Herd dat? Buchanan Back for BOTF III
January 21, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
BUCHANAN – Andi Frost might be walking the hall between classes with some of her senior friends when a freshman will approach and ask about the next theme night.
Or a quick trip to the gas station could turn into a conversation with locals about what she and her classmates have planned for Friday’s basketball game.
Once, during a trip to a few miles south to Steak & Shake in South Bend, a patron from across the border noticed her “Herd” shirt and asked if she was from Buchanan.
Plenty of notice has come this small town’s way since “The Herd” student cheering section won last year’s MHSAA Battle of the Fans II. No question, the championship helped some find the small southwestern school on the map – including one Twitter follower who made contact from Nebraska.
The recognition has been fun and the friendly comments from all over the state much appreciated. But the best to come from last year’s formation of The Herd, without doubt, is the sense of togetherness that was cultivated in the bleachers but has infused the entire community.
“The best thing that happened from this whole experience is that it’s even higher than a title now,” Frost said. “It’s our way of life in Buchanan. It’s the whole school, all the teachers, everyone in the community. Grandparents, moms, dads and little brothers; it’s the whole town.
“You sense it in the building; we’re not just a school with different grades. We know everybody now. Everybody has become a big family.”
Buchanan on Friday was the first stop on this season’s Battle of the Fans III finalists tour. MHSAA staff and Student Advisory Council members will visit Beaverton, Bridgman, Frankfort and Traverse City West for home games later this month and during the first two weeks of February. The winner will be determined by an Advisory Council vote weighted by a public vote on the MHSAA’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites from Feb. 18-20. The champion will be announced Feb. 21 and recognized March 21 during the Boys Basketball Semifinals at Michigan State’s Breslin Center.
Buchanan’s Herd got its start during an MHSAA Sportsmanship Summit during fall 2012 after a presentation on the benefits of a positive, fun student cheering section and the Battle of the Fans contest in particular.
Section leaders and teacher “shepherds” did some quick work to make The Herd formidable – and start the ball rolling toward a culture change in the school and a new unity felt throughout the town of roughly 4,500 residents.
This school year, The Herd came back – and this time much more organized.
Nearly 40 students showed up for the section’s first meeting last spring as it looked ahead to 2013-14. A group of roughly 60 – or 13 percent of the student body – came to another planning meeting over the summer.
Leaders of the section realized early that with so much interest, organization would be key. They split their classmates into small groups and gave each a task – coming up with theme night ideas, new cheers or planning pep rallies or “traveling pep rallies” to the middle and elementary schools.
What emerged was a fall schedule that included plans for attending not only home football games, but also Herd gatherings at volleyball and soccer games and a cross country race. The section has a full line-up for its home basketball games, both boys and girls, including individual cheers for every player and 22 cheers/chants/dances to break out during time-outs.
“We’ve made such a big deal out of all of this, there’s such good positivity everywhere, and everyone just loves it. So we definitely want to keep it as a tradition,” said junior Ellie Hurd, also a section leader last year as a sophomore.
One of the reigning champ’s biggest challenges this fall was coming up with fresh material to blend in with some that leaders wanted to carry over from the section’s inaugural season.
Last year’s favorites are mixed with versions of more recently popular “Timber” and “Wrecking Ball.” Pregame introductions are still lights-out with Herd members providing cell phone spotlights. And the Herd continues to sing the national anthem before games, on this night with Frost on the microphone leading the crowd.
Perhaps the most compelling part of Buchanan’s victory story in 2013 centered on one of the section’s main motivations – the untimely death the summer before of classmate Dilan Shearer. Another challenge this past summer was deciding how best to continue on while keeping intact the togetherness that sad event helped create.
Similar to last season – when the section finished game nights by singing Shearer’s favorite song, “Springsteen” – every home night this winter ends with another community song – Jason Aldean’s “Tattoos On This Town.”
“Last year we had all of that positive energy taking something bad, some sadness, and we turned it into something better,” Martinez said. “This year, we turned what we did last year, all of the good things that happened, and made it into something more.”
The Herd isn’t just about showing up strong at games. They’re frequently called to show up at events in the community and have used their powers of influence to help their neighbors – raising roughly $1,300 plus clothing donations after a local apartment fire and a few thousand dollars to assist community supporter Don Ross, who died Thursday after suffering from Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
“‘It’s left our mark on us, and we’ve left our mark on it,’ and that’s what we’ve done,” Frost said, referring to a favorite lyric from Aldean’s song.
“We’ve built everlasting memories,” Martinez added, “just by all of the stuff we’ve done with The Herd.”
Filling the stands for every home varsity hoops game meant five nights of basketball last week. But the Herd showed en masse, and it’s fair to believe made a difference – the boys team in particular hasn’t lost a home game since the first of 2012-13 and came back from 20 points down to beat a rival earlier this season.
When senior A.J. Reed’s seventh grade brother told A.J. he was considering leading The Herd in high school instead of playing basketball, A.J. was stunned (and told his brother to stick with his sport). But in just over a year, the section has established that level of presence within the school.
“Traditional high schools, you think about if they have a good football team or a good basketball team every year,” said Reed, who like other section leaders plays at least one sport. “I think when a lot of people think of us, now recently, they’ve thought of the student section. It’s almost like a sport to us. We are a team.”
Battle of the Fans III is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.
PHOTOS: (Top) Buchanan's "Herd" and its boys basketball team gather for "Tattoos On This Town" after Friday's win over Niles Brandywine. (Middle) Members of the student section lock in for a rollercoaster ride during halftime Friday. (Photos courtesy of Jessica Cornelius.)
