ROCHESTER, N.Y. – It's a few minutes before 6 p.m. on a frigid winter evening on the Roberts Wesleyan University campus.

Pregame warm-ups have been completed, the national anthem has been played and the visiting team has been introduced to the Voller Athletic Center crowd.

The house lights are turned down and the music turned up as Jay Trainer flips the switch on his microphone and enters his element.

"Aaaand now, ladies and gentlemen, here are your … REDHAWKS!!!"

Trainer's booming voice kicks into overdrive as he rolls through the starting lineup for the Roberts women's basketball team.

By the time the lights come back on, the energy in the VAC has been elevated and the Redhawks are ready to take flight.

"The starting lineup is always important to get the energy going and I think his passion shows that we have people around us who really care about us and want to see us do well," says guard Georgia Haverlock, who recently completed her fifth and final season as a student-athlete at Roberts. "Jay gets us pumped up and helps get us ready."

It's something that Trainer, a 2001 Roberts graduate, has been doing with a combination of unbridled enthusiasm and trademark catchphrases for 28 years.

"He's a big part of our game experience," Roberts Executive Director of Athletics Bob Segave says. "When alumni come back and visit, they look forward to Jay Trainer. They look forward to hearing what they're used to hearing. He's as big a part of our game day environment as anything."

A lifelong pursuit

Trainer, who grew up in the Buffalo suburb of Clarence, N.Y., began honing his craft at an early age when his parents, Don and Carol Trainer, gave their only child a brown-and-white Fisher Price tape recorder as a preschooler.

"I used it as a megaphone," Trainer recalls. "I used it just running around the house as a 3-or-4-year-old. When I was 7 or 8, we had our first stereo system, and it had a double cassette player and recorder. I started pretending to be the deejay, dubbing in my voice over where the deejay would be and introducing the song."

Trainer's love for music and announcing continued to grow and he caught his first break as a freshman at Clarence High School.

"There was an announcement at school one day telling us that we needed a public address announcer for our boys' basketball games," Trainer says. "It said that anybody who was interested should go see Mr. (Greg) Kaszubski. Mr. Kaszubski was the athletic director at the time, so I went and saw him. That's where it began, serving as a public address announcer starting my freshman year with the varsity and JV basketball teams.

"It just kind of grew from there, which is awesome."

Even at a young age, Trainer had found his calling. By the time his junior year of high school rolled around, he was announcing other sports such as volleyball, lacrosse, softball, swimming and track and field.

"I was just kind of filling the palette, so to speak," he says.

Word spread as time went on and Trainer continued to land more gigs. A local college hired him to announce its basketball games during his senior year of high school. He also announced the state finals for volleyball and the sectional championship games for boys' and girls' basketball.

Clarence High School presented him with the first Stephen M. Bowling Memorial Award, which is given to a graduating senior who contributes the most to the athletic department without being a student-athlete.

Trainer also started working at a local auto racing track, Lancaster Speedway.

"At that point in time, I thought, 'Hey, there's going to be a neat little career with this ahead of me,'" he says. "I was doing a lot of sports and a lot of different things and loved it. I enjoyed the different dynamics of being able to add to the environment of the arena and the gym and help out with things."

Finding a new home

After graduating from high school, Trainer enrolled at Niagara University, which was about 30 miles from home.

The experience changed his life.

"It was there at Niagara where I really fell in love with Christ and had the opportunity to have that moment of recognizing, 'Hey, I'm more than a number, I'm loved by the Almighty,'" he says. "Jesus made a way for me in the midst of some of the different dynamics of entering into college."

Trainer realized that Niagara was not the perfect fit for him at the time and he transferred to Roberts Wesleyan.

"What drew me to Roberts was the fact that I had the chance to start over," he says. "It was an environment that was faith-based and it was about an hour from my house. If I wanted to get home or needed to get home quick, I could, but yet there was that separation of being in a different city."

Soon after, Trainer met Chris Williams, an assistant coach for the women's basketball team who had just been hired as the sport event manager.

The two made an immediate connection and before too long Trainer, a rising sophomore, was auditioning to be the new public address announcer for women's basketball.

"I remember driving out there in the middle of transferring," Trainer says. "It was the summer, I was plugging a microphone into the sound system in the arena and Chris said, 'Hey, we're going to hire you.'"

With a style modeled after iconic NBA PA announcers Ray Clay of Chicago Bulls fame and John Mason of the Detroit Pistons, Trainer was an immediate hit.

"Women's basketball games became an event because of Jay's enthusiasm for what he did," Williams says. "It was almost like this tidal wave from our team to Jay, and from Jay's lips to the fans, and the fans loved it.

"All of a sudden our attendance started to go up because the ladies and their style of play was very entertaining and we were starting to win back then. Jay brought a different environment and an expectation to the ticketed event. I really think that Jay was part of the growth of women's basketball and a lot of the women's sports at the university."

Williams, who became the head coach in 1999, encouraged Trainer to get to know the players on the team better and those bonds led to the announcer developing clever nicknames for some players and becoming more comfortable inserting some of his catchphrases, such as "Amtrak violation" on a traveling call or "from the back yard" for a three-pointer into his game day routine.

"We had a lot of conversations," Williams, who is now a lecturer at Clemson University, says. "I said make it fun and entertaining, but you can't be too much of a homer."

Williams admits that Trainer would crack him up with some of his one-liners during his time on the Roberts' sideline and he would often attempt to channel Trainer's enthusiasm toward his team.

