Coopology: The Study of Being Rowdy
February 8, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
ZEELAND – Trent Courtright’s voice was gone, and his face paint mostly had washed away by the end of Friday’s Zeeland East boys basketball game against Muskegon Mona Shores.
He predicted he’d sleep well that night, reveling in another Chix victory and the part he and his classmates played by cheering them on.
It was just another night in “The Coop,” home of Zeeland East’s raucous student cheering section.
“We had a lot of fun out there. We love supporting our guys. It’s all worth it for the Coop,” Courtright said. “We try to keep the intensity up no matter what the score is. We try to keep all the fans in the game.
“We just try to support our guys as much as we can and be as loud as we can.”
Mission accomplished.
Nearly filling a section of stands seemingly cut out of the gym wall just for them, Zeeland East’s students stood roughly 250 strong during Friday’s MHSAA Battle of the Fans II visit. The Coop was the fourth stop on the MHSAA BOTF tour, following Frankenmuth, Vandercook Lake and Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard. The final trip, to Buchanan, is Friday, with voting on the MHSAA Facebook page to begin Feb. 19. The winner will be announced Feb. 22 on Second Half.
Don’t plan on the Coop taking any breaks until then, or for the rest of the season.
Be it during a halftime dance-off or sprints down the sideline after every Chix 3-pointer, just about every member of the Coop spent almost all 70 minutes of Friday’s game jumping, dancing, clapping, singing and chanting.
“If you go to a basketball game and you’re not a basketball fan, we want you to still be entertained,” senior Dan Rebhan said.
“There are a lot of pauses in basketball games, and football games too. We always try to fill those with a cheer, a little chaos – there’s been a couple dances, too.”
The Coop has been a Zeeland East tradition for a number of years, but has built toward this crescendo especially during the last three.
Coop leaders know they’re making an impression because of the comments they’ve received.
After a game at Grand Rapids South Christian in early December – when the traveling Coop was far outnumbered by the home student fans – Zeeland East’s students were greeted after by South Christian parents who applauded them for matching and at times exceeding the volume of the home crowd.
During another game this season, Holland Christian students answered another opposing student section by chanting, “The Coop was better.”
“Our whole community backs us. I was at the gas station the other day in Holland, and there were two people in front of me that didn’t know me, and they were like, ‘Did you see that Zeeland East student section? They were pretty sweet. I think we should go over and watch one of their games,’” Courtright said. “And I was like (nodding my head and smiling).”
Zeeland East athletic director Tim Ritsema met with the section leaders at the beginning of the school year and told them about his experience as part of the Holland High student section in 1985-86. Ritsema explained that this year’s Coop belonged to these seniors, and it was up to them to make the most of it.
If a class was going to raise the Coop to elite status, these seniors made sense to take that challenge. Back when they were in junior high – and often to the surprise of opposing fans – Elzinga and some classmates would paint up and root on their middle school basketball teams. When Zeeland East finished Class B boys basketball runner-up in 2009, Rebhan and a few of his eighth-grade friends snuck into Breslin Center with high school student tickets, finally getting their first taste of being part of the Coop.
When the Battle of the Fans II was announced early this fall, Ritsema forwarded the information to Coop leaders and told them they should give it a shot.
All seven main leaders play sports – football, baseball, golf and track. The Coop is like their winter sport, and has allowed them to form friendships with classmates they didn’t necessarily know well before.
Zeeland East’s students have developed another tradition over the last two years that they fully expect to continue long after this group of leaders is gone.
The High Five Hallway started during the fall of 2012 as something funny done by a few of the seniors, who on football game days would give each other high fives and yell while intersecting in the hallway that leads to the doors and pathway between Zeeland East and Zeeland West, which sits adjacent to the Chix campus.
Students at the schools share classes throughout the day, so often a number of them are crossing between the two schools. Beginning during football season this fall, Rebhan on game days would re-enter East after his classes at West and begin a 10-second countdown. East students in the High Five Hallway would arrange in two lines facing each other, and spend about two minutes of the eight-minute break high-fiving each other while traveling the winding corridor.
It’s said there’s no drama in the Coop, just plenty of camaraderie. It starts in the High Five Hallway. Could it end with a Battle of the Fans championship banner?
“I was dating a girl from (Zeeland) West and I went over to her house the day after the East-West game. Her dad was talking to me about the Coop for like an hour,” Elzinga said. “He didn’t mention a thing about the game, except for that we won. I was like, ‘West played really well,’ and he said “Yeah, and you guys looked like you were having a lot fun.’”
