5 Ways Charlotte’s Flight Club Soars
January 31, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
CHARLOTTE – “One night to become State Champions.”
On social media and written at the bottom of its itinerary for the night, Charlotte’s Flight Club made perfectly clear what Saturday’s Battle of the Fans visit meant to a student section that while only a few years old has quickly become one of Michigan’s most accomplished – and is striving to become known as the state’s best.
Students filled stands covering one end of the court at Charlotte’s “Dome” as we enjoyed the third of our five-visit tour on a night saluting local law enforcement.
The breakdown: In two years, Charlotte’s student section has come from nonexistent to become a two-time BOTF finalist. As we learned during our 2016 trip, it was hatched during a series of January 2015 snow days, when student leaders took advantage of the break by meeting and forming a Flight Club to give more support at first to the school’s basketball teams and then to all Orioles athletes. The section gained steam over the course of last school year and especially last winter during a strong start for the boys basketball team, and despite graduating nearly all of its leaders last spring returned in force this fall to become a regular part of student life at the school.
We visited for Saturday’s boys basketball game against DeWitt and met with seniors Jess Ramos, Grant Seavolt, Cassie Cotter, Connor Rosekrans and Ari Beutler.
See our video below, followed by five reasons the Flight Club continues to take off.
1. They have been building – literally.
The Flight Club claims to have more props than any student section in the state, and it’s a strong argument. They sadly waved goodbye to the S.S. Flightanic – a rolling boat they featured last season – after it ran aground in storage. But section leaders came back in August with their tools and paint cans ready. They built a giant “bird cage” out of PVC pipe to house Charlotte’s football teams at their field entrance before they busted out before games this fall. They created a second giant tifo (a.k.a. giant banner seen in photo below) that makes trips to most big games. And we enjoyed watching again as a member of the Club popped from the homemade oversized jack-in-the-box rolled out after the third quarter. A fan slip-n-slide set up for an early football game didn’t really take off, but most of the rest have been big winners – including the face-paint station in one corner of the gym where anyone can get made up to further show support.
2. They got organized.
As noted above, the Flight Club is barely two years old but quickly has grown into a force – and especially this school year as it’s become more organized. They received a new “nest” (our word, not theirs), a classroom where they store their many gizmos and gear and plan their work. White boards on one wall were loaded with lists and maps of the gym showing which sections of fans would sit where Saturday, while newspaper clips detailing their successes filled a bulletin board on another wall and a mural created by section co-creator and 2016 graduate Lindsey Carlson hung next to a letter sweater formerly worn by the dad of faculty section adviser Tyler Bartolacci, a 2007 grad. Section leaders now attend meetings every Monday and others as needs arise, created an itinerary for Saturday that was sent around on social media before the game, and members of the section proudly wore around their necks “boarding passes” – not that they needed identifying, but a neat show of solidarity nonetheless.
And leaders are still giving “Flight Club” lessons – videos over Twitter to show some of the cheers they’ll use at future events.
Be ready for tomorrow!!!! pic.twitter.com/TgbBGSTxxt
— The Flight Club (@chsflightclub) January 27, 2017
3. The pilots guide them home.
Last year, section leaders patrolled in front of the section – “flight attendants” showing the way. Taking the reins during games this year are “pilots,” one on each side of the baseline, standing on risers, megaphones in hand to provide the direction for all to hear and see. On Saturday, new leaders stepped up every quarter to guide the section and unify it for some awesome chants including a drum clap during the first half that will be a highlight of this year’s BOTF tour.
4. They’re making ‘highlights’ along the way.
Most schools with student sections can count on seeing them at football and basketball games. Starting in the fall, the Flight Club selected “highlight games” in every sport to also cheer – and not just for the more popular spectator sports like volleyball or soccer. The Club has cheered at girls and boys swimming & diving meets and at a hockey game this winter despite having only one Charlotte student on a co-op team with Lansing Catholic, Mason and Lansing Christian players. The first highlight game was a girls golf match during the fall, where 10 members of the Club cheered from the clubhouse as their classmates played the ninth fairway. And they packed local Char Lanes for a Neon Out and lots of “Strike, Strike, Strike” for a bowling match. “A lot of kids on the bowling team were really excited to see us there,” Rosekrans said. “They were talking about it the whole next week: ‘Thanks for coming. That was awesome.’”
