By Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Kristal Kizer & Contributed
It’s been nearly 10 years since Chad Summers was named public address announcer for Hewitt-Trussville football. However, even after a decade behind the microphone, Summers said he still gets anxious and can feel the buzz in the press box leading up to kickoff.
“The band comes in around 6:45-ish and they line up,” he said, pausing, “There’s anticipation in the press box. It’s like, ‘Here we go. Time to start.’”
Summers filled in for the most recent PA announcer, Alan Taylor, on a couple of occasions throughout the years, before being tapped for the permanent position in 2016. Since then, he’s expanded PA coverage for basketball, baseball and softball, and he was hired full time as the Trussville City Schools’ public relations director a little over a year ago, following two decades as the director of media & communication for First Baptist Church Trussville.
He also teaches a media class at the high school each morning for students with an interest in broadcasting and communications. With all of this experience under his belt, Summers recalled his first night as the permanent PA announcer and how he came up with his signature introduction on the fly.
“I thought, ‘OK, here we go. It’s Friday night. The lights are on. There’s a chill in the air, and the band is on the field,’” he said. “‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s football time in Trussville!’ When I hit play on (AC/DC’s) ‘Thunderstruck,’ I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to hear about this.’ The feedback I got was awesome. That’s the way Friday nights officially begin.”
A native of Trussville, Summers has had a bird’s-eye view during some of the football team’s most successful years. However, his history with Husky football goes back much further to when Trussville had two traffic lights, Western Supermarket was the anchor of Main Street and Hewitt-Trussville High School was the center of town, especially during football season.
Fall Friday nights in Trussville are practically in Summers’ DNA. His father was the Hewitt-Trussville band director from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s, and Summers grew up in a small house on Parkway Drive, just a 2-minute walk from Husky Stadium, a home in which his mother still lives.
Some of Summers’ early memories are hanging out around the stadium and band room when the Huskies were playing at home in the mid-1970s. In those days, Hewitt-Trussville was a 4A school under coaches Morris Higginbotham (1972-75) and Chip Stewart (1976-82).
During these years, Trussville’s population was around 3,500, and, as Summers recalled, “there were probably around 2,000 of them at the stadium on Friday night.”
Summers’ childhood is wrapped up in fall nights at the old Husky Stadium on the corner of Parkway and Cherokee Drive.
“I remember the old stadium, the way it sounded on Friday nights, and you can see the lights off in the distance as you walk down the sidewalks to the stadium,” Summers said. “You can hear the drums. They just sounded like Friday night; it sounded like football.”
Beyond Trussville, Summers traveled with his father and the band.
“Some of my earliest memories are being on band trips when I was 4 or 5 years old, and they would pass me around,” he said. “The band was basically babysitters for my parents when they were involved with what was going on with the band.”
While in high school, Summers experienced the thrill of Friday night as a member of the Huskies’ football team in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Playing for legendary head coach Jack Wood, Summers was a defensive back through his junior year before switching to wide receiver for his senior year in 1991.
Hewitt-Trussville was a 6A powerhouse during these years, advancing deep into the playoffs and packing Husky Stadium on Friday nights with heated rivalries against teams such as Huffman, Pinson Valley and one of their biggest rivals, the Erwin Eagles.
Summers recalled the Erwin game during his junior year—fans from both schools lined up five-deep at the fences—taking it all in when a play was called from the sideline: a blitz package called “cowboy,” in which Summers was key.
“It was electric; you could cut the atmosphere with a knife,” Summers said. “I remember looking around thinking, ‘I’m fixing to either do something really big right here, or I’m going to do something and look stupid.’”
As for the play? Summers admitted he missed the tackle, and the opposing ball carrier blew by him for a 40-yard gain. He can laugh about it now, 30-plus years after the fact; although, facing the notoriously hard-nosed Wood couldn’t have been pleasant.
Still, it’s a moment in time Summers wouldn’t change for the world.
Summers’ backstory gives him a unique perspective on his spot behind the mic. He’s seen the excitement and importance of Husky football from every possible angle and understands on an intimate level how important those moments are to the players, their families and the community. Those moments influence how he now approaches his gig as PA announcer.
“We want those memories burned in our student-athletes’ brains because most of them aren’t going to the next level. Whatever elements you can add to introduce into the game to make it as memorable and as electric as you can, you need to do it,” Summers said.
Summers’ philosophy regarding his role is to support the action on the field, rather than being the center of attention. He said if someone remembers the things he said after the game ends instead of what happened on the field, then he hasn’t done his job.
While there may be some truth to that, Summers is being modest. His contributions to Hewitt-Trussville athletics go far beyond announcing touchdowns and field goals, according to Hewitt-Trussville Athletics Director Lance Walker.
“We are thankful to have Chad Summers serve as the voice of the Huskies,” he said. “Chad loves the Huskies, and he spends an incredible amount of time preparing for each event. His goal is to make the high school experience special for all of our student-athletes. Chad plays a vital role in our game day experience, and we appreciate the positive impact he makes in our program.”
For Summers, high school sports are about more than wins and losses. They’re about pride in one’s community, personal connections and the traditions that bind people together.
“That’s really what sports are,” he said. “They’re the front porch to your community.”
Chad Summers can be heard at the Huskies remaining home football games this season on Oct. 3 and 24.
