DOTCOMP: Bravo Braverman! It's been a beautiful era for Spartan Football

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East Lansing, Mich. - It figures to be a beautiful day for football when Michigan State plays its first home game of the season, on Sept. 11 against Youngstown State, but one familiar voice will be absent.

Terry Braverman, the longtime public address announcer at Spartan Stadium who coined the popular pre-game declaration “It’s a BEAUTIFUL day for football!," has stepped down from those duties. Braverman and Michigan State Executive Athletic Director for External Relations Paul Schager made that announcement on Monday during a segment on the Staudt on Sports radio show, hosted by Tim Staudt.

Braverman had served as Spartan Stadium’s public address announcer since 2001, when he began as a last-minute substitute for the previous announcer, Mark Bashore, due to Bashore's bout with laryngitis. Braverman replaced Furseth on that day, and held the post thereafter.

Peter Clay, known as “the voice of the Spartan Marching Band” on the Spartan Marching Band’s official web site, will succeed Braverman as the public address announcer for Michigan State home football games. Clay will become only the seventh full-time public address announcer for Spartan Stadium since the 1950s.

“I say good-bye with some trepidation but on the other hand, it’s in good hands,” Braverman said during the guest spot on Staudt on Sports. “I want to wish Peter Clay the very best. He’s a good young man. He’s a good announcer. I know he’ll do a good job.”

Braverman lives half the year in Florida, and half the year in northern Ontario with his wife, who is a Canadian citizen.

“Mixed emotions,” Braverman said. “It’s a bittersweet time yet it’s an ideal time.

“Having sold our place in mid-Michigan and living in Florida, also living in Canada, the COVID, the travel, the aging - all of that goes together and I think the timing is perfect.”

Braverman and Shager made the announcement jointly while appearing on the Lansing-based sports show, which airs daily from 10 am to 1 pm.

“In doing the job for over 20 years, Terry has been a part of a lot of success we’ve had at Michigan State,” Shager said. “But we talked about it the last couple of years, those duties and the logistics of getting back to perform those duties on a regular basis. We kind of came to the mutual conclusion that this year would be the time for Terry to step aside of that role and let somebody else take the chair.

“It will be a familiar voice because Peter has done some work with the band for many years at Spartan Stadium, and he will also be doing the P.A. announcements during the game, and he has also done some hockey work for us. So it will be a nice, smooth transition there.”

Braverman has been known for his rich voice and professionalism as a broadcaster for decades, throughout the state of Michigan. In addition to serving as public address announcer for home basketball games for several seasons, he previously served as director of the Ralph Young Fund for many years.

Braverman attended Michigan State from 1956 to 1960. He returned to East Lansing in 1964 to assist Jim Adams as part of the WKAR sports department.

Among other things, Adams and Braverman became a late-night fixture for Michigan State sports fans who watched their tape-delayed re-broadcasts of Spartan football games on WKAR in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Adams and Braverman also served as hosts of Spartan Sportslight, a half-hour show which gained a loyal following in mid-Michigan in the 1960s.

Braverman’s work as public address announcer at Spartan Stadium led to him serving in the same capacity for Detroit Lions home games at Ford Field in recent years, before stepping down from that post.

Braverman has entertained fans with vast talents, whether auctioning items at the Michigan State postseason football banquets or delivering comedic jabs with expert timing when behind the microphone. It was difficult to tell whether he was joking or serious with this on-air barb for Shager on Monday:

“He (Shager) calls it transition - uh no, you fired me,” Braverman said with a laugh. “But no, in reality, we kind of mutually agreed and I do appreciate the way he’s handled it. It’s perfect. It’s the right timing. Everything is just right. I thank and appreciate Paul for helping me work it out.”

Fans on the SpartanMag.com Underground Bunker Message Board are already voicing their hopes that Braverman’s “It’s a great day for footbal!” declaration will remain part of MSU’s pre-game festivities. But it’s unclear whether Peter Clay will perform that signature moment.

Personally, I hope Clay attempts to continue it, and I'm sure most fans feel the same way.

Braverman’s "Beautiful day for football!" declaration found joyful favor with Spartan fans regardless of the weather. In fact, the worse the weather, the more fans would join Braverman in his ritual, which became something of a short sing-along moment after he passed along the weather forecast for the day.

