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Valley Christian High public address announcer Gene Bras at the Oct. 10 football game against Aquinas High.
By Loren Kopff
Sports Editor | Follow X
November 18, 2025
There are high school football public address announcers, then there are high school P.A. announcers who do triple the work in a span of seven months. The latter applies to Valley Christian High’s Gene Bras, who doubles as the school’s football and girls volleyball P.A. announcer in the fall, then moves indoors during the winter season to announce the basketball games.
And while most schools simply announce the starting lineups for the basketball games and even the volleyball matches, as well as senior night activities, Bras does it all from beginning to end.
Bras grew up in the far northwestern Iowa town of Hospers, about an hour away from Sioux City, Iowa and 90 minutes away from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He graduated in a class of 32 students, but since then, his teenage alma mater was consolidated with a bigger school, torn down and rebuilt as a middle school.
His love for sports began at an incredibly young age and admitted that he used to cry at high school games because he was so into them when he was five or six years old.
“I don’t know if that was a good thing or not, but I was very emotionally invested,” said Bras. “Because I’m a baseball junkie, when you live in Iowa at night, I would put the radio on and [because the landscape] is flat, I would get [the St. Louis Cardinals] with Jack Buck,” he later said. “I would get the [Chicago] White Sox. I would get the [Detroit] Tigers on WJR with Ernie Harwell. I would get the Texas Rangers; [Kansas City] Royals for sure and Pittsburgh I would get sometimes. I kind of listened to whoever was on.”
Bras went on to say that growing up in a small town in the nation’s heartland, the kids would always talk about a game from the night before at school; that they were always watching sports. In fact, occasionally, Bras could pick up the Utah Jazz games on the radio with Rodney Clark “Hot Rod” Hundley calling the games.
While in high school and even in his early days at Northwestern College in Orange City, IA, Bras never thought about being a P.A. announcer because he was focused on being a two-sport athlete as a freshman and added that it was his first exposure to college athletics.
He played basketball, baseball and track and field in high school before going to Northwestern College, a NAIA institution which happens to be a pipeline for many V.C. student athletes. There, he played baseball and a year of basketball but was approached by the women’s basketball coach who asked him if he would like to be an undergraduate assistant, which he did for three years.
When Bras was a sophomore, his roommate was into communications and Bras decided not to play basketball but instead broadcast football games with him for the campus station. Staying with the theme of announcing, Bras said he idolized Herb Carneal, who was the announcer of the Minnesota Twins from 1962 to 2007. The Twins was his team growing up as opposed to the Chicago Cubs or St. Louis Cardinals.
“Being an announcer and a public address announcer are two different things,” said Bras. “I think the first time I did P.A. announcing was when I was coaching the girls team. We would have these Christmas tournaments, and nobody was there; the people who usually worked were gone. So, I was trying to find a P.A. announcer and thought, well I could do it myself. I kind of enjoyed doing, and people [told me] I was pretty good at that.”
Bras would do that a few more times, then he got his first job as an athletic director at Northern Michigan Christian School in McBain, MI, which happens to be the same school where former V.C. superintendent Troy Stahl went to. The school had an enrollment of under 100 students, and Bras was also the head coach of the boys basketball team, the track and field team and did some teaching on the side.
Back then, the girls basketball season in Michigan was in the fall and volleyball was in the winter. And just like when he was at Northwestern College, Bras had a tough time finding a P.A. announcer. So, he took on that responsibility on top of everything else he had going on.
Bras made his way to Southern California through former V.C. basketball head coach Kurtis Korver, who also went to Northwestern College. Korver was already at V.C. when Bras was still teaching in Michigan and informed him that there was an opening at V.C. Korver was the boys basketball head coach until the 1999-2000 season, and asked Bras in January of 1996 if he could be the junior varsity coach.
The first coaching job he had at V.C. was helping former cross country head coach Denise Tamminga with her team for a couple of years and ever since Bras arrived at V.C., he has held a number of hats. In addition to being the public address announcer, he has been the head coach for the softball team from 1997-2000, the head coach for the girls basketball team for the 2005-2006 and 2019-2020 seasons, an assistant baseball coach for about 12 seasons, tennis head coach for three seasons, an assistant boys basketball coach when Byran Branderhorst was the head coach. Oh, he also teaches history.
But when it came to being the P.A. announcer for the football team, Bras went to former V.C. athletic director Harold DeBie and inquired about taking over for former P.A. announcer Bob Johnson when he was ready to leave.
“My first year of doing the P.A. for football was the fall of 1999,” Bras remembers. “I think it came pretty natural; I kind of wanted to follow what they wanted me to do. So back then, [Mike] Wunderly was our coach and Letty, his wife, would almost always write up a little script. I always read that; it was kind of about the history [of the teams], especially with our Olympic League teams. That was probably about a five minute read.”
Bras may not remember announcing milestone games, but the biggest game for him was when V.C. defeated Oaks Christian High 38-24 in the 2002 semifinal game.
“You could just tell there was a really high talent level, and they were really good,” said Bras. “It was just a great high school football game. I just remember being excited because we finally made it to the finals. It had been a while since we had been in the finals.”
Bras said one of the biggest things about being a P.A. announcer for a football game is that it can be such a community event; that he is part of so many different things that are happening, like the food and people just being together.
It was in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s when Bras was approached about being the P.A. announcing for boys basketball when Korver was still the head coach. That was around the time that Bras dove into girls volleyball and since then, he has become a fan favorite with the student body and the community.
