If you’ve attended a sporting event at Merrimack Valley High School, the odds are high you’re familiar with the voice of Nick Gelinas.

Perched atop the press box during the spring and fall sports seasons and in the bleachers of the MVHS gym in the winter, the 15-year-old sophomore always has a microphone in front of him. For soccer, football and lacrosse, he’ll announce the starting lineups before the game and the touchdown and goal scorers during the action as the public address announcer. During basketball season, he does the play-by-play for the live streams of games.

Gelinas approached MV athletic director Kenny Edwards at the start of his freshman year about getting involved in the school’s athletics. He’d always had an interest in announcing, and Edwards was more than willing to give him a shot.

“I did a soccer game, and right on, I was loving it already,” Gelinas said.

He’s since started his own podcast, Sports in the Woods, that chronicles everything happening in the MVHS athletics world and continued building a following within the community.

“It’s fantastic,” Edwards said. “The thing about Nick is he always brings a lot of enthusiasm and energy. He’s always very well prepared. … It’s been a lot of fun having him around. He just has a lot of positive energy.”

Before a game, you’ll often see Gelinas tracking down opposing coaches so he can run through roster pronunciations. Nailing those names, with little time to prepare, can always be a challenge. People are often more than eager to let the announcer know when they’ve mispronounced a name.

He estimates he’s announced nearly 100 MV games already, and he’s not even halfway through his high school experience. After graduating, he’s hoping to study broadcasting in college.

“My favorite part is definitely the adrenaline and getting to see all the different sporting events and learning about these different sports,” he said. “What I really like is I get to go to pretty much every game that our school has, and a lot of kids don’t do that. I get to keep up to date on how everyone’s doing.”

His favorite sport to announce?

“Basketball. The adrenaline rush is crazy,” he said. “I have so much fun doing it. … When they’re running up the court, and it’s pretty fast action, and they nail a buzzer-beater 3(-pointer), there’s nothing better than that.”

Gelinas finds himself involved in more than just MV athletics, too. He recently starred as SpongeBob in the school’s production of the SpongeBob Musical, he’s part of the marching band and he’s the school board student representative.

Suffice to say, he’s invested more than his fair share of time in his school.

“I have a lot on my hands,” Gelinas said, “but I always find time to do broadcasting because that’s my passion.”

It’s not lost on Edwards how impressive Gelinas is among his peers. Just like playing sports provides life lessons for the student-athletes, announcing games gives Gelinas his own valuable experiences that will catapult him into the next phase of his life as he pursues a career in sports broadcasting.

“He’s doing all this while maintaining great grades, great reputation around school,” Edwards said. “He’s pretty impressive.”