody was standing up for the kickoffs then.

"It wasn't something I started, I just added a little bit."

A little bit indeed. Anyone who has been to a Tiger game in recent years has grown plenty accustomed to Carr's wit, wisecracks and wisdom cutting through the cold October air at Keith Duke Roman Field.

"It became a lot more involved," he said. "I added little ditties that I would do. Things like the rules of life and famous words. I'd get into rhyming a little and do a rap.

"It just made it more fun for me and more fun for everybody. If I'm doing something that people seem to enjoy, I'm going to keep doing it and expand on it."

Something spectators from visiting schools have often noted is that Carr's energy often translated for both schools, making the visitors feel welcome with the way he treated their players.

"I took it as part entertainment," he said. "The kids and coaches are out there doing their best on both sides of the ball.

"The cheerleaders have been practicing all summer long so you want to recognize them. Same with the marching band. They spend hours and hours practicing so that they make it look so easy that you think, 'Oh, I could do that.' No, you couldn't.

"You want to make sure you recognize all of the efforts that everyone has put into it."

Announcing was a bit of a secret dream of Carr's, foiled earlier in his life by a misguided high school counselor.

"When I first got out of high school, I wanted to be a radio disc jockey," Carr said. "My counselor told me to go to this one school in Michigan, Ferris State, because he said I'd have my first-class FCC license in a year. He said it would be perfect for me."

Once there, he began learning about receivers, capacitors and circuits.

"It was awful technical," Carr said. "I asked one of my teachers when we'd start up with the announcing and the scripts, things like that. He was like, 'What are you talking about, Ken?'

"Turned out it was a radio/TV repair school. Needless to say, that didn't work out."

WHAT THESE EYES HAVE SEEN

"Oh, I've seen some great games," Carr said. "There have been some amazing things that happened out on that field."

He noted specifically the first time Douglas beat Wooster on Oct. 11, 1991.

The Tigers came back from a 7-0 deficit to tie it on a 74-yard run from Rodney Williams and later took a 14-10 lead on an 11-yard pass from George Streeter to Luis Verdeja with four minutes left in the third quarter.

The defense held from there as Alex Benson intercepted a pass from Wooster quarterback Ryan Dolan to end one threat and Jake Pratt sealed the win sacking Dolan with 11 seconds left in the game.

"The first time we beat Wooster is something that I'll never forget," Carr said. "Douglas had only been in the large-school division a short period of time and (Wooster coach) Joe Sellers was at his peak. It was right down to the last play. I'll remember that game forever."

Earlier that year, Douglas came back from 20-7 down at halftime to beat South Tahoe 33-28 in a game which Streeter threw four touchdown passes.

"It was the most amazing comeback I have ever seen," Carr said.

Another game at South Tahoe stood out as well, this time in 1997.

The two schools racked up more than 1,200 yard of offense as Douglas prevailed 52-38 with Kevin Lehr running for 354 yards and five touchdowns and Chris Griffith throwing for 263 yards.

"Each offense wouldn't even make a first down, they'd just score," Carr said. "I remember trying to keep the stats for the game. Man, that was exciting."

And, of course, there was the 2003 squad that went undefeated all the way up until the famed snow-storm before the regional championship game against Reno.

"That year, all the aces kind of came together," Carr said. "That was a fun group of kids to watch because they were just so good at what they did. They were all nice kids. They were a team and they were all best friends.

"When the game was over, or practice or whatever, they all hung around with each other."

For all the time he spent in the announcer's booth, he also spent his fair share on the sideline.

He coached the Douglas High junior varsity and varsity softball teams for a total of four years at one point.

"Being a part of the programs at the high school, I've met some real hard-working, sincere coaches. I know what a hard job it is. When you see guys that do it year after year like Rippee or Keith Lewis when he was there, or Randy Green, it's a tough job.

"When you have a team, you are trying to field the best nine, or 11, you have some kids that you dearly love but you have to play the best you have.

"Sometimes it doesn't always work out positively. It's hard."

The hardest part for Carr was cutting athletes who'd tried out.

"When you have kids try out for you and they give you everything they have and then you have to go through and pick out kids and they're not one of them, that hurts," he said. "A lot of kids don't realize that and the first thing they think is that you have something against them. That's not it at all."

For all the coaches he's come to admire, Carr said there's one that stands out above the rest.

"I've been with Mike (Rippee) the longest," Carr said. "His program to me is the best in the 4A. I have yet to see another program with the kind of success that he has had.

"Other programs may win more games, but as far as true success goes, he is by far the most successful coach I have seen. He has a parade of kids throughout the year that come back and see coach. He turns these kids into young men.

"When I see kids come back, that means that there was something there that really drew them to him. It's the sign of a good teacher."

A TEACHER FIRST

For all of his sports involvement, Carr was first and foremost an educator.

"I'm going to miss the kids the most," Carr said. "That's the part that makes it hard. They are such a big part of your day, the affection you have for them and the affection they have for you."

He said he'd lay awake at night trying to think of ways to get certain students motivated.

The hardest thing, he said, has been watching some students not make it to their adulthood.

"There have been some tragedies here," Carr said. "When you deal with these kids every day, you become real attached to them. When you see kids like Brandon Williams, who died in Iraq, or Nicole Snyder or Timmy Coleman - all these kids that you have in class and you see such a bright future for them and all of the sudden, poof, it is gone.

"That's real hard to deal with, it's one of the real drawbacks of teaching."

At the end of the day, it always came back to the kids for Carr.

"You don't do this type of job for a pension," he said. "You do it for a passion. Getting to watch these kids grow and move on, there's nothing like it."

That mindset translated through in his treatment of the high school sports.

"He did this with such a passion," Rippee said. "I try to coach with a passion, and he was the same way in announcing.

"The bottom line was that he wanted to recognize the kids. He kept them at the forefront and he did it because of his love for the kids. Everything he does is positive. He's just a class individual."

WHAT'S NEXT

Carr said he and his wife will head out on several trips this fall, including a couple jaunts to the Bay area and some time spent in Michigan.

He might even get out to see his beloved Michigan Wolverines play this fall.

"I certainly hope so," Carr, who owns a maize and blue 1955 Buick special, said. "I haven't been to a live game at the big house since the '70s.

"I've been a Wolverine fan ever since before I went to school. We got this new invention called a TV - black and white, the thing must have weighed about 500 pounds.

"College football was just starting to be broadcast and I remember watching this team that had the most beautiful helmets I'd ever seen in my life. Right then and there I thought, there's my team."

Somewhere along the way, the team with the black hats became his as well.

-- Joey Crandall can be reached at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.