'Green Machine' Gears Up for BOTF V
January 26, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
MUSKEGON – Lots of cheering. Lots of smiles. Everyone in beach gear and standing for a girls basketball game – flippers and all.
The first revving of Western Michigan Christian’s “Green Machine” this winter won’t soon be forgotten by leaders charged this fall with organizing the few hundred students who now regularly fill a corner of the Warriors’ gym to cheer on their classmates.
“It was like, ‘Whoa,’” senior Christopher Visser remembered of that first game together. Freshman Tyler Somers left with an impression that “we can do this.”
“It gave us a lot of confidence,” senior Lily Vander Molen said during Saturday’s Battle of the Fans finalists visit. “Like wow, this is our first try. Look at the great response we’ve gotten. It made me really proud of our school.”
The first four years of Battle of the Fans have uncovered common strategies for nurturing a strong student cheering section. Still, there isn’t a book explaining how to get one started.
WMC’s “mechanics” came up with a blueprint that over a few months has organized an already-enthusiastic student body of nearly 300 and made it a model for student sections statewide.
Western Michigan Christian was the second stop on this year’s BOTF finalists tour, which began with a trip to Yale on Jan. 15 and will continue with visits to Traverse City West, Munising and Charlotte over the next three weeks leading up to the naming of this year’s champion Feb. 19. The public may vote for its favorite on the MHSAA’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites beginning Feb. 16, with the MHSAA Student Advisory Council taking that vote into consideration when selecting the champion after that vote has concluded.
Here’s how the Green Machine joined the party:
The scene was set for success with a student body that admittedly feels bonded, both by its small size and shared faith. Students at least recognize the rest of their classmates and meet for all-school chapel services weekly – and like most schools with an organized student section, attended games together in the past but en masse only for the big ones.
Athletic director Josh Glerum got the ball rolling at first this fall, showing senior Nathan Landheer the video from last year’s visit to eventual Battle of the Fans champion Dowagiac. Still, the small group of leaders who attended the MHSAA’s Sportsmanship Summit on Nov. 16 in Kalamazoo didn’t really understand what they were getting into even as they were making the trip.
The Summit’s message of positive sportsmanship – and emphasis on Battle of the Fans – sunk in quickly.
“We've always had a really cool student-based student section, just a really cool environment. We've always had this really cool spirit,” junior Kaitlyn Van Hekken said. “Everyone wants to come out and cheer people on. After (the Summit), we were like, this is something that we can do. Let's expand on this, because we already have all the people for it.”
The three leaders came back and started to spread the message. They first met as “mechanics” – Glerum selected the representatives, including Landheer, Vander Molen, Visser, senior Maddy Heffron, Van Hekken and junior Dorie Bekins, sophomore Natalie Van Houwelingen and freshmen Somers and Sarah Moorhead – the Tuesday after the Summit and began hatching the plan.
They would work to have big crowds for Friday night home games – WMC parties students would look forward to all week. And they would point toward Battle of the Fans as the drive for participation.
“I love getting crazy, and I'm also a really competitive person. So if you're going to put me in a competition where all I have to do is get crazier than the other people, I will win that competition,” Visser said.
“We just know this school is super close, together. So basically it was just like, hey, let's go get all of our friends and do this thing.”
Communication had to be a focus – first to tell classmates there would be a student section, then to explain how the section would work.
And it needed a name.
Using Twitter, Snapchat, Survey Monkey and old-fashioned e-mail, students cast votes – Warrior Nation and Gang Green also were candidates – and Green Machine came out as the big winner.
Mechanics decided the key would be big turnouts immediately for the opening games for both the girls (Dec. 1) and boys basketball (Dec. 8) teams. They started planning themes for those games and preparing a list of cheers. They came up with contests for best costume for theme nights and games for students to play during halftime.
The mechanics took all of it to the student body during a pep assembly where each mechanic dressed up for a different theme, explained Battle of the Fans, what they learned at the Summit and showed the Dowagiac video to the entire school.
“I don’t know if we knew how to do anything,” Van Hekken said. “We’re like, maybe a pep assembly would work. We had an idea. Let’s just try a pep assembly, see how it goes. The response was overwhelmingly good.”
They circled that girls opener as a “Beach Night” and hoped for the best.
The best continues to get better.
For Saturday’s girls and boys games against Spring Lake, nearly 180 students filled one set of stands, with a sizable pep band filling the adjacent corner and a group of middle schoolers then packing half the baseline stands on the other side. WMC has four feeder middle schools, and mechanics have made sure to include those students to get them to not only participate this year, but take up the mission for years to come.
