St. Johns Cheers Section Success
February 10, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
ST. JOHNS – The low point might’ve come two years ago, when St. Johns student leaders planned a holiday theme for a boys basketball game.
Alex Davis showed up in a Christmas sweater. Only four of her classmates dressed to match.
That same year, the school’s newly-formed Student Athletic Leadership Committee created a calendar for the winter highlighting theme nights and other games they hoped would draw a big student crowd. The calendar was gone by the next day, torn down by older students who wanted to continue doing their own thing – which generally included yelling at referees or the other team, and not always in the most flattering ways.
Before St. Johns could compete to be called the state’s best student section, the SALC had to convince their classmates there was a better way.
And finally, this winter, they’ve broken through thanks to a blueprint other student leaders would be wise to follow.
“It’s something where you have to be able to have a voice and you have to be able to want to make the change and want to make the difference,” Davis said. “Because you can go to all of these meetings and do everything. But at the end of the day, if you don’t want to do it, there’s no way you’re going to carry it out and help other people to do it.”
St. Johns hosted the fourth stop Friday of this year’s MHSAA Battle of the Fans IV finalists tour. The MHSAA also has visited Beaverton, Yale and Buchanan and will journey to Dowagiac on Friday, with the naming of this year’s champion Feb. 20.
The public may vote for its favorite on the MHSAA’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites beginning Feb. 17, with the MHSAA Student Advisory Council taking results into consideration when selecting the champion after the vote has concluded.
St. Johns’ appearance in the contest wasn’t a thought in the fall. But a spot among the final five might not mean more to any of the contenders. More than 200 students rooted on the Redwings’ basketball teams Friday – a testament to the work that’s been done and the changes that have been made as the section has been transformed.
Athletic director Chris Ervin started the Student Athletic Leadership Committee during the fall of 2012 after a group of students attended an MHSAA Sportsmanship Summit in Lansing that focused in part on the previous winter’s inaugural Battle of the Fans competition.
At that point, St. Johns students generally showed up for games, at least for the football and boys basketball teams. But there wasn’t a lot of cheering, or cheering in the most positive way.
The committee came back from the Summit with great ideas. But a group of then-seniors already was in place as leaders of the section – and the SALC’s entrance into the conversation was mostly ignored.
The SALC was created in large part to lead the student section toward more positivity, sportsmanship, inclusion of all grades. After this football season, the committee was close to giving up.
“If everyone is against us, why are we trying to force something upon them that they don’t want?” St. Johns junior Jake Eaton recalled asking. “If we were going to just bring negativity, we didn’t want to do that.”
“Standing up for this group, standing up for what we’re doing, was the hardest thing,” junior Jessica Hafner said, “and the best thing.”
The SALC again attended an MHSAA Sportsmanship Summit, in November in Grand Rapids. They again came back with plenty of ideas – and a stronger, more experienced group to push them through.
The original SALC was 12 students, three from each grade. The committee invited three more from the rest of the student body.
“At first, it came (across) like we were trying to take over the student section. We weren’t trying to take it over. We were just trying to make it more positive,” Davis said. “We invited some of those people in our group. That won them over. We got them in, changed their ways, and they went to their friends. It’s worked.”
The SALC got its message out to a school-wide captive audience by holding a pep rally before the boys and girls games against DeWitt on Dec. 12. That allowed the SALC to show off their new philosophy – and some new cheers – to the entire school, which in turn got some younger students interested who might not have showed before.
The SALC then took advantage of a key opportunity. In St. Johns’ league, the Capital Area Activities Conference, the boys varsity basketball teams play first on Friday nights, followed by the girls. The students who weren’t embracing the changes usually left after the boys games – leaving the SALC to work with those who stayed to cheer on the girls.
It was at those games that the new section began gaining a foothold. Applying to Battle of the Fans, and the excitement after students saw the video, gave the SALC’s effort another boost.
“At first, we struggled to get participation,” said senior Austin Ervin, who stays after his basketball games to lead the section. “Once we got coordinated cheers that were fun and everybody realized what it was like to have fun and be positive and not just scream at the officials and teams, I think people started talking at school; ‘You should come to this. It’s a good time.’”