'Stang Nation' Continues Tradition of Support
February 10, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
MUNISING – Some of Izzy Nebel’s fondest memories took root during junior high, while watching Munising games, hearing the older kids yell and feeling a little overwhelmed by the booming of their voices.
Now?
“Everyone that I stand around, we just look at each other and scream. We’re so excited,” Nebel said. “It’s just so fun. That’s all I can really say about it.”
But they’re actually saying a lot more.
Nebel and her classmates in “Stang Nation” – one of five finalists for this year’s MHSAA Battle of the Fans recognizing the state’s top high school student cheering section – are carrying on a tradition of support going back generations and stretching far outside her small town’s border.
The Class D school, on the shore of Lake Superior overlooking the Pictured Rocks, is home to only 200 high schoolers. But it’s the center of pride for their community, and as the first BOTF finalist from the Upper Peninsula, something of an ambassador as well.
Munising was the fourth stop on this year’s BOTF finalists tour, which also has included visits to Yale, Muskegon Western Michigan Christian and Traverse City West and will finish with a trip to Charlotte on Friday. 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 – which will be named Feb. 19 on Second Half.
This was Stang Nation’s second time applying for Battle of the Fans. The idea was sparked by annual trips downstate for the MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals – 10 families make the annual trek together – and watching Battle of the Fans videos shown on the Breslin Center scoreboard before tip-offs and during breaks in play.
It was nurtured during the fall of 2014, when Munising’s football team made the MHSAA Finals for the first time since 1980 and traveled to Ford Field for the Division 8 championship game. Stang Nation took hold as the official name of the longtime section.
Enthusiasm was stoked again when leaders attended the MHSAA’s Sportsmanship Summit in November in Marquette. That led to the section having theme nights for the first time, and the love isn’t just reserved for the boys basketball team as in other communities – Stang Nation’s “Beach Night” was for a girls hoops game and groups of fans attended most home volleyball games and traveled some too, although many of Munising’s opponents are located an hour’s drive or farther away.
But the filling of a section of bleachers under a “Sixth Man” sign in the school’s gym is only part of the cozy homecourt advantage. The sports teams select “super fans” and players present them with T-shirts. Nebel’s uncle is among many of the recognizable faces from over the years, as he’s always in the crowd wearing a foam orange cowboy hat from the football championship game trip 35 years ago. “Those are the kind of people we have here,” she said.
And then, there are the parades.
Munising has had a nice run of success the last few years. In 2012, the boys basketball team won its first District title since 1957. The 2014 football run included a first District title since 1980 and three straight road games before the trip to Detroit. This fall, the girls tennis team won its first MHSAA Finals championship.
That basketball triumph led to a welcoming parade of police cars and fire engines when the team returned to town from Superior Central. And that’s become something of the norm for any win at the District level or higher. Parades through town welcomed the football team back from its playoff wins in 2014 and ended in the school’s gym, where fans gathered to continue celebrating. The girls tennis team got theirs, with a fan hitting tennis balls over the bus into the woods beyond as it drove by and families standing in their yards to welcome the newly-crowned champs.
But the support doesn’t stop there. When Munising’s football team returned from Ford Field two seasons ago, it stopped at the entrance to town – and only continued on once Ishpeming’s football team, which had won the Division 7 championship, joined it in the parade as well as the Hematites made their way back home.
“We’re really supportive of everyone around us,” junior Marissa Immel said. “This fall, our girls volleyball team lost at Regionals to (Crystal Falls) Forest Park. Some of our teammates made a sign for them and went to their Quarterfinal game, and after we gave them the sign to bring to the Finals. They were super appreciative of it.”
It’s an attitude that goes beyond sports. The school sponsored a fundraiser for cancer research at its football Homecoming and raised $4,200 – which would equate to roughly $21 per high school student. It’s not unusual that when someone in the community is struggling with a sickness or other hard times, the town and surrounding communities rally to help without a second thought. One of Nebel’s aunts lost her house in a fire three years ago and received an outpouring of assistance from Munising but also from as far away at Marquette.
Munising’s smaller student population allows for a little bit different student section setup than at larger schools, where a group of students usually take the reins. Whereas other BOTF finalists have had their leadership willed down or selected by administrators, Stang Nation unofficially follows leaders who have taken charge in other groups at the school – Nebel, Immel, junior Jared Immel (her cousin), junior Rachel Cooper and senior Ian McInnis all are in some combination of student council, National Honor Society and Key Club, and four play multiple sports.
Everyone knows everyone, and anyone is free to kick off a cheer or provide input. The building actually houses sixth, seventh and eighth graders as well, and the high school leaders work to get those younger students involved. Also, a peer-to-peer mentoring program connects high schoolers with elementary students, providing another avenue for inclusion and passing on the good word.
Nebel and her classmates are building plenty of memories in Stang Nation again, most of them including leaving games exhausted, barely able to speak, with sore feet from jumping around in the bleachers.
But they’ll also remember becoming the first Upper Peninsula school to represent in Battle of the Fans – and the opportunity to show the enthusiasm that has lived in Munising long before this winter while passing it on to younger fans above them in the stands.
“I hope we’ve opened people eyes to this, because it’s so fun to participate in,” Nebel said. “It’s just fun knowing that people are going to see what you’re putting into it. I hope other people see that and think, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a really cool idea,’ and they do it too. Because I want everyone to experience what we’re experiencing.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Munising fans cheer during Friday's boys basketball game against Eben Junction Superior Central. (Middle) Stang Nation fills a corner of bleachers at the school's gym. (Below) Students celebrate another Homecoming victory. (Photos by Kristen Elizabeth Photography.)