'No school for me tomorrow!' Student broadcaster delivers viral call after Michigan high school calls snow day

'Breaking news! Lusk just called a snow day!"

A student broadcaster's live call of a school cancellation at the end of a high school basketball game in southwest Michigan went viral Wednesday.

As the final seconds ticked away in the Hamilton High School win over West Catholic, sophomore Aiden Lynch was wrapping up his play-by-play call on the game broadcast, streaming live online, when he saw district superintendent Dr. Brad Lusk walk into the gym. 

As a winter storm pounded Hamilton, a town with fewer than 10,000 residents some 35 miles southwest of Grand Rapids, students in attendance started chanting “Snow day! Snow day! Snow day!”

Just after the final buzzer minted Hamilton's 57-45 win, Lynch saw Lusk walk over to the student section, wave his hands and emphatically grant their collective wish, canceling school Wednesday before the district had made an official announcement.

Pandemonium ensued. Lynch, still live on the game stream, provided a call that met the moment:

'Breaking news! Lusk just called a snow day!"

You've got to hear this high school hoops final score broadcast 🤣@HCSHawkeyes/@HamiltonSchools (MI) had a snow day announced last night and the student play-by-play feed went wild 🥳 @SBLiveMI

(🎥 @zach_harig 🎙️ @Aidenlynch06)pic.twitter.com/qHZzBTBk5n

— High School on SI (@SBLiveSports) February 22, 2023

Draped in white, Hamilton students poured out of the grandstands and jumped around in collective jubilee as Lynch belted "wooh, no school for me tomorrow!" into his headset.

"I saw it, and after I heard the student section, I kind of just went with my gut," Lynch, 16, said. "I erupted, I was happy I didn’t have to wake up and I could stay out all night. It was so cool, and props to Dr. Lusk for doing that.

“I honestly believed nobody watched the last 20 seconds of that game because of how loud that student section was chanting."

For Lynch, the snow day Wednesday was all but typical.

As the cancellation allowed, he slept in later than normal. He woke up with “like 50” missed calls from family telling him a local radio station in Grand Rapids wanted to have him as a guest. 

Two local TV stations had set up interviews with him. And requests to reuse the footage flooded in from media outlets far and wide.

By midday Wednesday, Lynch’s call had gone viral, shared by outlets such as Overtime, ESPN, as well as SBLive Sports. His phone dinged nonstop with messages from friends who had seen the clip.

“I’d just woken up from a nap, and I was like, ‘Am I dreaming right now?” Lynch said. “It was insane.

“I was like, there’s no way this is happening. A small town in Michigan that’s nowhere on the map just got found from a call about a snow day.”

Lynch had never done anything in the broadcasting realm, but he grew up playing and watching lots of sports. 

Before the basketball season, he floated the idea — half-seriously — to Mark Behnke, his teacher in a class called Covering Hawkeye Sports, a student media course that provides coverage to the school’s various athletic programs. Behnke encouraged him to give it a go.

Lynch has provided play-by-play commentary for every varsity home game during the 2022-23 season, including Tuesday's regular-season home finale. He will call the team’s district games when it hosts next week.

Lynch is considering pursuing broadcasting as a career and wants to continue calling games throughout his two more years of high school. He's been encouraged by how much fun he's having and sees it as a way to give back to his school community. 

People from neighboring schools have offered compliments after tuning in to his broadcasts, and he hopes the publicity touting his snow day call compels more schools in his area to offer broadcasting opportunities to students.

“This is something I really actually am interested in,” Lynch said. “And (if) given the opportunity (to pursue broadcasting), I think I’m going to take it.”

As he started to call more games he got more and more comfortable. 

At first, Lynch tried to script everything. Every word, every description, every intro and transition. It didn’t feel natural. So as the season wore on, he started to trust his ability to improvise and call what’s in front of him.

“I gotta be myself and go with the flow,” Lynch said.

That was all personified in his viral call Tuesday night.

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Lead photo courtesy of Aiden Lynch, Hamilton High School