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SAC Sound-Off: Don't Forget Those Underdogs

October 1, 2012

By Madeleine Martindale
Lake Orion junior

At any sporting event, the superstars are the ones who draw us in. In track and field, the winning athletes keep the crowd roaring with pride as they pull ahead and cross the finish line first.

Meanwhile, the runners behind them receive only the periodic courtesy clap.

But, just like in the story of the rabbit and the hare, it’s the underdog athlete with the will to improve who can sneak up from behind and unexpectedly become a winning force – and can benefit most from your encouragement as you cheer from the stands above.

This is a story about my friend Corey, who was just that underdog. She is a solid athlete, but she was not the favorite to win her sprint events. Her ambition and positive attitude clearly stood out, though.

As a freshman, she had several spills caused by clipping the hurdles, and lived through her fair share of other embarrassing finishes too. Having a great family support system as well as teammates who believed success is small accomplishments strung together, Corey was unwilling to give up.  She set her mind to improve her performance one day at a time. 

Corey knew performing at a higher level was going to take commitment beyond the time limits of track season. She set goals, developed a plan and began working on it. Every day Corey would work extremely hard at practice. During the summer, she could be found at the track almost daily. She spoke her goals out loud and shifted her thoughts from “I might” to “I can” and “I will.”  She continually clocked her times and pushed herself to reduce her best by one millisecond each time she ran.

The coach stepped in to monitor her progress too. He was willing to devote extra time to her since she had taken such initiative to improve. Anyone who paid attention to her work ethic knew Corey was going to achieve her goals. Also, it seemed certain the whole team would improve through Corey. If we wanted a chance at winning, we would have to increase our own training to keep ahead of her. 

When track season arrived, Corey was ready. Her competitors were a little rusty from the winter, but they were still expected to finish ahead of her. I stood on the sideline and cheered for my team, but I was especially loud for Corey – who nervously anticipated her first race. 

From the start, it was clear Corey’s efforts were paying off, and she was moving to the front of the pack. I ran down the sideline screaming for her to push a little harder and prove to herself she could do it. You could see the determination on her face and complete focus on getting to the finish line first. She had prepared for this, and it was clear she was not going to be defeated without giving her best fight. 

She was winning … She won! 

Her perseverance paid off and the cheers were all hers. Except for one.

The voice of one bad attitude came from the stands and made its way to the field. It angered those of us who heard it. It was from a parent who was less than happy that her daughter lost the race to “her” (Corey). As unkind as we felt it was to her daughter, who is a talented, hard-working athlete, it was equally unfair to Corey. We interpreted the inflection as the loss was a measure of poor performance rather than appreciation of Corey’s increased ability. Corey worked hard to produce such a notable performance, and deserved respect for this honorable win.   

It doesn’t matter what sport you’re supporting; don’t limit your cheers to the superstar. Cheer louder for those underdogs. They dismiss their fears of failure and publicly face the challenge, falling often – which is harder to deal with the older we get. It’s this courageous attitude that should be encouraged, because it is the lesson that develops leaders in life. I feel it’s all of our responsibilities to foster their ambitions through positive encouragement and behaving respectfully when they finally reach their goals.

We cannot all be the superstar athletes you come to watch; but your support might keep us from giving up. After all, the moment you choose to sit in the stands is the moment you are an extension of our team. As such, we expect you to cheer on all of us like we do each other – not just the winners. Not just your daughters, sons or friends. Cheer for all of us as if we’re almost in first, with the finish line before us.

Madeleine Martindale, Lake Orion junior

  • Sports: Track and Field (pole vault/sprints), competitive and sideline cheer
  • Non-sports activities: Martindale created Our Hope Project, a service club she manages with other students from her school; also: bicycling, gymnastics, snowboarding.
  • Favorite classes: Chemistry and Team Sports
  • What's next: Martindale would like to continue her track and field at a university with a strong pole vault coach. She plans to study education in hopes of becoming a teacher and track and field coach while also continuing to work and mentor in her community.
  • Shining sports moments: Setting Lake Orion's pole vault record, being named team Most Valuable Player as a freshman and qualifying for the MHSAA Final despite a taped ankle and while wearing tennis shoes; Winning the summer Grand Haven Beach Vault with a personal record of 10 feet; Placing fifth with her teammates at last season's Division 1 Cheer Finals.
  • Pump-up jam: "It's a Beautiful Day" (U2)

No Place Buchanan’s Herd Would Rather Be

February 17, 2018

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor 

BUCHANAN – Cailin Gunn was new at Buchanan entering eighth grade, and she was shy. What’s more, eighth graders in her district are housed in the same building as the high schoolers, which understandably could be intimidating.