The student attendance at girls games continued to grow during the first half of this season, and the section’s new setup transferred to the boys games. St. Johns filled a section with high schoolers and nearly another with middle schoolers for Friday’s against Haslett; although a few rows at the top emptied, the majority of the crowd stayed to cheer on the girls. The section also has made an appearance at a wrestling match to cheer on a team that has won four MHSAA titles over the last five seasons.
Hafner, a basketball player, said the support is definitely making a difference on the court; the boys basketball team, at 7-7, is on pace to equal last season’s record, but the girls team, at 10-6, already has surpassed its 2013-14 win total.
St. Johns’ student section has come a long way in a short time, but the potential for growth seems limitless in a school of nearly 1,100 students. There’s a buzz in the halls and plans for the future now that changes have finally gotten started.
“I grew up in high school only knowing this (negative) stuff,” Eaton added. “Once we all matured in this situation, we have this year and next year and wanted to push it through and get it going before we left. Seeing how we came together for that video, it was definitely worth it, definitely something we could push for that next year and try to do better.”
PHOTOS: (Top) St. Johns students cheer during Friday's boys basketball game against Haslett. (Middle) The Redwings' student section reached to the top row while filling one full section and part of another of the school's gym. (Bottom) A trio of students energize their classmates with back flips Friday. (Photos courtesy of Jack Heckaman/jaxxphotos.com.)
Zeeland East's Coop Crazies Share the Love
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
February 17, 2020
ZEELAND – Jonah Bunce had been waiting for this opportunity. With Hope College just down the road, the Zeeland East senior had grown up studying the Dutch’s Dew Crew and its powerful student section punch.
Classmate Liz Bays had been looking forward to her time in “The Coop” as well. Her father had coached multiple teams at East Kentwood, and she spent years watching the Falcons’ student section at work and readying for her chance to be part of something that looked like so much fun.
East’s “Coop Crazies” seemingly have had everything necessary to be a force. The section even had a little bit of history, having made the Battle of the Fans II finals in 2013.
But recent history had fallen short. And by the end of last school year, Bays, Bunce and their friends had realized it would be up to them to make up for three years that had fallen way below their expectations.
“What we focused mainly on was just having fun, honestly. We just like to have fun, and we like to keep a positive atmosphere,” Bunce said. “I knew one day I would be up in this position because it’s just something I love to do. And so what we strive (for) is inclusiveness, and we make sure all freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors are all appreciated.”
We saw for ourselves how that’s paid off during the final MHSAA BOTF IX visit Friday for Zeeland East’s boys basketball game against Hamilton.
We met first with Bunce, Bays and seniors Abby Beckett, Will Fredrickson and Ryan Stockdale to find out how they’ve created such a happy home again.
The Coop always has been senior-run, and that leadership structure is unchanged. What’s different is the approach.
Between talking things through with younger siblings and their friends, or during classes with students in the lower grades, the senior Coop leaders were able to start fostering a newly-inviting culture pretty quickly. And after the second football game this fall, they knew they had the makings of something special.
But filling the stands for football never has been a problem – the downer is they would empty out after the fall was done.
This winter, though, the good vibes have carried over.
“The Coop,” Bays said, “has become a place where everyone wants to be.”
Game Time
This year’s rise started on their last day of school as juniors, when Bays, Beckett and Bunce went to athletic director Josh Glerum and told him they wanted to lead the section in 2019-20. “We said, ‘We want to take over The Coop. We want to make this better. And we want to leave behind what we didn’t have the last three years,’” Bays recalled.
What they would create was hatched during summer meetings at the local ice cream shop. It began to play out during the first football game – when, without anything special planned or specifically organized, “We just had fun,” Bunce said, “and everyone realized this is legit. This is awesome.”
The Crazies aim and claim to be mostly impromptu and spontaneous. But they clearly put some planning into a slate of innovative ideas that kept about 200 in The Coop busy Friday from warm-ups until the final buzzer sounded.
