Revived Blue Crew Continues to Thrive
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
February 6, 2018
PETOSKEY – When Dominick Murray’s older sister was a high school senior in 2012, Petoskey’s Blue Crew was a top-five finalist in the inaugural Battle of the Fans.
Three years later, then-freshman Dominick was “really iffy” about the whole thing and didn’t go to a game.
The once-proud Blue Crew had all but faded away. But in 2016-17, the section was reborn and returned to the BOTF Finals. And that wasn’t a one-hit wonder – Petoskey welcomed the MHSAA for Friday’s boys basketball game against Traverse City West as one of three finalists vying for this year’s Battle of the Fans VII championship.
Petoskey’s student section isn’t just back. It’s all the way back and better than ever before.
“There’s a lot of things stressful in high school, extremely stressful,” Petoskey senior Isabella Rowe said. “So coming to a basketball game or a football game or whatever kind of sport, just getting to focus on encouraging your classmates, getting to see people smile when Danny (Kolp) or anyone just dunks that basketball and everyone just jumps up in the air – it’s the coolest experience and the whole gym is so happy.”
We met with Rowe, Murray, seniors Jake Lee, Carly Williams, Jack Paulsen and David Paquette, and junior Taylor Whitman to discuss all that is the Petoskey Blue Crew.
BOTF is a competition, of course, and this year’s tour stop reports will follow a format similar to a typical game night – starting with a gameplan other schools can incorporate if they wish to join the fun, followed by our video from the tour stop and then more on why the section is considered one of the state’s best.
Petoskey’s Gameplan
Take some of these tips from the Blue Crew:
• It’s not a one-person show. Start as early as you can and get as many passionate people as possible to join in the planning.
• Find out what students want. Petoskey’s love theme nights – and you’ve got to give fans who aren’t necessarily into sports incentives to keep them coming back for more.
• Work with your school administrators, finding out what you’re allowed to do and how they can help.
• Get social. There’s no better way to get out the good word than through social media. It’s the best way to let your classmates know what events are coming up.
• Get younger students involved, be it underclassmen or even middle school and elementary fans. They’re the ones who will be carrying on the traditions moving forward, and instilling pride and a sense of belonging early is valuable.
Pregame Prep
The last regular-season game of last season, at Boyne City, remains memorable because of how the section traveled and dressed up and made it festive. Not long after, Rowe and Lee – juniors who were part of the main organizing group – began reaching out for new help on social media and together coming up with people they thought might be good additions to the Blue Crew’s leadership.
What they found in part were a lot of classmates who were interested in coming to games and helping lead cheers on the floor – but not necessarily planning behind the scenes. Both are important, of course, and by the end of May the “core group” for this year’s Blue Crew had just about taken shape.
That core group put together a list of theme nights, ranked which should be on the biggest games, and in August started filling in a calendar (Rowe and Williams have put a new one together for every month). The leaders also put together a “rules and guidelines sheet” including things like how seating will work (you get the best seats by showing up earliest, not based on grade, etc.). They started thinking up ideas to get underclassmen more involved in the section and eventually began working with their National Honor Society and DECA chapters and SAFE in Northern Michigan to help with finances and provide giveaways like lanyards.
In fact, the Blue Crew already is working on next year – at least a little bit – putting together the materials Whitman will need to take over when most of these leaders graduate, plus suggesting classmates who could take their places.
Game Time
Petoskey turned its gym into a safari-themed “jungle” for our visit, and packed its home stands despite the girls basketball team playing at Alpena and the hockey team hosting Alpena for a cancer benefit game in honor of freshman Evelyn Schwarz, who is undergoing chemotherapy while battling the disease.
The Blue Crew made sure to take part in that special event, raising money with a “miracle minute” between the first and second quarters. The Crew also had plans to finish the night by joining other classmates cheering at the hockey game after the basketball team was done.
“When you’re not part of a major sport – there’s not many fans at a ski race; nobody’s going to come out to the hill – (like with) soccer, before last year there was literally nobody there, and this year for the first time people are actually singing in the stands like you’d see in a professional game or something,” said Paquette, who played soccer and ski races. “It’s so cool, and it really gives you energy and support. It’s cool that your peers are supporting you for what you do, and I want to do (the same) because I love the positive energy we can give the basketball program, and I think it helps them better on the court too.”
A major change to the Blue Crew this school year has been the variety of teams it’s cheering. Football always is big, and basketball is the main draw up north during the winter. But the Crew made its share of volleyball matches during the fall and soccer games for the first time. Hockey has joined the winter rotation.
