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BOTF VIII: It's Your Time to Shine
January 14, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Battle of the Fans VIII semifinalists: The spotlight is all yours.
You have 12 days to show the MHSAA's Student Advisory Council why your section is a must-see on this year's BOTF finalists tour.
This year’s nine semifinalists are Petoskey, Saginaw Heritage and Traverse City West from Class A; Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard, Buchanan and Wayland from Class B; and Carson City-Crystal, North Muskegon and Petersburg-Summerfield from Class C/D.
Battle of the Fans VIII, organized by MHSAA staff and its 16-member Student Advisory Council, kicked off by inviting schools to submit short videos, via YouTube, of their cheering sections in action by Jan. 13. The Advisory Council has selected nine semifinalists to accomplish a list of tasks showing off their sections over the next 12 days – and the Council will then select three finalists for MHSAA visits.
This year’s winner will be announced Feb. 22 and recognized March 15 during the MHSAA Boys Basketball Semifinals at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center.
Semifinalists are required to complete 10 challenges via their social media channels by 11 p.m. on Jan. 26. Five mandatory challenges focus on contest criteria: positive sportsmanship, student body participation, school spirit, originality of cheers, organization of the group, student section leadership and overall fun.
Five elective challenges (taken from a list of 15 opportunities) will allow semifinalists opportunities to show the unique characteristics that make their sections elite. Click to see descriptions of all 20 challenges on MHSAA.com.
“We’re basically in the ‘Regional’ round now, if you compare this competition to our other tournaments. And these nine challengers are just getting warmed up as they prepare to make a run at earning one of the three finalists visits,” said Andy Frushour, MHSAA director of brand management and advisor to the Student Advisory Council. “The next two weeks should be a lot of fun as we follow these student sections on social media. We’re looking forward to seeing their creativity and positivity.”
The Student Advisory Council will select the finalists for announcement Jan. 28 on the MHSAA Second Half website. MHSAA staff and Student Advisory Council members will visit all three finalists for home basketball games during the second half of this regular season, with coverage and video from those visits and the announcement of the winner all to be published on Second Half.
The winner will be selected by another Advisory Council vote based in part on support each section receives on the MHSAA’s social media sites. All social media postings regarding Battle of the Fans VIII should include the hashtag #BOTF. The MHSAA will share semifinalists’ challenge posts over the next two weeks on its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites and Snapchat feed. The MHSAA also will post from the three finalists visits on those channels.
A total of 20 schools applied for this year’s contest, including six schools for the first time to bring the total to 97 member schools that have applied for the contest at least once over its eight-year existence. Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard is the only school that has applied all eight years.
Also among semifinalists, Buchanan and Traverse City West both have applied six times and Petoskey has applied five. Saginaw Heritage and Wayland are three-time applicants that made it past the first round this year for the first time, and North Muskegon has made it past the first round for the first time in its second attempt. Carson City-Crystal and Petersburg-Summerfield were among first-time applicants.
The other first-time applicants were Allendale, Chesaning, Niles and Oxford. “The addition of a number of new participants this year made the competition even more exciting,” Frushour added.
Buchanan is the reigning BOTF champion. “The Herd” also won BOTF II in 2013 and made the finals in 2014 and 2015.
Traverse City West earned the BOTF title in 2016 and was a finalist in 2014 and 2017 and a semifinalist last year, while Petoskey was a finalist in 2012, 2017 and 2018. Father Gabriel Richard made the finals in 2013.
Click to view all applications on YouTube.
The contest is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan, which promotes Michigan's locally-produced dairy products and nutrition education. Rules plus links to past years’ coverage of the contest can be found on the MHSAA #BOTF webpage.
The Student Advisory Council is made up of eight seniors and eight juniors who each serve two-year terms. The Council acts as the voice of Michigan's student-athletes; it serves as a student sounding board for the MHSAA's Representative Council, assists in planning Sportsmanship Summits, Captains Clinics and other student leadership events; participates in a yearly focus group about the state of high school sports for Michigan State University's Institute for the Study of Youth Sports and assists with medal ceremonies at MHSAA championship events.
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Fighting Irish Stand Together
February 7, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
ANN ARBOR – The day Bridget was taken off her ventilator, all of Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard gathered in the school’s chapel to pray for the 12-year-old member of their family who soon would finish her fight against a rare form of brain cancer.
Senior Adam Olszewski had never seen anything like it. He’s been around the school through the careers of multiple siblings and understands what makes his school a special place. But “her story touched everyone,” he said. “That’s the closest I've ever seen the Richard community.”