The Zeeland East band provided an upbeat soundtrack for a night built around Valentine’s Day and filled with glitter, hearts, and cupid wings. It also was Senior Night for both the girls and boys varsity teams, and the latter made its entrance to the gym prize-fight style, through a door at the back of the student section and through The Coop to the floor.
The section prides itself on getting noisy when opponents have the ball, and the Crazies made their share Friday. From start to finish, they always seemed to have something going, including a halftime ceremony that included passing out roses to mothers cheering for both teams.
The best thing we saw fell under the “we can’t officially suggest this, but we enjoyed it” department. Two section leaders staged a fight in front of the section broken up by the school’s real-life resource officer, a deputy from the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department who was in on the fun and then led the section in something of a cruiser chase during a first-half break.
His moves were rivaled by a middle schooler whose second-half breakdance was worth the price of admission on its own.
Everyone was feeling the love, and when the beat dropped for “Party Till We Die,” the air above The Coop filled with a “glitter bomb” that more or less defined the night.
“We wanted to get a bunch of a glitter and just throw it up in the air and make it more of a party,” Beckett said. “We love doing that.”
Be like Zeeland East
Take some of these tips from the Coop Crazies:
Include everyone: It’s the best way to maximize section power, and as noted above served as a base belief for The Coop’s revival this school year. “It’s not just about the senior class, or one class,” Stockdale said. “Your student section isn’t going to be good unless all four levels are going crazy. We kinda realized when our freshmen are at their best, we’re at our best.”
Trust the process: Coop leaders have picked up specific roles, which simplifies putting together great nights for their classmates. Beckett and Bays always handle social media. Fredrickson is the flier guy, putting together the postings hung around the school. Stockdale and Bunce are the digital masters and build videos for the school’s daily announcements. All have specific jobs, and as a group they’ve found their groove.
Find help in the administration: Glerum taking over as athletic director before the 2018-19 school year definitely had an impact on The Coop. It’s not a coincidence – Glerum was the athletic director at Muskegon Western Michigan Christian when its section was a BOTF V finalist in 2016. Last year’s Coop leaders began meeting more regularly so everyone was on the same page, and this year he’s been available to provide whatever the section needs. Also, he never brought up Battle of the Fans. But as soon as Bays asked what it was all about during the fall, he sprung into action and made sure the Crazies had all the information.
Think outside the box: The Valentine’s Day theme may have seemed a little obvious given game night was Feb. 14. But we had to admire how the section honored moms for both teams, how they got local law enforcement involved and all in all how they supplied the highest level of creativity we saw this BOTF season.
They said it best
Home sweet home: “I grew up watching this stuff and I realized how much fun everyone was having, how much everybody enjoyed it,” Bunce said. “I think, coming from my personality, I enjoy having fun and going crazy. So I think when I saw that, I realized this was a place where I could show those emotions.”
It’s our time: “I think the big thing this year that has been a change is our whole senior class is trying to just enjoy the moment,” Stockdale said. “We preach, ‘It’s just a party.’ We don’t promote it as a game – just a party. Just come and have fun.”
Let fun take its course: “We weren’t trying to do anything special (to get this restarted),” Bunce said. “We would just put it out there on social media, and it was just the word (getting around) and everybody knowing that it was fun. Then it would just take care of itself.”
This is why we’re here: “Everything’s fun. Just cheering on your buddies – there’s nothing better than seeing our buddies succeed,” Fredrickson said. “And when they fail, you’re still there to support them.”
Next stop on BOTF: With all three finalists visits complete, online voting will begin Tuesday on the MHSAA’s Instagram, Twitter and Facebook feeds and continue through 4 p.m. Thursday. The MHSAA’s Student Advisory Council will consider those results when selecting the winner. The Battle of the Fans IX champion will be announced Friday, Feb. 21.
The Battle of the Fans is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.
PHOTOS: (Top) Zeeland East’s “Coop Crazies” filled the gym with plenty of red and pink during Friday’s Valentine’s Day-themed game. (Middle) Senior Jonah Bunce, in cupid wings, helps lead his classmates in a dance. (Photos by Kiersten Palmbos, Zeeland East senior.)