5. They’ve got P.R.I.D.E.
Purpose. Respect. Integrity. Dedication. Excellence. PRIDE is a school motto, and a large board near the gym doors explains how students should be guided by those qualities in the classrooms and hallways. But Club members also have a lot of pride (the non-acronym meaning) in their school, and have risen as a giant in fan support at a time when Charlotte’s most recognizable sports teams aren’t having a ton of success. Driving their athletes to do their best only makes the Flight Club cheer louder. Students filled multiple spectator buses for football games, load the stands for basketball games, have worked closely with the middle school’s “Junior Flight Club” that also got organized this year, and had no doubts about making another run at Battle of the Fans after making an impressive debut but coming up short of the title in 2016. “Everyone has a ton of fun at the games,” Rosekrans said. “I think they naturally thought, let’s do it again next year.”
In their words
Setting themselves apart: “We kept seeing what we could do to make us champions,” Ramos said. “We wanted to know what would set us apart, and we spent a lot of time thinking about that and trying to see what we did last year compared to this year that we wanted to do differently.”
Memories made: “I made a lot of great memories just through the Flight Club, especially this year with football,” Seavolt said. “It’ been a lot to remember.”
Just say the word: “Get the community involved. People want to come to the games. They just don’t know about it all the time,” Rosekrans said. “Social media. Tell people. Literally, that’s all it is. The power of talking to someone is very underestimated.”
Next stop on BOTF: We'll visit Petoskey for Wednesday’s boys basketball game against Sault Ste. Marie and Frankenmuth for Friday’s boys basketball game against Millington. Click for coverage of our visits to Boyne City on Jan. 13 and Traverse City West on Jan. 20.
The Battle of the Fans is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.
PHOTOS: (Top) Charlotte's "Flight Club" chants during a drum clap Saturday. (Middle) Flight Club members hold up two giant tifos during the Battle of the Fans visit. (Photos by Teresa Johns.)
Midland Heroes Win 'Match of Life' In Saving Another On Way to Regional
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
February 22, 2023
Wilson Shinske woke up Saturday hoping to accomplish something great.
But the Midland senior had no idea just how great and impactful his accomplishment would be, and that it would happen well before he stepped on a wrestling mat.
On the way to the Division 1 Wrestling Regional at Hartland, Shinske and his dad, Steve, pulled a man from a burning vehicle on I-75 and helped resuscitate him on the side of the road. As the man was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, the Shinskes got back in their own vehicle and made it to the meet in time for weigh-ins.
“The entire way there, I was thinking, ‘It doesn’t matter if I lose or if I win today, this was a win,’” Wilson Shinske said. “Being on the wrestling team is about being part of something bigger than yourself. Yeah, I lost both of my matches, and it was like that journey has ended. But knowing what I did earlier, I won the match of life.”
Shinske finished his wrestling season with a 21-11 record after dropping his pair of Regional matches at 215 pounds. While all of that was certainly important to him, and the end of any senior season can be tough, the events of Saturday morning put a lot of things in perspective.
“I can tell you that I was proud as hell of him,” Steve Shinske said. “I was super proud of how he handled the morning. I was proud – I’m always proud of him when he does a sport, even when he thinks he doesn’t do well. When he lost, I saw him take those losses on Saturday differently than he had in the past in some of those situations. I think he had a different mindset. After he lost the second match, he went over and sat by a wall, and there were some tears shed. There were a ton of emotions, and not just wrestling emotions.”
Wilson Shinske’s day had started like hundreds of wrestlers around the state, as he left Midland around 5:30 a.m. focused on advancing to the MHSAA Individual Finals at Ford Field.
