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5 Ways West’s Creatures Continue to Crush
January 24, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
TRAVERSE CITY – We’ve worn a path on U.S. 127 and M-115 the last few years with nearly annual visits to Traverse City West to check out the Bleacher Creatures for Battle of the Fans.
The reigning BOTF champions have set that kind of standard as one of Michigan’s elite high school student cheering sections – and didn’t disappoint Friday as we dropped in for “Titans GameDay” and our second stop on this year’s finalists tour.
The breakdown: In addition to winning last year’s Battle of the Fans V, Traverse City West’s Bleacher Creatures have been finalists three of the contest’s six years. That being the case, we’re pretty well-versed in the section’s beginnings under founder Chase O’Black, who served as the school’s student senate governor in 2007-08. The Creatures are organized and managed by the senate, and during games led by a group of 4-6 section leaders who wear green and yellow-sprayed paint suits and make up the Bucket Brigade – named for the buckets they pound during football games and other outdoor events.
We visited for Friday’s boys basketball game against Alpena and met with seniors Liz Anton, Dani Priest and Sam Schriber and junior Connor Thompson. Below is our video report, followed by some of what makes the Creatures contenders again.
1. This year is more than a victory lap.
And that’s quickly obvious. West didn’t have school Friday and only a half-day Thursday, yet nearly 300 Creatures filled the student section despite a number of families getting out of town for the long weekend. But that's how West rolls. Leaders told us about how some of their classmates showed up at the gate for this fall’s football game against rival Traverse City Central at 8 a.m. so they could be sure to get near the front of that night’s section – missing class to secure a spot (which, of course, we do not condone). “After winning last year, there’s definitely a standard or an expectation we have to meet. The bar is way up there,” Schriber said. But last year’s BOTF championship also has this year’s leaders wanting the section to be a little different too. So while they’re drawing on some of the many cheers and chants that have become tradition over the last decade, they’re also working to keep things fresh. And more importantly, Priest pointed out, while last year’s BOTF effort was driven hard by the school’s senate, this year’s is really being carried by the student body as a whole.
2. Senate rules.
Traverse City West has two student-led government bodies. The student council is responsible for more of the traditional student government work, “behind-the-scenes” efforts like stocking the school’s food pantry and working on projects aimed at daily lives of their constituents. The student senate – of which Priest is this school year’s governor – is more the social chair planning activities that “make school more of an enjoyable place,” she said. The senate created the Bleacher Creatures and manages all student section activities, with the leader of the Bucket Brigade – this year Schriber – among the 29 senators. Each grade of nearly 400 elects six representatives, and five more are chosen at-large based in part on past service. The school has nearly 1,600 students, but Schriber said he thinks the senate connects with probably 80 percent in some way by hosting a variety of entertainment options. And Battle of the Fans is a daily part of the conversation.
3. They’re always coming up with new ideas.
After now 27 visits to Battle of the Fans finalists, we rarely run across a completely original idea. And of course West does a lot this year of its favorite stuff from last year and others before – they have plenty in their bag that are time-tested and get the crowd rolling. But we’ve got to give a big shout for some of the most imaginative game themes we’ve heard. During a boys soccer game in the fall, the Creatures dressed up as soccer moms, complete with snacks for halftime. That’s at least a little related to last year’s “dad” theme, where students dressed up like dads but drifted more toward looking like grandfathers instead. For another soccer game, the Creatures took a spin way off a “green screen” theme, making it a shrubbery game where they all brought branches from various bushes and trees and formed something of a wooded wave. “We always have our classic themes that are super easy for people to get involved in,” Priest said. “But sometimes for games where we expect a lower turnout, we’ll just do a weird one.”
4. They really love their school.
There’s no question. In the video above you’ll hear Priest talk about being emotionally tied to her work with the Bleacher Creatures, and that passion is similar to what we found with last year’s leaders as well. Take as another example the annual “Patriot Game” – that football game between West and Central that led students to line up at 8 a.m. to get the best seats for a game that regularly draws upward of 8,000 fans including most of both student bodies. In the video above you’ll see Creatures before the Friday's game reciting “The Creature Creed” below, written by Schriber and Thompson this winter and another example of what’s behind the section spirit.