The cheers aren’t much different than what students have done in the past, but the intensity and participation are different, Landheer said. Students load into spirit buses for away games when available, rushing to the school office to reserve seats.
And the bond already present has grown tighter, with the Green Machine another way for a close-knit student community to feel even more inclusive.
“The coaches came up to me afterward (the first night) and said this is the best the girls have ever played; ‘Thank you for starting to lead the student the right way.’ That was my encouragement to keep going with these,” Landheer said.
“Even if you’re not involved in the sport of basketball, you can still come out on Friday nights and feel part of the team. We create a team on the court and a team in the stands, (and) we work together.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Western Michigan Christian students cheer on their boys basketball team Saturday night. (Middle) The Green Machine student section cheers for classmates during pregame introductions. (Below) Senior Christopher Visser waves the WMC flag to rev up the crowd. (Photos by Randy Riksen Photography.)
Scholar-Athlete Awards Finalists Named
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
January 25, 2012
The 120 finalists for the Michigan High School Athletic Association's Scholar-Athlete Award for the 2011-12 school year -- including three each from three schools -- have been announced.
The program, which has been recognizing student-athletes since the 1989-90 school year, will honor 32 individuals from MHSAA member schools who participate in at least one sport in which the Association sponsors a postseason tournament. Farm Bureau Insurance underwrites the Scholar-Athlete Award, and will present a $1,000 scholarship to each recipient. Since the beginning of the program, 544 scholarships have been awarded.
Scholarships will be presented proportionately by school classification, with 12 scholarships to be awarded to Class A student-athletes, six female and six male; eight scholarships will be awarded to Class B student-athletes, four female and four male; six scholarships will be awarded to Class C student-athletes, three female and three male; and four scholarships will be awarded to Class D student-athletes, two female and two male. In addition, there also will be two at-large honorees which also are part of the general judging process, may come from any classification, and are designated by their school at the time of entry.
Every MHSAA member high school could submit as many applications as there are scholarships available in its classification, and could have more than one finalist. Marlette, Northville and Rochester Adams each have three finalists this year, while 20 schools have two: Bay City Central, Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice, Birmingham Groves, Dearborn, Delton Kellogg, East Lansing, Frankfort, Hillsdale Academy, Hopkins, Jenison, Kinde-North Huron, Midland, Midland Dow, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, Rochester, Spring Lake, Springport, Tecumseh, White Lake Lakeland and Williamston.
Multiple-sport participation remains the norm among applicants. The average sport participation rate of the finalists is 2.58, while the average of the application pool was 2.13 – both within a tenth of last year’s rates in those categories. There are 66 three-plus sport participants in the finalist field, and all but three of the 28 sports in which the MHSAA sponsors postseason tournaments are represented.
Of 386 schools which submitted applicants, 51 submitted the maximum allowed. This year, 1,636 applications were received. All will be presented with certificates commemorating their achievement. Additional Scholar-Athlete information, including a complete list of scholarship nominees, can be found on this MHSAA Website link.
The applications were judged by a 62-member committee of school coaches, counselors, faculty members, administrators and board members from MHSAA member schools. Selection of the 32 scholarship recipients will take place in early February. Class C and D scholarship recipients will be announced on February 7; Class B scholarship recipients will be announced on February 14, and Class A scholarship recipients will be announced on February 21. All announcements will be made on the MHSAA Web site.
To honor the 32 Scholar-Athlete Award recipients, a ceremony will take place during halftime of the Class C Boys Basketball Final, March 24 at the Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing.
To be eligible for the award, students must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.50 (on a 4.0 scale), and previously have won a varsity letter in at least one sport in which the MHSAA sponsors a postseason tournament. Students also were asked to respond to a series of short essay questions, submit two letters of recommendation and submit a 500-word essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.
Farm Bureau Insurance, one of Michigan's major insurers, has a statewide force of more than 400 agents serving more than 380,000 Michigan policyholders. Besides providing life, home, auto, farm, business and retirement insurance, the company also sponsors life-saving, real-time Doppler weather tracking systems in several Michigan communities.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,600 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract approximately 1.6 million spectators each year.
