Peter Clay leans up to the microphone high atop Spartan Stadium and takes a breath. As he reads through the weather conditions, he and everyone in the stadium know what's coming next.

He pauses briefly to make sure the crowd hits it cue: "It's a beautiful day for football!"

And with that, Clay once again realizes a dream that very few people ever get to do: being the public address (PA) announcer for his favorite sports team.

Peter Clay grew up around Michigan State athletics with his family being season ticket holders for the football and basketball teams when he was a kid. While at those games, he would find himself imitating the PA announcer, Erik Furseth, during the game.

Furseth was the PA announcer for MSU basketball from 1968-2002 and MSU football from 1971-98) and Clay is humbled to have been able to make his childhood dream a reality by following in his footsteps.

As the current PA announcer for Michigan State football, hockey, and the Spartan Marching Band, Clay has really made a full circle return to his roots.

Even though he often thought about what being a PA announcer for the Spartans might be like, Clay hadn't always pursued it as a career option.

Clay attended Michigan State University from 1996-99. He started off as a music major and was planning to be a band director, however, his sister had worked for WITL radio in Lansing, which resulted in a career path change. When she left there, the station was looking for someone to hire and she recommended Clay.

As it turned out, Clay eventually got on the air as a DJ in 1996, which kicked off a career in radio.

"I ended up changing my major to telecommunication (at MSU)," Clay said. "I was also in the marching band, but after my sophomore year and working in radio, I kind of had to make a choice. I ended up not being in the marching band my junior year but was still in Spartan Brass. I was talking to the director and told him I wanted to be the announcer for the marching band."

Clay then turned in a demo of him doing an introduction for the Spartan Marching Band, which was well received.

By the time he got to his senior year at MSU, Clay was the announcer for the band and would have loved to have stayed in that role. Except he moved to Asheville, North Carolina after he graduated and worked several roles — as a radio DJ, a sports talk host, a sideline reporter for high school football, a play-by-play announcer, and a color commentary announcer.

After seven years in North Carolina, he returned home to Michigan in 2006, and looked up the marching band right away.

"I let the marching band know I'm back in case they needed anybody to fill in," said Clay. "They called me a year or so later and asked if I wanted to do it again. So I said, 'I'm going to do this again and never give it up.'"

Nine years later, in 2015, as he was looking to expand his horizons with MSU, Clay was asked to take over PA duties for the hockey team.

"I was just kind of expanding what I was doing," Clay said. "I've been a hockey fan but I'm not an expert by any stretch, or at least wasn't then. The team was struggling and it was hard. That was a low point in MSU's hockey history. The crowds weren't where they had been when I was back in school, but I put everything into it."

With Clay still attending the football games in the stands, longtime football PA announcer Terry Braverman started to give hints in 2019 that he might retire sooner rather than later.

At that point, Clay started asking different people in the athletic department on what he needed to do to be considered as the next voice of MSU football.

That's when Clay got his chance, in an unexpected way.

"They called me and asked me to fill in during Covid," Clay said. "Terry wasn't able to make it. Empty stadium and they were playing Northwestern — one of the games we won that year. Everybody who has ever been a PA announcer, if they had a chance to PA announce a live NCAA football games with no fans—that's the dream (for a trial run). I got a chance to see if I could do it. If I made a couple mistakes here and there, it wasn't a huge deal because nobody was there. But I loved it and said 'I want to do this.'"

The following spring, MSU asked Clay to announce the spring game. A few months later, he got the call letting him know he could take over as the next PA football announcer starting in the fall of 2021, if he wanted the position.

"That was a great first year to do it," Clay said. "Went undefeated at home, went to the Peach Bowl and I still got to do all the things with the marching band as well."

Clay balances his announcing duties at MSU with his full-time gig at WLNS television station in Lansing as a local sales manager. Even with having to balance multiple roles -- and keeping very busy all the way around -- Clay said he loves everything about what he does with MSU.

"I love doing it, I'm passionate about it," Clay said. "Everything I can do to pump up MSU fans while they are there—that's really my goal, is to make the experience as positive for the fans as possible. I might be known a little bit as a homer announcer ... but it seems to be working."

Clay is one of four kids and lived in Okemos growing up. He has family history at MSU that goes back some time as his father went to graduate school in East Lansing, which is what brought them to the area.