An all-around sports dad some Walton High School athletes call “VOMA” is in contention for the big leagues.
Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves, to be specific.
East Cobb resident Mark Aston has done sports-related and other professional voice over-work for more than 30 years, including for his alma mater, Auburn University.
In recent years, he’s been the public address announcer for Walton football and lacrosse games, and this season added basketball duties to his already-busy schedule.
Aston does voice acting projects for Auburn athletics and other business clients from his home studio, in addition to his full-time work in medical sales.
“I’m a parent volunteer,” Aston said. “I just happen to be the parent volunteer they hear at the games.”
Come April 6, Aston could be sitting behind the mic at Truist Park as the public address announcer as the Braves play their home opener for the 2023 season.
After more than 130 people sent audition videos and several hundred more did auditions at the Braves’ FanFest last month, he’s been named one of 12 finalists for the job.
They’re in the running to succeed Casey Motter, the Braves’ PA man since 2006, and who died last June.
Aston said East Cobb resident Larry Haber, who’s also involved in youth sports in the Walton area, mentioned the opening to him.
A Braves spokeswoman told East Cobb News that the top three finalists will be announced between Feb. 17-20, and that fans will be invited to vote for their favorite.
Aston said he hasn’t been told anything since the audition. It’s a part-time job, like the rest of his voice-over work, and would consist of informing and entertaining fans at 81 home games and any post-season events at Truist Park.
“I used to pretend I was a Braves announcer,” Aston said, referencing Marshall Mann, who was the Braves’ PA announcer fro 1967 to 1996.
“I’ll go as big as the Braves want me to go. You’re there to enhance the Braves’ experience. It’s not about you.”
A native of Columbus, Ga., Aston finished second in the state high school shot put competition to a future University of Georgia football star named Herschel Walker.
He then attended Auburn on a football scholarship in the early 1980s, and was a teammate of another Heisman Trophy winning running back, Bo Jackson.
Aston said he played enough to keep his scholarship and earned a degree in business administration and finance.
He started his public address work right out of college, with World Championship Wrestling and the National Wrestling Association, and moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s as a voice-over actor for the William Morris Agency and the Solid Talent Agency.
He also was a venue announcer at the Rose Bowl and UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion basketball arena.
His work with Auburn commenced in 2016, after he moved his family to East Cobb. He does podcast and highlight program intros and narrates videos and other productions for a number of college clients, including Georgia Southern University athletics.
But he said some of his proudest moments in sports involve his sons. Andrew is a Walton junior and the football team’s long snapper and also plays lacrosse.
Taylor Aston, now a student at Auburn, played on Walton’s state championship lacrosse team in 2019, and his father got to call the home games in the state tournament.
The finals were played on a neutral field, at Kennesaw State University. “VOMA,” which the kids meant as “The Voice of Mark Aston,” was a very happy onlooker.
His son scored two goals and an assist as Walton won 8-7 in sudden-death overtime against Lambert on a goal from Tate Harran.
“I was literally crying,” he said. “What a moment. When he scored that goal, that was so special.”
Aston said his enthusiasm for sports is about more than winning and losing. The lessons he learned from his Auburn coach, Pat Dye, and others, are about developing character, sportsmanship and team work.
The best things that adults can do for their children through sports, Aston said, “is to model the kind of behavior they want their kids to follow.”
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