2011-12 Scholar-Athlete Award Finalists
BOYS CLASS A
Matthew Alexander Beem, Traverse City West
Brendon Clover, White Lake Lakeland
Ryan Denison, Dearborn
Saeed El Saghir, Bay City Central
Steven Alexander Fox, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central
Christopher Robert Hagan, East Lansing
Alexander Hassan, Ann Arbor Huron
Joshua M. Heinze, Plymouth
Knute Hoffman, Midland
Hunter Holtrop, Okemos
Josh Hoogendoorn, Jenison
Nick Iacobellis, DeWitt
Jeremy Kozler, Livonia Stevenson
Conrad Arthur Lather, Midland Dow
Alec Latta, Northville
Gabriel Martinez, Livonia Franklin
Robert Paul, Bay City Central
Andrew Poterala, Northville
Nick Rao, Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice
Christopher Sesi, Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice
Blaine Stannard, Birmingham Groves
Alex Taylor, Rochester Adams
Daniel Tzou, Midland Dow
Garret Zuk, White Lake Lakeland
GIRLS CLASS A
Kelsey Adamski, Richland Gull Lake
Ellery Alexander, Caledonia
Kortnie L. Bush, Southgate Anderson
Jaymie Dyer, Hartland
Bethany Easom, Saline
Yara Nidal Fakhoury, Dearborn
Heather Smith, Farmington Hills Mercy
Amanda Marie Fodera, Fraser
Alexa Giovanatti, Rochester Adams
Morgan Hawver, Grand Haven
Hannah Marie Howarth, Gibraltar Carlson
Kelsey Kerin, St Clair
Hannah Lee, Rochester Adams
Maria Lepore, Rochester
Kelly Lunghamer, Birmingham Marian
Nicole McDermott, Mason
Gina Marie McNamara, Northville
Katelyn Alexandra Pekala, Midland
Abigail Rawling, Rochester
Dana Schrauben, Lake Orion
Alexis Stanton, Jenison
Alexandra Trecha, East Lansing
Jessica Turner, Birmingham Groves
Abigail Wilson, Trenton
BOYS CLASS B
Jordan S. Daley, Grand Rapids Christian
Griffin Dean, Grayling
Nathaniel P. Gaynor, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep
Mason E. Geno, Essexville Garber
Jeffrey John Gregory, Kingsford
Nathaniel Ferris Iveson, Middleville Thornapple Kellogg
Andrew Kelley, Allegan
Nathan Kossey, Tecumseh
Joseph Longstreet, Hastings
Dan Macalka, Comstock Park
Dillon McCarthy, Whitehall
Jacob Mineau, Marysville
Nick Huston Parnell, Spring Lake
Caleb Pung, Portland
Craig Zebell, Dowagiac
Alan Zhen, Livonia Clarenceville
GIRLS CLASS B
Sara Marie Barron, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep
Kathryn MacDermid Bollman, Williamston
Julie Buursma, Holland Christian
Kristin Gilbert, Hopkins
Hannah Grischke, Williamston
Sarah Hartley, Birch Run
Emily Kendro, Spring Lake
Nathalie Kenny, Manistee
Keara Kilbane, Hopkins
Laurin Masnari, Three Rivers
Erin Moser, Midland Bullock Creek
Rachel Neumann, Flint Powers Catholic
Brianne Nowak-Scott, Tecumseh
Emily Oren, Hamilton
Miranda Scott, Charlotte
Kaitlyn Stevens, Ovid-Elsie
BOYS CLASS C
Zachary French, Ishpeming Westwood
Dakota M. Hard, Quincy
Jonathan Andrew Harper, Clare
Ryan Hook, Delton Kellogg
Kolby Lange, Marlette
Trevor Lewis, Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port Laker
Gregory Long, Sand Creek
Sean McBrayer, Unionville-Sebewaing
David Powers, Jr., Michigan Center
Benjamin Rebertus, Negaunee
Dirk E. Stoneman, Breckenridge
Ryan Watson, Delton Kellogg
GIRLS CLASS C
Brandy Bowers, Springport
Cayla Broton, Hesperia
Emily Crick, East Jordan
Lauren Dietrich, Gobles
Megan Kangas, Norway
Rachel Leightner, Springport
Lena Madison, New Buffalo
Rachel McEwen, Marlette
Karley Sauder, Marlette
Elyse Ann Louise Starck, Morley-Stanwood
Kelcey Stauffer, Sandusky
Isabella Yzerman, Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart
BOYS CLASS D
Evan Chalker, Buckley
Evan Dhyse, Kinde-North Huron
Seth Kintigh, Jackson Christian
Timothy Logghe, Peck
Joseph Nugent, Frankfort
Adam Plumstead, Frankfort
Sabeek Pradhan, Hillsdale Academy
Benjamin Ross, Lawrence
GIRLS CLASS D
Haley Buckey, Caseville
Kelsey Butcher, Morrice
Quinnlin Daily, Kingston
Natalija Galens, Watervliet Grace Christian
Haley Moore, Kinde-North Huron
Margaret Aileen Ryan, Hillsdale Academy
Jamie Lyn Seppanen, Eben Junction Superior Central
Alexandria Whitman, Fulton