5. Because tradition doesn’t graduate.
As noted at the start of this report, the Bleacher Creatures have been around for a decade, and during all three of our visits we’ve heard current leaders recount how the foundation was laid – in fact, a spirit scholarship has been created for a graduating senior in O’Black’s name. Because of the senate, there is an organized and expected handing down of leadership from year to year, and the Bucket Brigade has a similar succession plan, with a junior or two chosen for the brigade each year, and those juniors then in charge of filling out the group the following fall when they are seniors. Senate leaders have a plan to visit the junior high and teach some of the cheers to this year’s eighth graders – and although that idea hasn’t panned out yet, a group of about 20 middle schoolers occupied the adjacent section Friday and even got a “Future Creatures” chant directed their way from their high school mentors.
In their words
All of one, one for all: “Being an athlete, I think almost every athlete’s dream is to win a state championship with their team,” Schriber said. “(Winning BOTF) isn’t just like the soccer team winning states; this is the entire school winning the state championship. That’s just so cool. … Everyone was a part of it.
Let’s do this again: “I think what sets this year apart is we won last year, and I think some people are like, ‘Oh, we already won. Do we even have to try now?’” Thompson said. “But then you see those kids who are at Thirlby (Field for the Patriot Game) at 8 or 9 in the morning and it just makes you realize we care about it just as much as they did in 2008. It’s still a really big thing here at West.”
No time to waste: “There’s a time you can just sit home and watch Netflix. There’s a time you just don’t want to be with anyone. There’s a time you just want to go home and take a nap. I have those days,” Anton said. “But when there are sports or games going on … this is high school. You have to enjoy it. Getting involved and going to these games is the highlight of my high school career.”
Next stop on BOTF: We'll visit Charlotte for Saturday's game against DeWitt, followed by trips to Petoskey (Feb. 1) and Frankenmuth (Feb. 3). Click for coverage of our visit to Boyne City on Jan. 13.
The Battle of the Fans is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.
PHOTO: (Top) Traverse City West's Bleacher Creatures follow their Bucket Brigade leaders during Friday's boys basketball game against Alpena. (Photo by Alan Newton/Alan Newton Photography.)
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Yale Kohler's Krazies Rise to Roar
January 27, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
YALE – The magnitude of last season’s Boys Basketball District Final gave Yale’s “Kohler's Krazies” a glimpse of their potential as a booming student cheering section.
But a 90-minute delay during that eventual overtime loss to Imlay City showed junior Karli Klocke how a collection of her classmates watching a basketball game could impact their entire school.
The game was forced into an unexpected break after humidity in the gym made the floor too slippery. The teams went to their locker rooms during clean-up, and many of the 1,000 fans in the sold-out stands took their seats.
And despite the wait, all of more than 100 Krazies stayed through the final buzzer.
“I just like how it brought everybody, all grades, together,” Klocke said. “And during that hour and a half, we were all sitting there together. We’ve never been a group that’s usually been all together.”
Ten months later, the Krazies have ridden the momentum of that March evening – and grown into a top-five contender for this season’s Battle of the Fans IV championship.
Yale hosted the latest MHSAA finalists visit Friday for its boys basketball game against Almont. Reigning champion Beaverton was the first tour stop, Jan. 16, with Buchanan scheduled for this Friday and then St. Johns and Dowagiac over the next three weeks leading up to the naming of this year’s champion Feb. 20. The public may vote for its favorite on the MHSAA’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites beginning Feb. 17, with the MHSAA Student Advisory Council taking results into consideration when selecting the champion after the vote has concluded.
The Krazies were first-time BOTF applicants this winter, following the transformation of a section that existed on a much smaller and informal scale over the last half-decade.
The former Kohler’s Kids, then Kohler’s Krew and Krew 2.0 before becoming the Krazies for 2013-14 – all in recognition of boys hoops coach Garnett Kohler – previously was a group of 20-40 upperclassmen who gathered to cheer on the team.
With last season’s District turnout helping fuel the effort, new section leaders this fall began organizing a section that would be more inclusive – encouraging the entire student body to take part – and have enjoyed immediate results. The Krazies swelled to an estimated 450 and filled a quarter of Yale’s gym to the rafters for Friday's girls and boys hoops doubleheader.