Subway is a sponsor of this season's Battle of the Fans II contest.
PHOTO: (Top) The 250-member Coop takes its place in the end zone bleachers during Friday's game against Muskegon Mona Shores. (Middle) Trent Courtright (#14) leads the Coop in one of its many in-game cheers. (Video Above) The High Five Hallway, as captured by students, before its Feb. 5 basketball game. (Photos courtesy of Kurt Van Koevering, Zeeland Record.)
Coming Soon: Online Captains Course
November 7, 2014
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
Staff, space and budgetary constraints put limitations on the best of organizations, and the MHSAA feels the squeeze like any other association.
Technology, fortunately, provides an infinite number of belt loops to loosen as programs expand. In order to achieve mass appeal, an association’s message at times needs to shift from face-to-face to desktops, laptops, tablets, and smart phones.
Especially when the target audience comprises those in their late teens, for whom the objects above are never out of arm’s reach.
Thus is the impetus the MHSAA Online Captains Course, set to launch later this school year.
“Our in-person Captains Clinics programs are still a great way to deliver leadership lessons and to get students from rival schools to interact with each other in a fun and worthwhile way,” said MHSAA Director of Brand Management Andy Frushour. “But we can only do so many in-person clinics per year. With the online version, we can deliver the same message, albeit through a different format. And we can do it 24 hours a day, at the user’s convenience, using a medium that kids use like the rest of us use oxygen, and potentially delivering our captains message to exponentially more students than the in-person version; even to students outside of Michigan.”
The ambitious plan is expected to come to fruition this fall, with plenty of support from the Michigan State University Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS), and, of course, the MHSAA Student Advisory Council.
The faces of the Captains course, quite literally, will be SAC members Connor Thomas of Marlette, and Caycee Turczyn of Lapeer.
“The idea for the Online Captains Course came to be when we were evaluating the Captains 101 books,” said Thomas, referring to a printed guide published by members of the first three SAC classes. “When it was decided there would be an online course, our committee decided to do a revision of the book to go along with our online sessions. The course will be open to all who want to gain knowledge on how to be a better leader. The first session is a series of videos, personal interviews and leadership activities.”
Turczyn and Thomas serving as hosts fit the peer-to-peer model that is so effective in student leadership campaigns.
“The main goal is to reach out to team captains or student-athletes,” Turczyn said. “With the two of us as speakers leading other students through the course, it will make it seem less like homework and more like a friend trying to encourage another friend to become they best they can be.”
This first version will be an introductory course, with plans for two more advanced leadership courses that will be facilitated online but with activities and discussions to take place offline in local communities. The goal for this “hands-on” portion of the training is for leaders to conduct interviews with coaches and administrators, write short answers and interact with teammates for a more transformational learning experience.
Working closely with Frushour, the ISYS team of Scott Pierce and Scott Westfall has spent the past year designing the program curriculum and they, too, are anticipating a highly-interactive and well-received product.
“It’s a three-tiered program that will provide high school student-athletes information that leaders ‘need to know.’” Westfall said. “Topics that will be covered include understanding motivation, team cohesion, positive peer modeling and communication. Additionally, the programs will provide captains with structured activities and experiences to promote self-reflection and opportunities to grow as young leaders.”
The first course is made up of 10, 10-minute segments, so it should take about two hours to complete. The short “bite-sized” segments make it easier for students to digest all of the information being given to them.
Frushour and the MHSAA are grateful to have supportive, expert leaders in the field as neighbors.
“All of the lessons are based on research conducted by MSU’s Institute for the Study of Youth Sports,” Frushour said. “Dr. Dan Gould and his doctoral students are rock stars in the field of youth and leadership development, and we are lucky to have them as partners on this project “
For Pierce and the ISYS team, it’s a natural fit.
“The ISYS strives to provide these MHSAA initiatives with the most relevant and applicable scientific knowledge to put the organization in the best position to develop strong student-athlete leaders,” Pierce said.
PHOTOS: (Top) Marlette's Connor Thomas and Lapeer's Caycee Turczyn will serve as the Student Advisory Council hosts for an online Captains Clinic coming soon. (Middle) Michigan State University's Scott Pierce, Thomas, Turczyn and the MHSAA's Andy Frushour work on a segment shot at DeWitt High School.