Beaverton 'Creatures' Dominate Bleachers
February 17, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
BEAVERTON – What have Beaverton’s Bleacher Creatures meant to their 1,100-person town during their 35 years cheering on the local teams?
Junior Breanna Frasher got a pretty good idea last week.
A leader of this year’s student cheering section, she made a trip to the elementary school to read to some of the younger students. When teachers would mention the Creatures, the kids’ faces glowed.
“As 6-year-olds, they knew what a Bleacher Creature was. They knew it meant you came to the game, you wore red, you painted your face,” Frasher said. “They were all excited.
“Then you’d ask, ‘Who wants to be a Bleacher Creature some day?’ All of them raised their hands. I think that’s awesome, that we’ve … given that to them. They can look up to us and look forward to being a Bleacher Creature.”
Beaverton was the final stop on this year’s Battle of the Fans III tour. MHSAA staff and Student Advisory Council members visited all five finalists over the last month to document the stories behind the sections and film them on home game nights. The public may vote for its favorite on the MHSAA’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites Tuesday-Thursday, with the Student Advisory Council taking that vote into consideration when selecting the champion after that vote has concluded.
The winner will be announced Friday on Second Half and honored with a championship banner during the Boys Basketball Semifinals on March 21 at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center.
Not long ago, Frasher was one of those elementary school kids, looking forward to her turn in the student section. Now she’s among a group of junior and sophomore leaders that includes three third-generation Beaverton High students and three more whose parents also went to the school.
The original Bleacher Creatures emerged in 1979 and then gained steam during the Beaverton boys basketball team’s run to the MHSAA Class C Semifinals in 1984. The Beavers lost that game, 69-58, to Kalamazoo Christian at the University of Michigan’s Crisler Arena.
But keeping a promise to his team, Beaverton coach Roy Johnston – the third-winningest boys hoops coach in MHSAA history and a devout Michigan State fan – kissed the block “M” on Crisler’s center court after being carried to the middle of the floor by the Bleacher Creatures. “Roy kissed the floor in ’84,” is still heard around town including by junior Jen Eaton, whose mother was a sophomore in the section in 1984.
Johnston’s presence still plays an enormous role in the Creatures’ efforts. He entered this season with a combined record of 650-287 coaching four schools going back to 1971, and part of growing up in Beaverton is aspiring to play for the legendary coach – or root on his team. After all, the gym is named after him, and three grandsons are now in the program.
“We know you can’t have an amazing thing like this happen without a supportive community,” said sophomore Braedon Wolfe, whose father and uncle both played on the 1984 team. “And that’s what we have here. This thing never would’ve lasted close to this long (without) these people in this community; it’s amazing.”
But the section also has continued to evolve.
The original Creatures morphed into something known as the “Red Rave” at some point (a small sign where the current section sits pays homage) before Bleacher Creatures returned as the name in 2008.
Those early sections, by the oral history literally passed down through generations, traveled big and cheered strong, but didn’t have the creativity of the current Creatures, who for their team’s Valentine’s day game against Houghton Lake created Cupid to make friends of the Beaver and Bobcat mascots. Of course, there also was a piece of recent tradition – Wolfe, a robed and white-bearded Moses, parting a Red Sea of Beaverton students clad in their usual red T-shirts.
Last year’s section was led by a pair of emphatic seniors who graduated in the spring. This school year’s leaders realized a longer chain of command would be necessary to secure the section continuing into its fourth decade.
This fall, junior Drew Porter and Wolfe – recipients of the throwback basketball jerseys worn by last year’s leaders – serve as president and vice-president, respectively, of a newly-formed spirit club. The hierarchy also includes a secretary, treasurer, photo/video and music coordinators, creative and fundraising leaders and campaign managers.
Full club meetings are standing-room only, with about 30 students – or just under 10 percent of the school – taking part. The band sits adjacent to the student section during games and plays a big part, and multiple members sit in on the spirit meetings to help coordinate between the two.
There’s even an annual Bleacher Creature Award given to a member of the section that resides in the school trophy case next to “Butch,” its most prized traveling trophy.
“I think (the section) hit a roar, and we realized, ‘Why end it when it’s going so well,’” Frasher said. “We need to keep it going.”
