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Amid 2020 Woes, Duba Assist Unforgettable

By Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com

December 30, 2020

GRAND RAPIDS – Nearly two months have passed since Maggie Duba received acclaim for an unselfish act of kindness at the end of the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Girls Cross Country Finals.

Duba, a Grand Rapids West Catholic junior, sacrificed her time and position in the eventual race standings to help a fallen fellow competitor make it to the finish line.

It was an uplifting moment during an unprecedented year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m really surprised at the attention it has received, and I wasn’t thinking at all like the news is going to see this, but I’m glad it did and everyone has said how it was needed in 2020,” Duba said. “It shows the good that can come out of sports, and it’s just another reason for me to be thankful that I was able to run this season.”  

Duba was heading down the final stretch of her race Nov. 6 at Michigan International Speedway when she saw Remus Chippewa Hills junior Sarah Storey in anguish.

Storey had fallen to her knees, struggling mightily to rise back up and continue.

“I remember coming around the curve, and I was on the straightaway when my legs started to give out a little bit,” Storey said. “I was determined to try and make it to the end as best I could, but I really couldn't move my legs anymore and then I finally went down.

“After that it was a struggle to get back up, and I was thinking maybe I could crawl or something. I was stuck until Maggie came along.”

After a rough start to the race, Duba had found her form in the second mile and headed into the stadium looking to make a strong closing push.

That’s when she noticed Storey. The pair were about 15-20 yards from the finish.

“I was trying to pass as many people and still get a good time,” Duba said. “I saw her down, and it was just kind of instinct to go right up to her and pick her up. I’ve seen it before in the Olympics, and I guess seeing that made me think that I needed to do that, too. I threw my goal of having my best race out the window because helping her was more important.”

Duba didn’t hesitate, and aided Storey by helping her up and offering encouraging words.

“She did not want to get up so I had to talk to her a little bit and slowly pulled her up and helped her,” Duba said. “The time is still ticking, and the girls I had worked hard on passing were passing me. I did notice that, but I didn't stop helping her.

“I just kept walking with her when she was up and got her running, and when she was running a little bit I slowly let go so she could finish on her own and I ran to the finish a little bit ahead of her.”

Duba was determined to make sure Storey also completed the race.

“I told her that you can’t not finish right now,” Duba said. “She had pushed so hard like everyone there racing, and anyone who has had that great of a finish deserves to finish that race, especially when she was so close to finishing. I was glad that I was able to help her because if she wasn’t able to finish then that would've been really sad, especially this year.”

Unforgettable finish

Although disorientated at the time, Storey vaguely remembered what Duba told her.

“From what I remember, she kind of said, ‘Come on, you can do this, you didn’t come this far not to finish.’ She just really tried to encourage me and convince me to get up and everything,” Storey said. “For me it was a big reminder of how sports are a lot bigger than just how fast you can run or how well you can do. It’s the people that make the sport, and I think what Maggie did showed a lot of people that, including myself.

“I think sometimes, especially at the state finals, you are concerned about your place or your time, but sometimes it’s not about that. It’s about the people you can help instead of just your finish.

Storey collapsed after crossing the finish line, and was taken to an ambulance. She was treated for about 20 minutes and then released.

“It was actually kind of weird because nothing like that had ever happened to me before,” Storey said. “They checked my vitals and everything and they thought about giving me an IV because they thought I might be dehydrated. They didn’t give me anything, and I went home that night and laid low and recovered the next couple days. I was pretty tired.”

Storey visited her doctor a few days later.

“They said it was a fluke thing,” she said. “It might’ve been a combination of a couple things that weren't quite right and they all came together on the same day. It might've been the heat because it was a little warmer than normal for November that day. It really was the perfect storm.”

West Catholic cross country coach Noreen Duba, Maggie’s mother, watched the entire ordeal unfold from the infield while taking pictures.

At the time, she was unsure if it was her daughter who had helped the fallen runner.

“I could see that someone had fallen, and she had helped them up. I got a little panicky at that point,” Noreen Duba said. “I saw her help her up, but I was running along behind the cement walls to get there and I didn’t see the complete finish. I didn’t see Maggie let her go and let Sarah finish on her own. Then we lost track of Sarah.” 

The Dubas left the race not knowing the name of the girl, which school she attended or her condition.

“I didn’t know what happened to her, and I was going to go home and look at the results and try to find someone from a school that had a red uniform to see who this girl was and what happened,” Noreen Duba said. 

A mutual friend from a cross country camp who was at the meet had seen the finish and recognized Maggie Duba.

Ironically, he went to Remus Chippewa Hills, and the coach called later that night to give an update. Noreen Duba and Storey’s mother, Beth, talked the next day.

Noreen Duba, who became emotional after the race, wondered what she would’ve done with a similar circumstance.

“I’m glad that Maggie did that, and I said to my assistant coach, ‘In that oxygen-deprived state, running hard toward the finish, focusing on that finish, would I have done the right thing?’” she said. “I was very proud and impressed by Maggie because that was her instinct. There wasn’t a thought process.