Upon his arrival at V.C. Bras had never been a P.A. announcer for volleyball, which is a much faster pace than football. Bras remembers when V.C. was playing in the 1998 CIF-Southern Section Division IV-AA finals, he would go just to listen to the P.A. announcers to hear what they said. He also went with some friends to a few beach volleyball matches at UCLA and paid attention to what was being said and how those matches were being announced.
“I kind of took some of that stuff, like saying the score every time, calling locations and hits and trying to use alliterations and trying to have fun with names,” said Bras. “That’s always the thing that makes it fun.”
It’s the alliterations and sayings that Bras uses which have become a fan favorite at the sporting events. Sometimes, it takes fans a few seconds to understand what he just said while other times, it’s immediately. A few of his favorites, stemming from the girls volleyball team, have been ‘winter season is closed’, referring to Chloe Winter (2013-2015) or ‘the mystery is solved’, referring to Madison Holmes (2014-2017). This past volleyball season when the Defenders hosted Village Christian High, Bras blurted out ‘Peoples voices a winner’ referring to a kill from senior outside hitter Aniyah Peoples. And in the football playoff game against Warren High, whenever junior defensive back Blake Butler made a tackle, Bras would say, ‘the Butler did it’.
“My thing is to always have fun, but never at the expense of the other team; try to be professional and courteous,” he said. “I think I bring a little extra juice for our school, but at the same time I try to bring some energy for the other school. I don’t ever want to be accused of being a homer.”
What makes Bras different from the other area P.A. announcers is that he’s been able to do three sports every year instead of only football. Mike Gaoghagen (Artesia High), Rene Trevino (Cerritos High), Richard Roper (Gahr High), David Higgins (John Glenn High) and Richard Drake (Norwalk High) are the other area P.A. announcers, and all have their own format of keeping the spectators entertained. Drake does basketball as well for the Lancers.
The biggest thing Bras has seen from the time he arrived at V.C. with the athletics is specialization, claiming it was starting to change when he got to the school.
“That’s how I grew up; I played three sports and there were probably some kids who played four sports because baseball was in the summertime in Iowa,” said Bras. “I will say this, I think our student body is very supportive of one another, and I think, this is kind of my take, especially with football, I feel like since Covid happened that was such a discouraging, depressing thing.”
Bras plans on being the P.A. announcer as long as he is at V.C, maybe even longer, he hinted. He even added that if V.C. enjoys having Bras, he enjoys doing what he’s been doing for over two and half decades.
In addition to being a history teacher and P.A. announcer, Bras is a walking sports encyclopedia. Walk up to him and ask him any sports question, and most likely, he’ll answer it within a few seconds. It could be who won Game 4 of the 1967 World Series or who was the winning pitcher in the second game of the 1974 World Series.
“I can at least get close,” he chuckled. “My thing is I always know all the World Series winners and losers back to 1944. Growing up in Iowa, I was a huge Twins fan and maybe once or twice a year, there would be a regional game on NBC; the second game. I remember my cousin got married on a Saturday and it was one of the times the Twins were on T.V. When the playoffs came, it was must-see T.V.; Monday Night Football was must-see T.V., so there weren’t many games to watch whereas now, there are games every night.”
So, if you attend a V.C. basketball game or volleyball match, walk up to Bras during a timeout, between quarters or between sets and quiz him with a question or two.
And if being the P.A. announcer at V.C. wasn’t enough, Bras once auditioned to be the P.A. announcer for the San Diego Padres shortly after getting his Master’s degree at California State University, Fullerton in American Studies. He was driving home and listening to former San Diego radio personality John ‘the Coach’ Kentera when the guru of San Diego high school athletics was promoting open tryouts for the job.
“That was on a Thursday night in 1999, I think,” Bras recalled. “Scott Sandie was my principal, and he let me go; I took a personal day and drove down to Qualcomm [Stadium]. There were probably around 3,000 people there and I basically sat there [thinking] I drove a long way for about five minutes, [and] I had three things to read.
“This was about the time e-mail was starting and I really didn’t use e-mail that much,” he continued. “I was always kind of bummed about this: I was looking one day and there was this e-mail from the Padres, and it was probably about a week after they sent the e-mail telling me I was one of the finalists for the last 10 spots. [But] I was slow to the draw.”
Bras considered the opportunity to audition for the Padres P.A. gig a pipeline gig and never thought about how it would affect his V.C. obligations because it never got that close. He even inquired about being a P.A. announcer for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim when former P.A. personality David Courtney suddenly passed away in 2012. Bras recalls that the Angels told him they were looking for an established P.A. announcer to replace Courtney.
“I don’t know if could have even accepted [the Padres job] because how in the world would I be driving to San Diego back and forth,” said Bras. “I would have been a zombie. It was just fun to try and see what they had to say.”
Another side note is one night Bras had a brief encounter with former Los Angeles Lakers announcer Joel Meyers as he entered the V.C. gymnasium when the basketball team was hosting Campbell Hall High. He remembers telling Meyers, whose son J.J. played for Campbell Hall, he always thought about being a basketball play-by-play announcer, in which Meyers responded, “trust me, you’re in good spot here”.
But the V.C. community can relax as Bras will remain a fixture at the school with his voice for years to come. He considers being the P.A. announcer a privilege; he loves the school, and anything he can do to add to the enjoyment of the community, he considers that a privilege.
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