“And we needed to get organized to we could keep it going,” added junior Nate O’Brien, another of the spirit club leadership.
There’s been another evolution that has taken hold over the last decade and especially this fall after Beaverton failed to make last season’s Battle of the Fans finals.
Eaton remembered as a middle schooler not having any desire to be a Creature after hearing some of what was hurled forth by those high schoolers during games. Such things are almost unheard of now, but Frasher and her classmates knew almost immediately a year ago why they didn’t advance in BOTF – despite just missing the finals by finishing seventh in the vote to decide the top five.
A “winning team – losing team” chant, meant to point out and demean the team about to be defeated, had to be the culprit. That became a little more apparent when a viewer left a comment about the chant below the application video.
“Our feet shuffled the next day. No one really talked,” Frasher remembered. “We came to school and sat there, and we knew. We watched and re-watched the video, and it came down to a point: that’s the reason.”
“We were going to apply (this year) from the beginning,” Eaton said.
Although the Creatures were disappointed, the winter did end with some positives to carry into this fall, including unexpected solidarity that formed as Beaverton made a run back to the boys basketball Quarterfinals.
The Beavers’ Regional run took them to Jack Pine Conference foe Sanford Meridian’s gym, and about 30 Meridian fans joined into the Creatures section. So too did students from league colleagues Gladwin, Houghton Lake and Roscommon. The Creatures absorbed with joy those who wanted to join and brought handfuls of extra shirts so their new cheering mates had something to wear to fit in.
The expanded section became known as the “Jack Pine Super Crew,” and this winter Beaverton’s leaders have noticed new sections cropping up at almost every school in the league.
And don’t forget those original Creatures. During the Quarterfinal run, a few of the dads and uncles dressed up like cheerleaders. Friday night, a group of parents made sure to join the Macarena line that circled the court during a break. They have built props and donated for spirit buses to away games – anything to keep these Creatures going strong. The 1984 hoops team was inducted into the Beaverton Sports Hall of Fame on Friday, and both former players who spoke made sure to mention how much support the teams derived from the section then and now.
It’s been tough financially in the community of late, and next year seventh and eighth grade students will move to the high school in order to save the district a reported $100,000. Bad times on top of the usual small-town jokes are enough to give some rude opponents something about which to snicker.
The Bleacher Creatures are a way – now always positive – the community continues to stand together to answer.
“This is us coming together, even though you can say anything you want about it,” Porter said. “This is who we are.”
Battle of the Fans III is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.
PHOTOS: (Top) Beaverton "Bleacher Creatures" prepare for a free-throw attempt during Friday's game against Houghton Lake. (Middle) The Creatures cheer on their classmates during the MHSAA's Battle of the Fans visit. (Photos courtesy of Bob Frei.)
Midland Heroes Win 'Match of Life' In Saving Another On Way to Regional
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
February 22, 2023
Wilson Shinske woke up Saturday hoping to accomplish something great.
But the Midland senior had no idea just how great and impactful his accomplishment would be, and that it would happen well before he stepped on a wrestling mat.
On the way to the Division 1 Wrestling Regional at Hartland, Shinske and his dad, Steve, pulled a man from a burning vehicle on I-75 and helped resuscitate him on the side of the road. As the man was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, the Shinskes got back in their own vehicle and made it to the meet in time for weigh-ins.
“The entire way there, I was thinking, ‘It doesn’t matter if I lose or if I win today, this was a win,’” Wilson Shinske said. “Being on the wrestling team is about being part of something bigger than yourself. Yeah, I lost both of my matches, and it was like that journey has ended. But knowing what I did earlier, I won the match of life.”
Shinske finished his wrestling season with a 21-11 record after dropping his pair of Regional matches at 215 pounds. While all of that was certainly important to him, and the end of any senior season can be tough, the events of Saturday morning put a lot of things in perspective.
“I can tell you that I was proud as hell of him,” Steve Shinske said. “I was super proud of how he handled the morning. I was proud – I’m always proud of him when he does a sport, even when he thinks he doesn’t do well. When he lost, I saw him take those losses on Saturday differently than he had in the past in some of those situations. I think he had a different mindset. After he lost the second match, he went over and sat by a wall, and there were some tears shed. There were a ton of emotions, and not just wrestling emotions.”