She went to only one basketball game that season, in 2013-14. But the wall of Bucks cheering on their team easily caught her attention.

And then Jessica Lee, another eighth grader that year, and her friends invited Gunn to join the “Herd” – at that point the reigning Battle of the Fans II champion.

“She was scared, and we all took her in,” Lee said. “Because I know it is scary going to a new school. So the Herd was like, we’re open to everyone. Everybody come join.”

Also an eighth-grader at that time, Kevin Frost was tucked into a top corner of “The Woods” as section leaders whose names remain easy to recall helped Buchanan’s become an example to be followed statewide.

“We just got to see them in action. It was just amazing to watch,” said Frost, who with Lee and Gunn is among current Herd leaders. “I don’t know how to describe it. When we won on a buzzer beater at the ‘Mean Stinks’ game – just to be part of that; it’s come full circle. To be down leading everyone else, it’s indescribable.”

The tradition indeed lives on. The MHSAA’s visit to Buchanan for Friday’s boys basketball game against Berrien Springs was its fourth in seven years of Battle of the Fans and the last of three finalists tour stops for this year’s BOTF VII.

We met with section leaders Gunn, Lee, Frost, fellow seniors Madison Schau and Kenneth Stuckey and junior Garret Lollar to learn more about how they’ve both carried on and added to the Herd’s legacy.

As with our first two finalists tour reports on Petoskey’s Blue Crew and Boyne City’s Rambler Rowdies, below is our review of an evening hanging with the Bucks. Following again the format of a typical game night, we begin with the Herd’s suggestions for other student sections getting started and video from our visit and then tell more of the story behind a group that continues to rock the bleachers.

Buchanan’s Gameplan

Take some of these tips from Buchanan’s Herd:

• Be positive – in planning and performance. It all starts with the right attitude, Lollar said, and that starts with the process behind the scenes and carries over to the fun in the stands.

• Don’t be scared. That advice covers a number of scenarios. Don’t be scared to come to a student section meeting with older classmates or many you don’t know. Don’t be scared to share your opinion. And never be scared to dance with your section when the rest of the crowd is watching.

• Make it all about fun. The more fun you’re having, the more tightly-knit your section will become.

• Work together. The Herd has a large group of leaders, but they work to make all of their individual ideas mesh together. That allows them to collect a lot of great ones – and keep everyone in a large group engaged as well.

Pregame Prep

As an established section for most of this decade, the Herd generally enters a school year with a running start.

Tradition and expectations are set, thanks in part to a group of teachers who are passionate about facilitating whatever the Herd needs to be at its best. But students continue to show as well – it’s the usual this year to have 30 or more at the section’s regular meetings.

The Herd from its beginnings at the start of this decade has been about immersing itself in the community. That’s included a lot of things over the years, including being asked to attend events in town that have little to do with the school’s athletics. But it begins with becoming a fabric of the entire school district, which starts in part with section leaders holding “traveling pep rallies” to teach cheers to elementary and middle school students. (The video below was submitted as part of the BOTF "Challenge Round.")

At one traveling pep rally, Gunn and her fifth-grade sister led a cheer together. Another poignant moment unfolded when kids ran up to Lee later on because they recognized her from a pep rally and wanted to show her some of the cheers they’d learned.

“They saw me as a leader, and I like to be a leader,” Lee said. “And I think that’s another thing I like about the Herd: I see myself in them. I was you once, and now I’m … the people who led it before.”

For this year’s application video, the Herd rallied its classmates during the final days before holiday break to shoot a lip dub. Leaders went that route because they wanted to offer something that hadn’t been done as part of BOTF before – but also, the lip dub allowed them to show off more than just a basketball game night. The run through the school’s hallways included appearances by a number of sports teams, school clubs and social groups that all have some ownership in the section.