"I would often call timeout when we were doing awesome," Williams said. "In women's basketball, sometimes the reverse of calling a timeout was needed. Most of the time you call timeout, you're upset. I started calling timeouts on the reverse, and I can remember doing it one time and you can hear Jay, on the mic just going crazy.

"I would just say, 'Listen to that!' He's hyping us in our timeout. I didn't even have to say anything other than 'All right, ladies, let's get back out there."

Williams, who left Roberts in 2004, has served in several roles inside and outside of college athletics since, and remains close with Trainer.

"I loved his spirit back then and I continue to love it," Williams says. "He'll text me, 'Hey man, I'm gonna be on the mic tonight.' So, I'll actually go on and livestream the game just to listen to Jay. He's still doing some of the crazy stuff that makes me laugh inside."

A true love story

Just as it did while he was in high school, talk of Trainer's talent began to circulate around the Roberts campus and he began doing PA for other sports, including women's volleyball.

It was here that he met a setter by the name of Marie Beaule. After being friends for three years, they started dating and married in 2003. The Trainers live in Spencerport with their three children, Mya, Seth and Breah.

"The most important relationship of all is the relationship with my wife," Trainer says. "We were buddies and we started dating because we got along so well. Just like so many couples over time, we met and have the stability of our family because of Roberts."

Trainer earned his Bachelor's degrees in Communications and Contemporary Ministries in 2001 and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies at Northeastern Seminary in 2004. He also completed his Master of Science in Communication through Purdue University online in 2019.

He works full-time with the Christian Service Brigade, which partners with churches to help grow discipleship programs for men. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Roberts, where he teaches COMM 1105, fundamentals of oral communication.

Trainer has announced several other sports in many venues over the years, including Arena Football for the now-defunct Rochester Brigade.

He fuels his need for speed by working with Steven Petty at Ransomville Speedway on Friday nights during the summer.

"Oh, you name it, he brings it," Petty says. "He brings all the energy in the world. He makes it easy to just have fun at the track and he's got some pretty good pipes, too."

Yes, he does. Trainer also abides by a commitment of trying to set a positive example for everyone he encounters.

"For those that call themselves a follower of Jesus Christ, our lives are a mission trip," he says. "We're plodding through this world to share about Jesus through lifestyle, words, actions and accommodations with people we come across every day.

"On my end of things, I've always felt ministry, at least for me, has been most effective beyond the four walls of a church building. There's something to be said about living it out and allowing your walk to be your talk. If my testimony is such and my story is such that it's going point back to Jesus, my lifestyle better echo the same. I view announcing as a vehicle to live out faith and have those conversations with students later on, especially outside the classroom that ask, 'Hey, what's this faith thing all about, or what's this dynamic of what makes you different?'"

Making a difference

Segave, who was hired as the head women's basketball coach at Roberts in 2007 and became director of athletics in 2015, dubbed Trainer the "Voice of the Redhawks" several years ago and appreciates everything that Trainer brings to the campus community as a professor, announcer and person.

"His love of Roberts and all things Roberts shines through," Segave says. "I always felt it when I was on the sidelines. I would get energized when he would get excited as our teams were doing well, and I think the fans fed off it, too. His one-liners are just renowned now and everybody knows him."

The catchphrases reverberate throughout the arena on game nights. Whether it's "7-11, Slurpee time!" or "Monsters, Inc. code 23-19" when specific scores are reached or "Welcome to the BLOCK party!" or "Three ball, corner pocket – thank you!" during a volleyball or basketball game, Trainer's voice comes through loud and clear.

"He totally brings the energy for our team," says Olivia Price, a junior outside hitter on the women's volleyball team.  "I think during lineups, with having the red lights out, and then everything that Jay says during it just screams Redhawk energy and it helps boosts our team to be ready to play a game."

"He's definitely a big part of the Roberts basketball and volleyball experience," says Ryan Garwood, a senior on the men's basketball team.

Price, who Trainer introduces as "Olivia, the Price is Right," before each game is proud of her moniker.

"I love the nickname," Price says. "I have never been called that until I came to college, but I love that Jay calls me that just because I have a big personality and I like being right (laughs). I just think it being said goes well and now everybody at school calls me that."

Trainer's phrases have even made their way into Redhawk basketball practices when "the bank is open" after an improbable shot goes in off the backboard or a player grabs a big-time rebound and is called "Windex, because they clean the glass."

"I definitely have heard people steal Jay's phrases and use them during practices and while we are sitting on the bench during games," Haverlock says. "He's definitely making an impact."

So much so, that Roberts recently featured the often self-deprecating Trainer trying his hand at basketball, volleyball and field hockey during a video series to generate funds for its "One Day of Giving" campaign. ONE DAY of GIVING VIDEO

"Participating that day was pretty cool," Trainer says. "I appreciated the fact that I could be at least somewhat useful and entertaining. I just want to be useful to the student-athletes and do the best job I can for the different areas of life that the Lord gave me."

Segave was not surprised that Trainer stepped up when asked to help.

"He's an off-the-charts Roberts guy," Segave says. "His energy is off the charts the whole game. It doesn't matter what the score is, he brings the enthusiasm from beginning to end."

Trainer has enjoyed his time behind the mic for nearly three decades and, fortunately for Redhawks fans, isn't planning on going anywhere soon.

"I've got a lot of time left here, as long as the Lord allows," Trainer says. ""Roberts is home. I love this place."