Watch Now: Meet the Horlick High School junior who could become the Al Michaels of esports – Journal Times

All throughout the conquests and goal-scoring, one voice echoes in the heads of the viewers both in the arena and on the Twitch.com stream, that voice being of Horlick junior Andrew Czysz Jr.

Czysz grew up idolizing Al Michaels, the NBC sportscaster whose legendary voice was heard calling Monday Night Football games for 20 years, who shouted “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” when the world saw the U.S. hockey team shock the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics, and whose voice has graced the airwaves during 11 Super Bowls, eight World Series and more than a dozen runnings of the Kentucky Derby.

Czysz hopes to have a career like that.

“I would just say to be the next great future NFL broadcaster, I have to keep following the NFL as much as possible, know as much as possible and know what to do to be in that position,” Czysz said.

But maybe instead of sportscasting for traditional sports, he could end up calling esports competitions in the burgeoning field of “shoutcasting.”

Shoutcasting is essentially synonymous with sportscasting, just for esports.

Czysz used to play “Rocket League” casually on his Nintendo Switch before shifting more into shoutcasting for his school’s team, the Horlick Rebels. While on the junior varsity team, Czysz was asked to shoutcast four games for the varsity team. Shoutcasting for the Rebels is what lead him to an internship with WIHSEA.

Czysz will be awarded a scholarship for $500 to the Wisconsin school of his choosing this Saturday at the WIHSEA finals. He specializes in commentating on “Rocket League,” an immensely popular video game launched in 2015 that combines vehicle racing with soccer, in which each player controls a vehicle (equipped with a rocket-booster) and teams of three players try to hit a giant virtual ball into a goal.

“What I do is I try to keep a positive energy going, say to myself ‘Oh, I’m gonna cast this game’, make sure to do my notes and I get hyped up for the game,” Czysz said. “There was issues along the way, like before I didn’t have ethernet cable to have a stable connection, so there was frustrations there. But, I’m able to collect myself together and put on the best product that I can for WIHSEA.”

Just like on-the-field reporters will interview athletes postgame, Czysz did the same Tuesday with the Case Legends’ captain, Andrew Vaile, who recapped his still-undefeated team’s win.

“Case was the better team on paper, but I will always root for my boys at Horlick. It would have been a great upset, the reverse sweep was almost there, step one was complete but we couldn’t do the other two steps,” Czysz said. While he is currently not decided on his future college plans, Czysz is hoping to continue his work shoutcasting with WIHSEA next year.

As Case continues its pursuit of a state championship Saturday Northcentral Technical College in Wausau, Czysz will be there.

As for Tuesday’s bout, Czysz was joined by Carthage Firebirds shoutcaster Tanner Lee. Lee, a freshman at Carthage College, was excited to join Czysz in the booth to color commentate the match with him Tuesday.

Jay Buchmann, the father of Horlick Rebels’ captain TJ Buchmann, has known Czysz since he and his son were in kindergarten together. Buchmann said that Czysz has fought hard to become one of the best and brightest at Horlick, being one of the tops in his class and one of the best shoutcasters in the state. Shoutcasting, Buchmann said, has helped bring the young man out of his shell.