“Maggie stopped and helped her ,and I think I would’ve done that because that’s the way I’ve raised my kids and how I coach my team. You would do the right thing. Nothing is as important as helping somebody in need. I was really glad and relieved that she did that because you hate to see that happen.”

Maggie Duba, in her second straight trip to the Finals, finished the race in 20 minutes, 43.2 seconds and was 93rd. Storey was 98th (20:46.69). At the time Storey fell, she was among a pack that would go on to place in the mid-70s, while Duba’s group at the time was about 10 seconds behind and would place in the 80s.

Cartwheels up

After Maggie Duba’s show of sportsmanship, she displayed a unique move upon crossing the finish line: She did a cartwheel … sort of.

“It wasn’t as great as I thought it was going to be because I was so tired,” Maggie Duba said. “I did that, and it was awful and embarrassing and I looked really dumb, but I did it for my teammates who came to support me.”

Maggie Duba was alone at the meet after West Catholic missed out on qualifying as a team. However, her teammates made the long trip to watch her run and challenged her to do something different at the end.

 “They dared me to do that because my friend and I had been working on our handstands all season and she wanted me to walk on my hands across,” Duba said. “There was no way I was doing that, but I did the cartwheel and they thought it was hilarious and they were so glad I did it. They were waiting all race for me to do that so I’m glad I did it for them because they were really happy.”

Duba and Storey hope to return to the Finals next year as seniors. Storey said she learned valuable lessons from her experience.

 “I have a little more perspective about how deep the sport can really go and how many people it can reach,” she said. “It just makes me excited to finish out my senior year of cross country and see how I can impact other people by what I’ve learned through this experience.”

Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for four years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties. 

PHOTOS: (Top) Grand Rapids West Catholic’s Maggie Duba, right, encourages Remus Chippewa Hills’ Sarah Storey while helping Storey complete their Division 2 Final on Nov. 6 at Michigan International Speedway. (Middle) Duba, upon finding Storey on the ground about 15-20 yards from the finish line, assists her to her feet and guides her the rest of the race. (Below) Storey, left, and Duba approach the finish. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)

No Place Buchanan’s Herd Would Rather Be

February 17, 2018

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor 

BUCHANAN – Cailin Gunn was new at Buchanan entering eighth grade, and she was shy. What’s more, eighth graders in her district are housed in the same building as the high schoolers, which understandably could be intimidating.

She went to only one basketball game that season, in 2013-14. But the wall of Bucks cheering on their team easily caught her attention.

And then Jessica Lee, another eighth grader that year, and her friends invited Gunn to join the “Herd” – at that point the reigning Battle of the Fans II champion.

“She was scared, and we all took her in,” Lee said. “Because I know it is scary going to a new school. So the Herd was like, we’re open to everyone. Everybody come join.”

Also an eighth-grader at that time, Kevin Frost was tucked into a top corner of “The Woods” as section leaders whose names remain easy to recall helped Buchanan’s become an example to be followed statewide.

“We just got to see them in action. It was just amazing to watch,” said Frost, who with Lee and Gunn is among current Herd leaders. “I don’t know how to describe it. When we won on a buzzer beater at the ‘Mean Stinks’ game – just to be part of that; it’s come full circle. To be down leading everyone else, it’s indescribable.”

The tradition indeed lives on. The MHSAA’s visit to Buchanan for Friday’s boys basketball game against Berrien Springs was its fourth in seven years of Battle of the Fans and the last of three finalists tour stops for this year’s BOTF VII.

We met with section leaders Gunn, Lee, Frost, fellow seniors Madison Schau and Kenneth Stuckey and junior Garret Lollar to learn more about how they’ve both carried on and added to the Herd’s legacy.

As with our first two finalists tour reports on Petoskey’s Blue Crew and Boyne City’s Rambler Rowdies, below is our review of an evening hanging with the Bucks. Following again the format of a typical game night, we begin with the Herd’s suggestions for other student sections getting started and video from our visit and then tell more of the story behind a group that continues to rock the bleachers.

Buchanan’s Gameplan

Take some of these tips from Buchanan’s Herd:

• Be positive – in planning and performance. It all starts with the right attitude, Lollar said, and that starts with the process behind the scenes and carries over to the fun in the stands.

• Don’t be scared. That advice covers a number of scenarios. Don’t be scared to come to a student section meeting with older classmates or many you don’t know. Don’t be scared to share your opinion. And never be scared to dance with your section when the rest of the crowd is watching.

• Make it all about fun. The more fun you’re having, the more tightly-knit your section will become.

• Work together. The Herd has a large group of leaders, but they work to make all of their individual ideas mesh together. That allows them to collect a lot of great ones – and keep everyone in a large group engaged as well.

Pregame Prep

As an established section for most of this decade, the Herd generally enters a school year with a running start.

Tradition and expectations are set, thanks in part to a group of teachers who are passionate about facilitating whatever the Herd needs to be at its best. But students continue to show as well – it’s the usual this year to have 30 or more at the section’s regular meetings.

The Herd from its beginnings at the start of this decade has been about immersing itself in the community. That’s included a lot of things over the years, including being asked to attend events in town that have little to do with the school’s athletics. But it begins with becoming a fabric of the entire school district, which starts in part with section leaders holding “traveling pep rallies” to teach cheers to elementary and middle school students. (The video below was submitted as part of the BOTF "Challenge Round.")