He fell asleep during the ride, but when the car started to slow down well before he thought it should, he knew something was off.
After coming over the Zilwaukee Bridge, Steve Shinske noticed a car fire ahead. As they approached, the retired Midland fireman decided he would stop and see how he could help, figuring he would see someone outside of the vehicle.
What he saw, however, was the driver slumped over in the front seat of the pickup truck. He pulled to the side of the road, and as he made his way to the truck, so did Wilson, who had now woken up from his pre-meet nap.
“It was 75 at 6 a.m. on a Saturday with no traffic; there’s no way we should be slowing down,” Wilson remembered. “As soon as he put it in park, not even a second later, I’m out of the car.”
As the Shinskes got to the vehicle, Steve noticed the driver – whose name they would later learn is Jerry – still had his foot crammed on the accelerator. That left the rear tires spinning until the tires had burned off and the rims were grinding on the pavement, which caused the fire at the back of the truck. His first move was to put the car in park and shut it off.
They removed Jerry – who they determined was not breathing and did not have a pulse – from the truck, and then Wilson’s training kicked in.
Wilson – a three-sport athlete who carries a 3.8 GPA – plans to study nursing in college, and spends much of his school day working in a hospital as part of a co-op. He’s CPR-certified and plans to work in the ER or a trauma unit.
A point of emphasis in Wilson’s training is to assess the situation in an emergency.
“The car is on fire, the gas tank is in the back of the car, we need to get him away from this,” Wilson said. “We need to get him up in front of our car – put a barrier between us to protect us if something happened. I don’t think there were really any nerves, just more fight or flight. I’m not running away, I’m fighting this. I wasn’t concerned with how cold it was – I wasn’t dressed for 20-degree weather – it was, ‘We have a problem here, let’s fix this problem.’”
Steve started CPR on Jerry while Wilson went back to see if they could find any personal information about him that would help, and 9-1-1 was called.
An off-duty paramedic then arrived on the scene, and put in a call to her supervisor for more assistance. That’s when Wilson took over CPR, and Steve went to put out the fire using snow from the median.
When the supervisor arrived, he brought out an AED to deliver a shock to Jerry’s heart. After some more CPR, Jerry took a gasp of air, and the monitor showed that there was heart activity.
“Then the cavalry came,” Steve said of the rush of emergency vehicles on the scene. He borrowed a fire extinguisher from a police officer to put out the remaining flames, and Jerry was loaded into an ambulance. Wilson said he could see Jerry taking breaths as he was being put into the ambulance.
The whole situation took about 15 to 20 minutes.
“Wilson’s played a lot of sports – football, tennis, he’s wrestled since he’s been 6, he plays golf – he understands that sports gives you perseverance, it gives you a different mindset,” Steve said. “I bet anybody that he works with on the floor at the hospital will tell you that he’s the most outgoing, go-getter co-op student they’ve had. Those things in his life helped him in that situation.”
Jerry survived, and the Shinskes went to visit him in the hospital Monday. While there, they learned from the family that the fire had started to melt the gas tank before Steve was able to put it out. They also learned that Jerry’s wife had recently passed away, and that their quick action had prevented his family from adding another layer of grief in a very short time.
“I love watching (Wilson) wrestle, and I’m going to miss watching him wrestle,” Steve Shinske said. “But watching him on I-75 on Saturday morning was almost better than watching him wrestle. He, as a young man, as a person that’s getting ready to go into the next phase of his life, to be able to handle something like that and not miss a beat was special.”
For Wilson, the experience further cemented his chosen career path, and desire to help others.
“I want to be a part of saving lives more often,” he said. “Not that I want to see people in these situations, but I want to help them when they are.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) From left: Wilson Shinske, Jerry and Steve Shinske meet Monday, two days after the father and son helped save Jerry’s life on I-75. (Middle) Wilson Shinske, far right, has his arm raised in victory after a match. (Photos courtesy of the Shinske family, with permission.)