Herd leaders have an inside joke that while the section has always been good, it went through some “dark ages” before experiencing a “renaissance” this year. This BOTF candidacy is topping things off. 

“I feel like this has been our entire high school (career),” Schau said. “We’ve been part of the Herd since we got into the high school. … It’s something we’ve always done, all the way through. So our passion’s really strong this year.”

Game Time

“Tonight for sure, you’re going to see some bad dancing,” Stuckey said. “I’m one of them, but we’re going to let it all out.”

The Woods are alive from before tip-off until long after the final buzzer. There are plenty of traditions – the speaker system pipes in music during quarter breaks and halftimes for a full section dance party, and during play the cheers and chants are ones the Herd has made regulars over the years – and taught to all of those younger students coming up so they’re ready to step in as high schoolers.

Community indeed runs deep. On this night, Buchanan’s 1977-78 Class C champion boys basketball team was featured for a halftime reunion. As would make sense, the Herd wasn’t really involved – but then received a giant shout-out at the end of the ceremony from retired coach Mike Rouse.

A few other things that stuck out on this night: Halftime kicked off with a full section conga line around the gym. And as it’s done since 2012-13, the Herd finished the night after the game had ended singing a song from the stands with the team and many from the community filling the floor.

Also recognizable were faces in other sections of the gym of at least a few alums we’d seen in years past. That support is ongoing – the Herd has received quite a bit of social media action from past grads sharing their pride. They’ve also seen it from visiting fans and even an opposing player who said his school’s student section needed to step up to Buchanan’s level.

The Woods has been shaking things up quite a bit this winter. On the road at places like Niles Brandywine, where it joined that school’s “Pink Out.” Supporting other teams besides basketball, including wrestling and competitive cheer. Unifying with the boys basketball team on Tie-Dye Night, when Bucks players also hit the court dressed to match. Herd leaders are even planning to have a spring cheering section for the first time, supporting those often-forgotten teams as well.

Some Herd leaders weren’t psyched at first with Lollar’s suggestion of Clean Bandit’s “Rather Be” as the soundtrack for the lip dub – they were hoping for something currently popular. But the 2014 jam has grown into this year’s anthem. And Friday, it seemed like no one wanted to go home when the game was done.

“This is really important to us,” Gunn said, “and we really live that saying – there’s no place we’d rather be.”

Postgame Analysis

Please join us: “Instead of coming into high school and it being scary, terrifying, like (these are) bigger people than you, it’s an inviting thing,” Lollar said. “Because you get to have fun with a bunch of people you usually wouldn’t hang out with. In the student section, I stand next to freshmen I don’t talk to (otherwise) ever. But I’m friends with them because we have this.”

Leave a legacy: “I notice when we go on our traveling pep rallies, we see these kids at the elementary school – they’re not even higher than my knee,” Schau said. “And they know the cheers. I don’t know if I was that age and knew how to cheer, but they know the cheers by heart. That’s what makes me want to do it – because those kids know every single cheer. You just grow up. They know now. They know what to do.”

Shy no more: “All of the positivity and all of these people showed me there’s no reason to be scared,” Gunn said. “Something I learned and something other people should learn is you won’t be embarrassed (because) everyone else is doing it around you. It’s a lot of fun.”

We will remember this forever: “It’s something we get to remember (from) high school,” Stuckey said. “There are many kids who can’t be like, ‘We had a student section and we were able to lead it.’ And it’s nice we’re able to say that. The Herd is a family; we’re not just people who know each other, we’re not just a student section. We all care about each other, and it’s nice to have a family away from your real family.”

Next on BOTF: The Buchanan visit concluded this year’s BOTF finalists tour. Beginning Tuesday, fans all over the state may vote for the student section they think should win this year’s contest. Check out Second Half on Tuesday for instructions on how to vote on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The champion will be announced Feb. 23.

Click to see our reports on Petoskey’s Blue Crew and Boyne City’s Rambler Rowdies.

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

PHOTOS: (Top) Buchanan's "Herd" cheers during Friday's boys basketball game against Berrien Springs. (Middle) Classmates follow the beat as Kevin Frost plays drums during a break in the action. (Photos courtesy of Buchanan's yearbook staff.)