Chloe Burdette
Sports Editor
If you’ve ever been to a College of Wooster baseball game, or have passed by Art Murray Field on a spring day the last four years, you’ve most definitely heard the confident tones of a College of Wooster senior and the voice of the Fighting Scots. But who is the man behind the microphone? His name is Mickey Yimam ’19, a math major here at The College of Wooster.
Yimam has been involved in sports for as long as he can remember. Hailing from Maryland, an avid fan of baseball, Mickey knew he wanted to be involved in the realm of sports in some way at the College. One way to accomplish this task? Work for the athletic department. “I think working for Cassidy Wertman in game operations is the best job on campus,” Yimam said. “You get to support your fellow Scots in their athletic events and get paid to be a part of it. You help run the event as best you can for the fans, and the amount of preparation athletes put in for their seasons is unmatched by other programs across the country. It’s great having a front row seat every weekend.”
Yimam’s journey to becoming a sports announcer at Wooster was nothing short of fortuitous. In order to support his friends on the baseball team, he wanted to land a job announcing Fighting Scots home baseball games at Art Murray Field. Shortly after his inquiry, the other announcer stepped down and Yimam was given the opportunity to announce the baseball games. “The previous announcer pulled out at the last minute, and I found out the day before the 2015-2016 home opener that I would be announcing the baseball season,” he said. Soon after, he started to announce for multiple other home athletic events. “Now, I am lucky to say I have announced every sport on campus except for football at least once.”
Yimam didn’t start out as a flawless announcer as some may think. “My first time announcing was the first home baseball game of the 2016 season against Allegheny where the Scots ended up losing,” he said. “I heard it from the seniors for the rest of the weekend how they were undefeated the previous year and the change in announcer must have had something to do with it. They were joking!”
“After my first game, announcing didn’t immediately become easier,” he explained. “My first year was filled with mistakes. I didn’t know if I was allowed to say Coach P’s first name, and I stuttered when announcing his name. Another time, I mixed up half the positions for the starting lineup because I was reading their numbers instead of positions.”
However, Yimam was thankful for his mistakes because they pushed him to become better. “I remember my junior year, when I began announcing other sports, I would get nervous because it felt like I had to learn a lot on the fly. Still, with anything, the more you do it the better you get, and with my added confidence, I think that’s when people started saying ‘Hey, you’re pretty good at announcing,’ and I just ran with it.”
When Yimam is asked if he thinks about continuing his announcing career after college, his initial answer is a solid negative. “I came to Wooster to be a math major, and plan on taking a job as a Data Analyst after graduation, so the answer was always no,” he explained. “But the thought of being a Public Address Announcer or Color Commentator has definitely crossed my mind. I think what makes announcing at Wooster so great is that I am announcing my friends and classmates. I get excited when they succeed, because I am really just a fan with a microphone in the press box at the end of the day.”
Yimam is appreciative of the opportunity he has had to root on the athletics here at the College, all while being able to do what he loves. “I am really lucky I got this opportunity because someone didn’t want it, and it became integral to my college experience and allowed me to appreciate all our great student athletes even more.”
(Photo by Chloe Burdette)