The saddest days at Gabriel Richard have only a slight connection with the Fighting Irish’s student cheering section, a finalist in this season’s MHSAA Battle of the Fans II.
But the collective camaraderie present as the school and community mourned signifies the solidarity that has made cheering at the “The Greenhouse” a decade-long tradition and regular part of student life.
“People who come through Richard or are around the Richard community, they say they see something different in how people interact with each other, how close we are,” Olszewski said. “It’s on a different level.”
And that togetherness was easy to recognize during the MHSAA’s Battle of the Fans visit Tuesday for the Fighting Irish’s boys basketball game against Madison Heights Bishop Foley.
Gabriel Richard – which finished sixth in the selection of five finalists for last season’s inaugural BOTF contest – was the third stop on this year’s tour. The MHSAA also has visited reigning champion Frankenmuth and Vandercook Lake, with trips coming up to Zeeland East and Buchanan before Facebook voting begins Feb. 19. The champion will be announced Feb. 22 on Second Half.
Olszewski’s memories of the Irish’s cheering section go back into the early 2000s. His oldest brother Jeff led it as well before graduating in 2008, and even before his family played a part, Adam remembers seeing mentions of the section in the local newspaper.
That recognition through the years has meant a lot to Gabriel Richard, which has 515 students and is much smaller than three Class A schools also sharing the city – Huron (1,810 students), Pioneer (1,670), and Skyline (1,645) – and its local media spotlight.
But in another obvious way, Gabriel Richard is different than its three larger counterparts. It’s a Catholic school, drawing students from multiple Catholic feeder schools, and in turn, multiple communities that border Ann Arbor.
Developing togetherness would seem to be difficult with students coming from various places each day. But the opposite has been true.
As Olszewski explained, the students at Gabriel Richard can find their own niches – sports, or drama, art or other interests. The classes also have retreats each year that bind them tighter.
At a school Gabriel Richard’s size, everyone knows everyone else at least by name or face, and at one point Tuesday the cheering section chanted for a cheerleader by name, at other times did the same for individual players, and Olszewski jokingly scolded individuals throughout the section as he led the cheers and kept the group organized.
The Irish cheerers can be found just about everywhere, even when multiple teams are playing on the same night. On Friday, a spirit bus will take students to the school’s hockey game before bringing them back to watch the boys basketball team. The section has shown up plenty of other places from Comerica Park for the Catholic League baseball final to the school’s powder puff football games.
“We’re definitely bonded,” senior Aaron Tishkoff said. “As a student section, we pride ourselves like that. … I had a friend ask, why can’t we do this at our school? People just won’t do it. And we’re like, we've always done that. That’s just what we do at basketball games.”
“When I got here, the first few (games), it was a lot different,” said senior Blaise Stearns, who transferred from another area school midway through last year. “Everyone comes here and just has fun. You get more close with everybody.”
A major bonding point is the school’s annual "Masquerade for Mott," a fundraiser for C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan. In its fourth year, the event includes nearly two weeks of fundraisers and cheering section theme nights, with the main event next Tuesday’s boys basketball game at Detroit Catholic Central – which joined with Gabriel Richard last year to create a fundraising competition.
A friend of Olszewski’s died last year from a heart condition, and he visited Mott to present the check from the 2012 "Masquerade." On Friday, the cheering section will have a “Zebra Night” in honor of Bridget, who was a big fan of the Gabriel Richard football team and whose favorite animal was a zebra.
Although Bridget’s older brother is an underclassmen at the high school, most of its students didn't know her. But they did know her story and felt bonded by being part of Gabriel Richard – and coming together in her honor again Friday will mean a lot.
Like they have this week for “Superhero Night,” “Beach Night,” and “’70s Night,” they’ll join together to have a good time for a good cause. The message is simple: This is fun. This is what we do. And this is what we'll continue to do when the next class takes over leadership at the front of the crowd.
“It’s a positive attitude, especially if they see the senior guys like us having a positive attitude. It’s really easy for them to follow,” Wolf said. It’s been a tradition here for so long. It’s not that hard for us to do. Kids know it’s Friday night, we go to a basketball game. That’s what we do; we go and have fun and we participate in the student section.”
Subway is a sponsor of this season's Battle of the Fans II contest.
PHOTO: (Top) Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard students follow leader Adam Olszewski as they ride the "roller coaster" during Tuesday's boys basketball game against Madison Heights Bishop Foley. (Middle) "Moses" emerges from the top of the Gabriel Richard student section. (Photo courtesy of Todd Sexton.)