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And the 2014 BOTF winner is ...

February 21, 2014

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

Beaverton’s “Bleacher Creatures” student section has filled stands for 35 years.

But when leaders decided this fall to get more organized, and then met this for the first-ever Spirit Club meeting, they had one goal in mind:

Win Battle of the Fans III.

After falling just short of making last season’s five finalists, the Creatures simply wanted a chance to show what they’ve been doing since their parents were in high school.

They got their chance Friday during the MHSAA’s visit for a boys basketball game against Houghton Lake – and showed more than enough to capture the title as the state’s top high school cheering section.

“It’s such an honor to be involved with some of the other schools this year. And knowing how far we came, it’s just so awesome. Our dream came true,” said Beaverton junior Drew Porter, the spirit club’s president. “When we got over 1,000 votes, that’s almost our whole town population, and that was just like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was a feeling that you only feel when you’re in a great situation, and we’ve got a great community here. They support us, and we support the basketball team.”

The Creatures will accept their MHSAA championship banner during the 6 p.m. Class B Boys Basketball Semifinal on March 21 at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center.

Today is a snow day at Beaverton, which will only delay what should turn into a community celebration when the 1,100-resident town hosts rival Gladwin for a basketball game tonight.

Beaverton was chosen based on a vote by the MHSAA’s 16-member Student Advisory Council influenced by public vote on the MHSAA’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites. A total of 12,938 social media votes were received, with those results then equated against a school’s enrollment.

From the Advisory Council side, this clearly was the closest Battle of the Fans to date. Four finalists received first-place votes, and the champion wasn’t decided until the final two votes were tallied. The Council based its vote on the following criteria: positive sportsmanship, student body participation, school spirit, originality of cheers, organization of the group, section leadership and overall fun.

Beaverton and then Buchanan easily received the majority of public social media votes, with Facebook those fans’ main mode of support. Judging by comments to stories on Second Half, some of those votes came from as far away as the Pacific coastline and Gulf of Mexico.

Some numbers to consider from this season's contest: The application videos have been watched nearly 12,500 times, and the MHSAA-produced videos from our tour stops have 6,500 views. The stories on the five finalists plus Tuesday’s explanation of how to vote had been viewed 19,865 times as of 8:30 this morning.

Through snow storms and anything else the polar vortex threw our way, we enjoyed memorable trips this winter. Here’s some of what we’ll remember most about each finalist:

This is Our House Award: Bridgman

What we saw: The Bees boys basketball team has won 80 percent of its home games over the last 19 seasons. Credit popular coach Mike Miller with much of that, but he’d surely also point to his “Orange Crush” student section. Bridgman, a Class C school, has a gym that should be the envy of many a Class A program. Bigger schools also would love to be cheered on by a section like the Crush, as fans stacked a corner of the stands three levels into the rafters while rooting their team to another win.

Why we’re fans: The band and cheerleaders – and of course the mascot Buzz – all take significant roles in the “Hive” party as well, and the “TNT” box to set off the section after every 3-pointer was an excellent addition this season. And there’s a reason the Bees are so strong at home – their fans stay engaged in the game action throughout. Cheering on teams is the most important responsibility of a student section, and the Crush has a measured impact.  

Model Student Section Award: Buchanan

What we saw: What did “The Herd” do after winning the Battle of the Fans in 2013? It became an organized group engaging roughly 10 percent of the school as part of its planning committee, and became an often-requested source of support at community functions. The Bucks remain an incredible example of bringing together an entire school and keeping fans active from tip-off to the final buzzer, as we saw again during our return visit.

Why we’re fans: More of the above – the Bucks are organized, positive and have quickly created a camaraderie that has become not just the talk of the town, but among social media followers from afar as well. The excitement has caught on among the district’s middle school students – they’ve created a mini Herd – and that means we’re planning on visiting Buchanan again in 2015. Other sections have watched the Bucks and learned – and should continue to do so.  

Comeback in a Year Award: Frankfort

What we saw: Think you can’t quickly change a culture of negative cheering at your school? See Frankfort, which took down two decades of built-up bad reputation and threw it out of “The Cage” this winter. Student leaders knew negativity spewed in the past didn’t feel right, and they attacked the problem head on. We love a great story, and this might be our favorite of BOTF III. And if leaders are correct, the good times are spreading throughout Frankfort’s corner of the Lower Peninsula – and we’re excited to see the results in 2015.

Why we’re fans: Outside of the obvious – we are huge proponents of sportsmanship – more than 80 percent of this Class D school’s student body regularly shows for home games. And its “Icy Hot” theme – students wore winter clothes during the first half and summer gear during the second – arguably was the most creative theme we saw this season. Frankfort’s application video mentioned the Panthers enjoy championships before panning to a hallway full of them. A Battle of the Fans championship banner could be on the way soon.

Voice of the People Award: Traverse City West

What we saw: West student senate governor Brady Severt, among other witticisms, offered a thought that was essentially, “It’s one thing to get 100 students to do something. It’s another to get 400 moving the same way.” How do the “Bleacher Creatures” do so? The section’s efforts are rooted in the school’s senate, a “melting pot” of 30 students representing social groups throughout the student body. Up front is the “Bucket Brigade,” section leaders who inherit the role of running the show during games while dressed in paint suits and banging on plastic buckets – and we wish we’d been at a football game so we could’ve seen the buckets in action (no noise makers in the gym!).