The BOTF Semifinal “Challenge Round” over 12 days last month also provided an opportunity for the Crew to grow its reach and continue its focus this year on getting more younger students involved. One challenge option gave BOTF semifinalists the opportunity to show how they get the youth involved – and Petoskey took that challenge head on.
The Blue Crew’s big focus for in-game fun this season was on creating great theme nights, but leaders learned something new there too.
Their classmates would get up for the challenge of a creative idea – dressing up for Safari Night gave them options of being a tourist, an animal, or just showing up in green or camouflage. But Crew members also like when themes are simple – wearing the school colors or all white, for example.
In the end, a mix definitely is best.
“(My sister) asked me about it. Obviously we do a lot of things differently than they did,” Murray said. “She wanted to know if some of the traditions still stand. … I told her what we did, and she said she’s much rather be in our student section because she’s an outgoing person and would’ve loved to dress in an ‘80s aerobics outfit.”
Posters have been put up around the school publicizing this Friday’s Snowcoming boys basketball game vs. Cadillac!! Theme is Blue & White ???????? #MHSAA #BOTF #SEMIFINALIST #Northmen
King & Queen will be crowned at half time ?? pic.twitter.com/rtCCMDPR5G— PetoskeyBlueCrew (@PetoskeyBluCrew) January 22, 2018
Postgame Analysis
The roar is restored. “It hasn’t really crossed people’s minds that much that even just when we were sophomores, (Blue Crew) wasn’t a thing,” Paquette said. “The underclassmen have grown up with this as their only experience. It’s a testament to the culture change we’ve created here, at least for the juniors and seniors to accept that’s what the culture is now. And I think that’s good because it’s probably going to continue it in the future.
We’re all in this together. “I think the reason the Blue Crew died was no one was including the younger classes; now we’re including everyone,” Lee said. “It’s not like we’re split upperclassmen and (under)classmen. We’re all together now, in school and on the court.”
We keep with the theme: “Last year and even before that we filled half of our stands, and now every game is always filled all the way to the top,” Rowe said. “People are pretty good about doing (theme) because we definitely did a ton of different things – just from simple things like color blocks (like blue and white) all the way to an 80s aerobic theme. Carly and I focus on getting calendars set for each month, and of course we try to not do the same thing twice. The girls (basketball) team had its own and boys had its own. We always had relatively good turnouts, and kids were always excited; ‘Hey, you going to the game tonight? What are you wearing?’ That’s always the first question they ask: What are you wearing?”
Spirit is contagious. “I know T.C. West motivated us to be in (Battle of the Fans). And then Boyne City … we were (finalists last year) at the same point. And now Pellston, and I’ve heard kids from Charlevoix want to get involved in the Battle of the Fans competition,” Williams said. “They’ve seen our rules and guidelines sheet and they’re like, this is what we need to do. … It’s just motivation from other schools that’s getting kids started.”
Next stop on BOTF: We also visited Boyne City for its game Friday, and that report and video will publish Feb. 12. We'll finish the 2018 BOTF tour at Buchanan for its Feb. 16 boys basketball game against Berrien Springs.
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 Friday against Traverse City West. (Middle) A member of the Blue Crew takes the night's safari theme prehistoric. (Photos by Larry Tracy/CMA Action Photography.)
Brogan Finishes School Sports Career by Teaching Lesson in Perspective
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 22, 2023
Baylor Brogan admittedly broke down for a moment or two. Who could blame him? Six months of unpredictable lows and highs to finish his senior year of high school sports had just taken another unexpected dive.
In December, the Lansing Christian senior tore his right ACL playing basketball, ending his hoops season after it had just started. Nine months of anticipated recovery were expected to wipe out his entire golf season too – and after he’d finished eighth in Lower Peninsula Division 4 as a junior in helping the Pilgrims to their first team Finals championship.
But wait. Brogan made it back to the golf course in mid-May after just five months. He played one practice round, and the next day finished fifth individually at his team’s Regional at Ella Sharp Park in Jackson, advancing to the MHSAA Final as the third of three individual qualifiers.
His recovery was remarkable. The story just kept getting better. And if he would have gone on to win the Finals championship two weeks ago, or even place top-10 again, the ending would have been extraordinary.
Instead, he faced another completely unscriptable scenario – but the difficult decision he made launched the latest dip into the highest of notes as he ended his Pilgrims career.