At one traveling pep rally, Gunn and her fifth-grade sister led a cheer together. Another poignant moment unfolded when kids ran up to Lee later on because they recognized her from a pep rally and wanted to show her some of the cheers they’d learned.

“They saw me as a leader, and I like to be a leader,” Lee said. “And I think that’s another thing I like about the Herd: I see myself in them. I was you once, and now I’m … the people who led it before.”

For this year’s application video, the Herd rallied its classmates during the final days before holiday break to shoot a lip dub. Leaders went that route because they wanted to offer something that hadn’t been done as part of BOTF before – but also, the lip dub allowed them to show off more than just a basketball game night. The run through the school’s hallways included appearances by a number of sports teams, school clubs and social groups that all have some ownership in the section.

Herd leaders have an inside joke that while the section has always been good, it went through some “dark ages” before experiencing a “renaissance” this year. This BOTF candidacy is topping things off. 

“I feel like this has been our entire high school (career),” Schau said. “We’ve been part of the Herd since we got into the high school. … It’s something we’ve always done, all the way through. So our passion’s really strong this year.”

Game Time

“Tonight for sure, you’re going to see some bad dancing,” Stuckey said. “I’m one of them, but we’re going to let it all out.”

The Woods are alive from before tip-off until long after the final buzzer. There are plenty of traditions – the speaker system pipes in music during quarter breaks and halftimes for a full section dance party, and during play the cheers and chants are ones the Herd has made regulars over the years – and taught to all of those younger students coming up so they’re ready to step in as high schoolers.

Community indeed runs deep. On this night, Buchanan’s 1977-78 Class C champion boys basketball team was featured for a halftime reunion. As would make sense, the Herd wasn’t really involved – but then received a giant shout-out at the end of the ceremony from retired coach Mike Rouse.

A few other things that stuck out on this night: Halftime kicked off with a full section conga line around the gym. And as it’s done since 2012-13, the Herd finished the night after the game had ended singing a song from the stands with the team and many from the community filling the floor.

Also recognizable were faces in other sections of the gym of at least a few alums we’d seen in years past. That support is ongoing – the Herd has received quite a bit of social media action from past grads sharing their pride. They’ve also seen it from visiting fans and even an opposing player who said his school’s student section needed to step up to Buchanan’s level.

The Woods has been shaking things up quite a bit this winter. On the road at places like Niles Brandywine, where it joined that school’s “Pink Out.” Supporting other teams besides basketball, including wrestling and competitive cheer. Unifying with the boys basketball team on Tie-Dye Night, when Bucks players also hit the court dressed to match. Herd leaders are even planning to have a spring cheering section for the first time, supporting those often-forgotten teams as well.

Some Herd leaders weren’t psyched at first with Lollar’s suggestion of Clean Bandit’s “Rather Be” as the soundtrack for the lip dub – they were hoping for something currently popular. But the 2014 jam has grown into this year’s anthem. And Friday, it seemed like no one wanted to go home when the game was done.

“This is really important to us,” Gunn said, “and we really live that saying – there’s no place we’d rather be.”

Postgame Analysis

Please join us: “Instead of coming into high school and it being scary, terrifying, like (these are) bigger people than you, it’s an inviting thing,” Lollar said. “Because you get to have fun with a bunch of people you usually wouldn’t hang out with. In the student section, I stand next to freshmen I don’t talk to (otherwise) ever. But I’m friends with them because we have this.”

Leave a legacy: “I notice when we go on our traveling pep rallies, we see these kids at the elementary school – they’re not even higher than my knee,” Schau said. “And they know the cheers. I don’t know if I was that age and knew how to cheer, but they know the cheers by heart. That’s what makes me want to do it – because those kids know every single cheer. You just grow up. They know now. They know what to do.”

Shy no more: “All of the positivity and all of these people showed me there’s no reason to be scared,” Gunn said. “Something I learned and something other people should learn is you won’t be embarrassed (because) everyone else is doing it around you. It’s a lot of fun.”

We will remember this forever: “It’s something we get to remember (from) high school,” Stuckey said. “There are many kids who can’t be like, ‘We had a student section and we were able to lead it.’ And it’s nice we’re able to say that. The Herd is a family; we’re not just people who know each other, we’re not just a student section. We all care about each other, and it’s nice to have a family away from your real family.”

Next on BOTF: The Buchanan visit concluded this year’s BOTF finalists tour. Beginning Tuesday, fans all over the state may vote for the student section they think should win this year’s contest. Check out Second Half on Tuesday for instructions on how to vote on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The champion will be announced Feb. 23.

Click to see our reports on Petoskey’s Blue Crew and Boyne City’s Rambler Rowdies.

The Battle of the Fans is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.

PHOTOS: (Top) Buchanan's "Herd" cheers during Friday's boys basketball game against Berrien Springs. (Middle) Classmates follow the beat as Kevin Frost plays drums during a break in the action. (Photos courtesy of Buchanan's yearbook staff.)