Why we’re fans: Big numbers are impressive, but as Severt noted, tough to direct at times. West does it, and be sure we noted students joining the section at the end of the basketball game after coming from the jazz concert or play also going on that night. And talk about originality ... the Creatures were so original, they made up a cheer on the spot during our visit. Big-time effort from a sizable group.

Battle of the Fans champion: Beaverton

What we saw: These Bleacher Creatures are more than just a student section. They encompass multiple generations of a proud small town, and can grow to include support from rival schools throughout the Jack Pine Conference. Parents of current-day Creatures were part of the section three decades ago, and we listened as members of the 1984 boys basketball team gave shout-outs to the support that lives on during the team’s induction Friday into the school’s Hall of Fame.

Why we're fans: Friday’s game was never close after the first few minutes, but Beaverton’s Creatures cheered on whoever was on the floor until the very end. We heard stories of how fans from Sanford Meridian, Gladwin and other league schools joined the section during Beaverton’s run to the boys basketball Quarterfinals last season, so we weren’t surprised to see two Creature ambassadors walk up to Houghton Lake’s section and invite those students to join in to the “Macarena.” Porter personally heard from friends in Gladwin and Clare who cast their online votes for their Jack Pine mates. The Creatures personify togetherness and take it to a level far larger than their school and town.

Porter had a brief opportunity during the MHSAA visit to watch his section from across the gym and couldn't help but be proud. A special moment took place after the game as well; usually after big wins, the student section takes to the floor to congratulate the team. This time, players stormed the stands for what likely was the first time in the Creatures' long history.

"How much dedication everyone else has, everybody is in it together," Porter said. "Nobody feels left out. That was our main goal this year, to get everybody involved."

Next for our finalists is the big screen – clips from all five MHSAA tour stops will be shown on the main scoreboard during the Girls and Boys Basketball Finals in March at the Breslin Center. And, as mentioned above, Beaverton will take center court on March 21 to be recognized for its championship effort.

Nearly 50 MHSAA member schools have applied for Battle of the Fans during its first three years, and the competitiveness of this season’s contest can’t be stated enough. We’ve watched BOTF literally transform cheering at schools and now into leagues all over the state, and this year’s group of finalists certainly will continue to have an impact in showing the fun that can be had while keeping to good sportsmanship and positive support of the local team.

Beaverton, the biggest stage is yours. Your community and your league will surely take pride in this championship – and 35 years of Bleacher Creatures have plenty to celebrate.

Battle of the Fans III is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan. 

Click to check out our stories and videos behind the finalists. Also, click to see student-produced videos from all sections that entered the contest. (Photo courtesy of Bob Frei.)

5 Ways the Blue Crew Has Us 'Believin'

February 3, 2017

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

PETOSKEY – What once was one of the most raucous gyms in the northern Lower Peninsula had grown hushed as one of Michigan’s proudest student sections slowly fell away.  

Hopefully Petoskey’s opponents didn’t get used to the silence.

The Blue Crew, a finalist for the inaugural Battle of the Fans in 2012, is back after all but disappearing the last few years – and hosted the latest BOTF tour stop Wednesday for its boys basketball game against Sault Ste. Marie.

The breakdown: The Blue Crew is rooted in generations of support going back to the school’s old Central Gymnasium, an arena straight out of “Hoosiers” where 1,500 fans for years packed to the rafters in support of their teams. A new school and a new gym became home to the Northmen in 2002, and that move served as the catalyst for creation of the “Blue Crew” by the school’s student council. The section thrived for more than a decade, but over the last few years for a few reasons discussed below, dwindled. But it’s been rebuilt – leaders have even pulled out of retirement advisor Karen Starkey, wife of longtime boys hoops coach Dennis and a former counselor at the school – and that well-known energy has returned to fuel the next generation of Petoskey athletes.

We met with seniors Ashlyn Kartes, Stuart Green and Emme Williams and juniors Danny Kolp, Isabella Rowe and Jake Lee during a night dedicated to raising cancer awareness. See below for our video and five reasons the Blue Crew is rising again.

1. What’s old is new again.

When we visited with the Blue Crew in 2012 during the first Battle of the Fans finalists tour, we learned about a student section steeped in history. But over the last few years, the section more or less disappeared. As this year’s leaders tell it, the Crew was completely broken-down last winter, with a lack of leadership and a mood that discouraged participation because seniors did what they wanted and expected everyone else to fill in behind them. Football games this fall were similarly tepid. But everything changed after most of the section’s new leadership attended an MHSAA Sportsmanship Summit on Nov. 9 in Traverse City, where they loaded up on energy and ideas. On the car ride home, they created a new Blue Crew Twitter page and had a number of followers before they even arrived back at their school. The revival was on. Volleyball games started taking off, and hockey and basketball have been big draws this winter. Petoskey girls and boys basketball teams at all three levels had games across three gyms Wednesday – the main gym, auxiliary and the gym at the old school – but it was obvious students were trickling into the section after their games. Nearly 200 showed for a midweek game, even as the junior varsity girls were playing at the same time as the varsity boys. It's a lesson for hundreds of schools across our state: you too can grow a student section, and all it takes is a group of motivated leaders to get it started. 