Wilson Shinske’s day had started like hundreds of wrestlers around the state, as he left Midland around 5:30 a.m. focused on advancing to the MHSAA Individual Finals at Ford Field.
He fell asleep during the ride, but when the car started to slow down well before he thought it should, he knew something was off.
After coming over the Zilwaukee Bridge, Steve Shinske noticed a car fire ahead. As they approached, the retired Midland fireman decided he would stop and see how he could help, figuring he would see someone outside of the vehicle.
What he saw, however, was the driver slumped over in the front seat of the pickup truck. He pulled to the side of the road, and as he made his way to the truck, so did Wilson, who had now woken up from his pre-meet nap.
“It was 75 at 6 a.m. on a Saturday with no traffic; there’s no way we should be slowing down,” Wilson remembered. “As soon as he put it in park, not even a second later, I’m out of the car.”
As the Shinskes got to the vehicle, Steve noticed the driver – whose name they would later learn is Jerry – still had his foot crammed on the accelerator. That left the rear tires spinning until the tires had burned off and the rims were grinding on the pavement, which caused the fire at the back of the truck. His first move was to put the car in park and shut it off.
They removed Jerry – who they determined was not breathing and did not have a pulse – from the truck, and then Wilson’s training kicked in.
Wilson – a three-sport athlete who carries a 3.8 GPA – plans to study nursing in college, and spends much of his school day working in a hospital as part of a co-op. He’s CPR-certified and plans to work in the ER or a trauma unit.
A point of emphasis in Wilson’s training is to assess the situation in an emergency.
“The car is on fire, the gas tank is in the back of the car, we need to get him away from this,” Wilson said. “We need to get him up in front of our car – put a barrier between us to protect us if something happened. I don’t think there were really any nerves, just more fight or flight. I’m not running away, I’m fighting this. I wasn’t concerned with how cold it was – I wasn’t dressed for 20-degree weather – it was, ‘We have a problem here, let’s fix this problem.’”
Steve started CPR on Jerry while Wilson went back to see if they could find any personal information about him that would help, and 9-1-1 was called.
An off-duty paramedic then arrived on the scene, and put in a call to her supervisor for more assistance. That’s when Wilson took over CPR, and Steve went to put out the fire using snow from the median.
When the supervisor arrived, he brought out an AED to deliver a shock to Jerry’s heart. After some more CPR, Jerry took a gasp of air, and the monitor showed that there was heart activity.
“Then the cavalry came,” Steve said of the rush of emergency vehicles on the scene. He borrowed a fire extinguisher from a police officer to put out the remaining flames, and Jerry was loaded into an ambulance. Wilson said he could see Jerry taking breaths as he was being put into the ambulance.
The whole situation took about 15 to 20 minutes.
“Wilson’s played a lot of sports – football, tennis, he’s wrestled since he’s been 6, he plays golf – he understands that sports gives you perseverance, it gives you a different mindset,” Steve said. “I bet anybody that he works with on the floor at the hospital will tell you that he’s the most outgoing, go-getter co-op student they’ve had. Those things in his life helped him in that situation.”
Jerry survived, and the Shinskes went to visit him in the hospital Monday. While there, they learned from the family that the fire had started to melt the gas tank before Steve was able to put it out. They also learned that Jerry’s wife had recently passed away, and that their quick action had prevented his family from adding another layer of grief in a very short time.
“I love watching (Wilson) wrestle, and I’m going to miss watching him wrestle,” Steve Shinske said. “But watching him on I-75 on Saturday morning was almost better than watching him wrestle. He, as a young man, as a person that’s getting ready to go into the next phase of his life, to be able to handle something like that and not miss a beat was special.”
For Wilson, the experience further cemented his chosen career path, and desire to help others.
“I want to be a part of saving lives more often,” he said. “Not that I want to see people in these situations, but I want to help them when they are.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) From left: Wilson Shinske, Jerry and Steve Shinske meet Monday, two days after the father and son helped save Jerry’s life on I-75. (Middle) Wilson Shinske, far right, has his arm raised in victory after a match. (Photos courtesy of the Shinske family, with permission.)