There hasn’t been anything complicated about Yale’s campaign; it’s as simple as trying to get more students to watch games together. And the Krazies have a rather straightforward goal for each game night; they don't stop cheering, aside from halftime, from the opening tip until the final buzzer – even when Yale's lead tops 20 points.
“This is such a new thing, everybody’s so excited about it and they just want to be a part of it,” junior Kaylee Schiffelbine said.
The Krazies took steps toward formalizing last season, when a group of four seniors sold T-shirts and created some of the favorite cheers. But their vision for the section was “small,” senior Spencer French said, and he and a few others began talking over the summer about how to expand it.
For starters, the section would no longer be about juniors and seniors only. Over two weeks this fall, the Krazies sold 210 section T-shirts – three times more than the year before. They started Facebook and Twitter feeds to get the word out, and parents joined in the social media loop; the Krazies’ BOTF application video enjoyed more than 1,000 views in just a few days after it was posted and now has been watched more than 5,000 times.
“Even with the video, (we thought) it would be cool to get top five (of BOTF),” senior Robert Vinckier said, “but getting the video shared around, it gets more people in the game, and they see how fun it is.
“We’re such good friends with the players on the team, so we’d go to the game whether we had a student section or not. But we might as well have more fun while we’re watching them play.”
The section’s rallying cry for 2013-14 could’ve been summed up as “wear your shirt and show up.”
“Wear your shirt and show up” should now include the word “early.” Although the girls varsity game Friday didn’t begin until 6 p.m., the first Krazies showed at 4:30 to secure seats closest to midcourt and the floor.
And the Krazies are a basketball cheering section in the literal sense. They cheered, nearly non-stop, through the end of a mostly one-sided 68-46 win by their boys team. Of course, they mixed some creative frills – bowling using the Bulldog mascot to knock down a group of fans, and the first superintendent-led roller coaster in BOTF tour history – but those merely kept the mood amped during breaks in play.
The objective is simple as well – be loud. Loud enough that an opposing player tweets that the section is “crazy.” Loud enough to encourage a rumor the Krazies won’t be allowed to cheer at a rival’s gym later this season. Loud enough to force an opponent’s point guard to motion to his bench because he can’t hear his coach yelling in the plays. Loud enough that Yale’s coach and players also had to come up with hand signals so they could communicate over the blare.
“Loud” would’ve been an understatement Friday. The Krazies’ roar, heard standing on the opposite side of Yale’s gym, registered noticeable decibels above the norm for a high school game.
French admits he didn’t know what they were taking on when he and a group of about 10 began meeting twice a week in late October armed only with ideas and what senior Steven Jordan calls “unwritten rules of sportsmanship.” But they forged strong relationships with principal Paul Flynn and athletic director Maureen Klocke (no relation to Karli), who have provided plenty of input while trusting the leaders to police the group when it’s rarely necessary. Leaders run ideas past administrators first, and that has allowed for what leaders feel is a bit more leniency.
Their classmates, meanwhile, have followed the lead and made good on last year’s potential.
“In high school, there are groups. Some groups aren’t going to be there (at games),” French said. “But it’s those kids who are coming out and saying, ‘Hey, what can we do? Can we do this? Are we wearing this? Can we do a costume night?’ That’s been the coolest thing for me. There’s people that I would never think would go to a basketball game, and they come up to me and say, ‘Hey, what can I do to help?’”
Spencer admits he was a bit anxious before the first boys basketball game this winter – until 115 students showed. The school’s athletic booster club has since donated $100 for gift cards to give out as prizes, and the student council supplied a sling shot Friday to send free shirts into the crowd.
“When we started off this year, a lot of people didn’t think it would be that big of a deal; it would just be another student section,” he said. “But as we’ve progressed throughout the season, people realized this is a big deal.
“We weren’t that tight-knit beforehand. Slowly but surely as the season has progressed, the parents, student organizations and administration all have been brought closer together. And we’re not even halfway through the season yet.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Yale superintendent Ken Nicholl leads the roller coaster during Yale's boys basketball game Friday against Almont. (Middle) Kohler's Krazies cheer numbered 450 for the MHSAA visit. (Top photo by Lisa Depelsmaeker, middle by Katie Priehs.)