2. They’re one big family.

Whereas by the end of last year seniors ruled and few others cared to be a part, the attitude in the Blue Crew is much more inclusive this winter. Leaders during our trip emphasized multiple times how much they adore their underclassmen, who might make up a majority of the section – there are likely more freshmen than seniors most nights. It’s changed the mood in the school’s hallways as well. Meanwhile, those younger students are showing excitement about continuing to grow the section in the future, while this year’s seniors are excited they’ve been able to restart a legacy and leave something behind. Gone are rules about seniors in front – an informal group of guys who attend most games take some of those spots because they lead cheers, but whoever shows up first gets the best seats. “We kinda went back and forth on this because we have seniors in our Blue Crew and in our leadership, and of course you’ve waited the four years (to be up front). The people before us were really into the seniors in the front row, so we were raised with that. But once we sat back on it, the people that get there early are the ones who are going to cheer the loudest, and they want to be there. The underclassmen who get there an hour early before game time are the ones who are going to cheer the loudest, and that’s what we want.”

3. They’re in the game. 

The Blue Crew is a student section in the most traditional sense. While there were a few bells and whistles during our trip – the rollercoaster, a traditional “Don’t Stop Believing” performance arm-in-arm – this is a section that is most focused (and rightly so) on the game being played. The chants started from the first basket (see moment in video with streamers thrown into the air) and didn’t stop until the game’s end. Cheers may have started up front, but the section as a whole was engaged – which made the Crew stick out for more than just the pink shirts they were wearing.

4. This section doesn’t just cheer for the boys.

Again, there were games at all three levels going on all over Petoskey on Wednesday. But 40 students filled the Crew at the start of the 5:30 p.m. girls varsity game, and that continued to grow steadily as the other games were completed and players and fans moved on to the main events of the night. This is all by design; as the leaders went about rebuilding the section, they came up with 20 theme nights so they had one for every home varsity game for both the boys and girls. They also made sure to spread what were expected to be the most popular to both boys and girls games to guarantee maximum support for both teams. What’s more, the varsity players cheer for each other. Kolp and Lee start on the boys team – Kolp, in fact, is considered one of the top players in the northern Lower Peninsula – and they are sure-thing regulars at the girls games, Lee often dressed as Gandalf from “Lord of the Rings” and the 6-foot-9 Kolp as the section’s tallest cheerleader rooting on his sister Megan and her teammates.

5. They’ve mixed the old and the new

As noted, the ode to the band Journey has survived the rise, fall and rise again of the Blue Crew, and the section lives in the same far corner of the gym and continues to receive the wise counsel of Starkey. But the new has been important too. Just about every student section has theme nights, but Petoskey’s leaders worked hard to do something just a little different to make each unique – Frat/Sorority Night included giant Greek letters for “PHS” and Wacky/Tacky Tuesday was a new spin on bad fashion. They’re also taking advantage of social media, using Twitter to connect with classmates across a school with nearly 1,000 students – for example, a freshman DM’d to suggest a toga night idea that made the final list, and a Twitter poll was used to pick from four possible slogans for Wednesday’s pink shirts. The school also brought back a cheerleading team this fall after 12 years without one, and the Blue Crew hopes to work with that team as support continues to build.

In their words

New and improved: “The atmosphere is totally different (from last year),” Green said. “People didn’t really want to cheer. Maybe they wanted to but they felt like it was out of their element – where now, there’s an atmosphere that you show up, you cheer as ridiculous as you want, and it’s accepted.”

We watched; we joined: “A lot of other student sections in our conference are good. We’ve been surrounded by that. So after going to the (Sportsmanship Summit), we knew we could do that,” Kartes said. Recalling watching last season’s BOTF champion Traverse City West at a 2016 District Final, Williams added: “Just seeing that, we all just realized playing in front of our Blue Crew is not easy. And that’s what our goal is.”

All are welcome: “(Wednesday) we went around to the lunchrooms and passed around candy, and we were like, ‘Hey, come to the game. Bring your friends,'" Williams said. “Once everyone is in the student section, even if you don’t know the person, it’s like you’ve known them for so long. It’s like one big family there, and I think that’s what makes us so special.”

Next stop on BOTF: We'll finish the 2017 BOTF tour at Frankenmuth for tonight's boys basketball game against Millington. Click for coverage of our visits to Boyne City on Jan. 13, Traverse City West on Jan. 20 and Charlotte on Jan. 28.

The Battle of the Fans is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.

PHOTOS: (Top) Petoskey's Blue Crew roots on its boys basketball team Wednesday against Sault Ste. Marie. (Middle) Blue Crew members huddle in the middle of the section, creating a sea of pink streamers. (Photos by Larry Tracy/ CMA Action Photography.)