On-field gig with Savannah Bananas the latest stop for 2015 BHS alum

Jacob Notermann got his start as anchor of the BHS morning news

Among the things you don’t expect to see at a baseball game are smoke machines, choreographed dances, comedy sketches and players walking on stilts.

Of course, the Savannah Bananas are not your typical baseball team.

Over the last couple seasons, the independent baseball team in Savannah, Georgia, has made a name for itself and garnered national attention thanks to viral videos of its unorthodox version of America's Pastime. 2015 Burnsville High School graduate Jacob Notermann is in the center of it all as part of the gameday experience team for the Bananas. As part of his role, he plays an over-the-top Michael Buffer-esque announcer in on-field sketches. 

“There’s always a lot going on on the field and in the crowd. It’s never just a baseball game,” Notermann said.

Notermann’s work with the Bananas can get silly, but his announcing career has gotten serious. Since moving to Georgia in 2021, he’s stepped in as the public address announcer for the Bananas’ new sister team the Savannah Party Animals, the Savannah Ghost Pirates ECHL hockey team and the Savannah Clovers Football Club. A career as an announcer is something he’s dreamed up since his days anchoring the morning news announcements at BHS.

“I used to read school assignments out loud and treat my textbook like a teleprompter. People told me I had a good newsman voice and I should go into news so I said “OK, I will.’” Notermann said. “I was surrounded by sports my senior year as part of the video team for the sports department, filming practices and games for the football team and then shooting video for the basketball and lacrosse teams. I can draw a direct line from being video manager for the sports programs to where I am today.”

Notermann’s interest in announcing led him to the University of North Dakota where he majored in Communications and Political Science and interned with the university’s marketing department. He credits the advanced placement and dual credit courses he took at BHS with helping him graduate from UND in three years.

“It really was an opportunity that changed my entire college trajectory. It helped me shave off an entire years worth of core classes that were already taken care of,” he said. “I was able to jump right into the program I wanted to do.”

During his time in Grand Forks, Notermann secured announcing gigs with various high school teams. After graduating, he served as a broadcast and video intern with the Minnesota Wild for a year before being hired as a political reporter for KFYR-TV in Bismarck. He gained valuable on-camera experience covering the pandemic response and elections, and still managed to carve out time to serve as the voice of the Bismarck Larks of the Northwoods League. 

Those experiences helped him land a job as a communications specialist at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, in 2021. He’s now working toward his masters degree in public administration. He said his wide variety of experiences, going all the way back to his video managing at Burnsville High School and his various internships and announcing gigs, have helped him find a career he’s passionate about.

“It was the film skills I got working with the Burnsville sports programs that got me involved with the student-led news program at UND,” he said. “My internship with the news show turned into an internship with the marketing department and that’s where I found my love for higher education administration, getting kids connected with education and spreading the word about what college and education can do for young kids.”