I think fans have learned to rally around Braverman's pregame declaration as a way of laughing through bad weather and, sometimes, bad seasons. It's a great pregame moment. Clay probably doesn't want to step on Braverman's toes and might feel strange about stealing the phrase. But he shouldn't feel that way. Michigan State would be wise to give Clay the go-ahead and make sure it continues.

Braverman discussed how and why the tradition began.

“I remember distinctly, it was 2005,” Braverman said. “It was John L. Smith as the head coach. It was Homecoming. We’re playing Northwestern and we’re not having a good year.

“It was a gray, cloudy, kind of miserable day. The stadium had no energy. The window was open, so we could hear the crowd, we could get the sense of the students, we could hear the great Spartan Marching Band, but there was no enthusiasm, there was no life and when I gave the weather forecast, it certainly was dreary and there was just this moment when I didn’t even think about it, I just said, ‘Hey! It’s a beautiful day for football!’

“I wanted to fire up the crowd. I just said it off the cuff, totally ad-libbed it. It certainly wasn’t written by anybody. It was a feeling I had. I wanted to get someone to have a little enthusiasm.

“Then it kind of entered the script and we did it ever since.”

Braverman was already decades into his career as a popular figure in Michigan State sports circles when he was asked to pinch hit for Furseth for a home football game in 2001.

Braverman was in his final year with the Ralph Young Fund at the time.

“I never had any desire or thoughts about it (becoming the stadium public address announcer),” Braverman said. “I was more of a broadcast guy.

“But Mark Hollis called me on Friday night and said the P.A. guy has laryngitis. Terry has to do the game.”

His first assignment: the 2001 Michigan State vs Michigan game, which went down in history with Jeff Smoker throwing a 2-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Duckett on the game’s final play, lifting Michigan State to a 26-24 victory over No. 6 Michigan.

“I said, ‘Mark, are you kidding me? This is Michigan, it’s national TV, it’s ABC and I haven’t done a game in years,’” Braverman said. “Mark says, ‘Oh, you’ll be fine. Paul is sitting next to you. He’ll run you through the script.’”

Braverman was a veteran of various forms of media, but admitted he had butterflies for this assignment.

“If you’re not nervous there’s something wrong with you,” he said. “Once you get going, you kind of feel your way along and then pretty soon I kind of got into it.”

Smoker’s touchdown pass was preceded by a controversial clock stoppage with :01 second remaining when the Michigan State quarterback barely got to the line of scrimmage in time to take the snap and spike the ball to the ground. Michigan fans still believe the clock should have expired as Smoker spiked the football. MSU’s time keeper, Bob Stehlin, known as Spartan Bob to some, drew scrutiny for it. The following season, universities were no longer assigned to designating the official timekeepers for home games.

“In those days, we were all in the booth - the timer, the announcer, the spotter,” Braverman said. “So Spartan Bob was sitting two seats from me and truthfully, honestly I still believe to this day that he did what he thought was correct and did not make a mistake. He would be very, very upset if we said he did. He didn’t.

“But I was smart enough, I guess, to say to myself, ‘Do NOT open your mouth until you see that referee signal six points.’ I wasn’t about to call a touchdown and have it all go to heck, and fortunately he did the signal. It was a great way to start. I love it.”

Braverman was terrific that day, and outstanding for each Michigan State home game that followed, through 2020.

“We needed a fill-in that night (in 2001),” Shager said. “He was our first call, he was there, and it stuck for 20 years.”

A public address announcer can only put his own stamp on a small number of things, but has the capacity to shape the fans' gameday experience. At Michigan State, the athletic department has never asked its public address announcer to be a cheerleader and yell things like, "First and 10, Northwestern!" as will be done on Sept. 3 in Evanston when the Spartans' 2021 season begins.

Thanks to Braverman, Michigan State's stadium experience during his turn at the public address microphone has time-honored and traditional, but also fun and energetic.

“It’s been a marvelous experience for me,” Braverman said. “I couldn’t have picked a better part-time job after retirement. I think it’s important for people to not stop living after they retire. I felt that doing P.A. at the stadium kept me young. I saw so many great players and plays.”

And delivered so many great calls.