Brogan headed to Battle Creek’s Bedford Valley for the weekend of June 9-10 to finish off his comeback. He thought he’d shot a 79 during Friday’s first round that tied him for 13th – well within range of a potential top-five finish. In golf, playing partners keep track of each other’s scores – and after Brogan’s group finished its 18 holes, he and his partners that round attested to what had been counted on their scorecards, and Brogan figured that was it until Saturday.
But there was a problem.
As he and his two coaches talked through the round after, they realized what had been reported for hole No. 15 was incorrect. It should have included another stroke. His total score should have been 80.
And yet, no one would have known except for those three. But that wouldn’t have sat well with Brogan or his coaches. As soon as they realized the mistake, they contacted the tournament director and rules official.
“For him to say, ‘Hey Coach, I just want to do the right thing,’ and knowing the right thing would potentially DQ you,” Pilgrims head coach Jason Block explained, “I just said, ‘Hey, we’re a Christian school. We have Jesus to answer to.’ I just think putting our heads on the pillow at night knowing we made the right decision for us felt good, and he agreed with that.”
Brogan figured they would just put in the lower score – after all, it was a stroke worse, and the other competitors couldn’t be mad about that. But because Brogan had already attested to the 79 – and by his own admission should have been monitoring his card after every hole while his round was being played – by rule he was disqualified and would have no score for the first round of play.
“When my head coach called me and told me, that’s when the sadness … I definitely cried a little bit,” Brogan said.
But here’s why his weekend will be recalled down the road as the games go on and others every once in a long while find themselves in a similar spot.
Brogan could have gotten angry. He could have blamed his coaches, or his partners, or anyone else supporting him on the course that day for not catching the mistake. He could have questioned the rule, called the disqualification unfair. He could have thrown a fit, made a scene. This was the last event of his high school career, and after he’d already battled back just to get here.
Instead, he chose grace. He just went back out and played. He would no longer have a chance to place with a two-round score, but also by rule he could still finish the weekend with Saturday’s 18 holes.
“To get DQ’d senior year was kind of a bummer. But in the end it didn’t really matter that much, because they let me play, and my name was still on the leaderboard,” Brogan said. “That’s really all I cared about, is that I could go out and even though it wouldn’t count if I did well, I still wanted to go out and compete. Because that’s what I missed so much from being injured, and that’s all I wanted to do – is still play.
“I just went back out to the range that night. They said I could still play. That was the one thing I could be grateful for. I just went back out and practiced again, and woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning to go play.”
It’s guaranteed Brogan will be sure to monitor every hole on his scorecard as his golf career continues at Wheaton College (Ill.) these next few years. But like his coach, Brogan credited his faith for guiding how he managed this situation. There was an unintentional mishap, and it happens. He needed to accept it and report it, and that’s how he approached it.
Still, Brogan now would have to fill people in on what happened – and that seemed worst of all.
So he sent a group text to his team. Then he waited for his parents to get home from a date night – and they definitely were curious because Block had texted them how sorry he was about the tough news. They had no idea what that meant until Baylor explained – and they told him how proud they were of him for making the right decision.
Brogan’s dad Eric then texted the rest of the family – Baylor is eighth oldest of 10 siblings – and others who had been supporting him. That helped a lot. And the next day, Brogan went out and shot an 80 – a pretty big personal win after missing all but a few weeks of a season, and after the disappointment of the evening before.
“As a coach, he missed the whole season, he comes back like he comes back, and then to have this happen, it would have been very easy to go, ‘Man, can we just forget about it? Can we just not say anything?’” Block said.
But that was never a conversation.
Now, about the hat.
During a spring break trip to Florida six years ago, Brogan and his grandfather Dr. George Bettman were on the golf course. Brogan hadn’t really started playing golf at that point, but he accompanied his grandpa as Bettman shot below his age – 90.
A week later, Dr. Bettman died. Sometime after that, as the family was looking through some of his things, Brogan found the hat. It was way too big for Brogan at that point, but by junior year he was able to wear it with a washcloth lining the inside to make it fit more snugly.
There aren’t a lot of straw hats to be found at Michigan high school golf events, so it’s definitely been something of a Brogan signature as well as a reminder of his grandpa.
“It’s his hat, and I feel like he would love seeing me have some success in golf,” Brogan said, “and probably love even more that I would turn myself in for a mistake.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He is a senior editor of MHSAA.com's editorial content and has served as MHSAA Communications Director since January 2021. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Lansing Christian's Baylor Brogan follows an approach shot during the LPD4 Final at Bedford Valley. (Middle) Brogan, in the straw hat, celebrates his team's 2022 championship. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)