TC West 'Creatures' of Cheer Habit
February 11, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
TRAVERSE CITY – The “Bleacher Creatures” stood only 250 strong for Friday’s Traverse City West boys basketball game against Petoskey.
A hockey game in Trenton took those 25 players out of the cheering section, with 50 more performing a play and 25 playing a jazz concert. Still, by Friday’s fourth quarter, at least a few from those other events trickled into the gym to finish the night with their green-clad classmates.
No one expects someone to skip another school activity to join the Creatures. Those who have to work on game nights are exempt, and having a lot of homework also is excusable.
Otherwise, showing up, like most of the student section’s rules, simply is part of an unwritten code – like going to class or eating lunch. It goes along with being a part of Traverse City West, the fourth stop on this season’s MHSAA Battle of the Fans tour.
“People don’t think of it as we have a better student section than other people; oh, our student section is the best of the best, the loudest, this and this and this,” West senior Brian Jean said. “Really, I just think it’s a way of life around here. We just ... go. That’s just what we do.”
Traverse City West was the second-to-last stop on this year’s Battle of the Fans III tour. MHSAA staff and Student Advisory Council members will finish at Beaverton on Friday and already have visited Buchanan, Bridgman and Frankfort. Public voting on the MHSAA’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites will take place Feb. 18-20, with the Student Advisory Council taking that vote into consideration when selecting the champion.
The winner will be announced on Second Half on Feb. 21 and honored with a championship banner during the Boys Basketball Semifinals on March 21 at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center.
Traverse City West is by far the largest of this year’s BOTF finalists. But it also has one of the most established student section traditions of any finalist during the contest’s three-year run – and it’s a history current leaders proudly recall with detail.
The school, born in 1997 when the former Traverse City High split into West and Central, is young by relative standards. A student body of just more than 1,600 students is represented in part by a 45-member student senate, which among other duties organizes the Bleacher Creatures, publicizes game nights and generally works to build school spirit.
Current senior leaders were in fourth grade in 2006. But they are able to rattle off that the section in its official form with its Bucket Brigade leaders was started by a student named Chase O’Black, who actually has a “titan spirit scholarship” named after him that is available to one Traverse City West boy and girl each spring.
“In middle school you used to walk around the football field with your friends,” senior Kelsey Boudjalis said, “and you always saw the high schoolers and said, ‘I can’t wait to be like that.’”
The student senate provides the Bleacher Creatures an official mechanism made up of athletes from a number of sports plus others who participate in theater, Model United Nations and a host of other non-sports activities. With input from such a variety of social groups, the section represents a “melting pot” of the school on a larger scale, senior Charlie Clark said.
Start with the Bucket Brigade. Although not officially designated by the student senate as the leaders, the four seniors who dress in paint suits and bang plastic 5-gallon buckets (but only at outdoor events) are the unwritten ring masters of the Creatures, with Brigade responsibilities handed down year by year. This year’s brigade is comprised of four senate members including school governor Brady Severt.
If the Brigade gets things rolling, tradition drives the rest. Doors for football games open at 5:30 p.m., and Creatures are waiting. The section can swell to nearly 1,000 students for Homecoming or a big game against rival Traverse City Central, but like at many schools it’s an another unspoken rule that students start at the top as freshmen and gradually move forward to the front (unless they have older friends to hang with or a sweet bunny suit like Severt wore a few times as an underclassmen).
Of course, the Creatures have themes: Green Screen in West’s version of a White Out, although the Creatures like White Outs as well and combine them with Toga Nights. Wild, Wild West is a Homecoming tradition going back nearly to the start, and a neat latest addition is the Patriot Game – during which West wears red or blue and rival Traverse City Central wears the opposite, and together they raise money for area veterans organizations.
There’s music too: The band jams an adjacent section during football games, with a drum line filling the breaks for indoor events. And the Creatures love fan buses, drumming up enough interest to set up two for soccer and one for a football game this fall, plus another for the West/Central hockey game Dec. 18 at Comerica Park in Detroit.
Getting word out to more than 1,600 students is a little different than for the other BOTF contenders half and a quarter of West’s size, for obvious reasons. But the senate incorporates a few strategies in addition to the usual social media blasts and school announcements:
- Signage: Banners hang from the second-floor balcony overlooking the school cafeteria (see video for visual) announcing what’s coming up.
- Word of mouth: Leaders visit the cafeteria during lunch hours, making sure to hit up tables of students they don’t recognize among section regulars in an effort to get everyone from every group involved.
Keeping 300-400 students doing the same cheers is another task of some doing given the size of the group. But because the Creatures use a mix of new and old, there’s uniformity regardless of which leaders are leading crews at games that often are being played simultaneously. The cheers always are the same, allowing everyone the opportunity to participate and athletes on every team – even bowling teams – to enjoy the support.
“It gives the team something to play for instead of just the school. When they’re looking into the stands and seeing the entire student body there, it’s like, ‘Wow, everyone really cares about the outcome of this game,’” Clark said.
“As an athlete,” senior Hunter Lumsden added,” playing in front of a big student section makes you want to play a lot harder.”
The one debatable point is how the section became the Bleacher Creatures. Does it go back to a zombie theme night? Was it in response to Central having its Superfans? “It goes too far back for the books,” Severt quipped.
But tradition doesn’t graduate. Jean said past Bucket Brigaders he followed at a distance as an underclassmen approached him while home from college this fall to shake his hand and impart congrats and encouragement.
There’s pride in seeing the section continuing in the “right direction,” Clark said. And that right direction means being known as the best in the northern Lower Peninsula.
“I feel like the student section is a big family. The part of the high school seniors before us was to show us how to (cheer),” Jean said. “Now we’re showing the younger generation, if you will, how it’s done.”
“When I look back at high school, it’s definitely going to be one of the things I’ll remember,” Boudjalis added. “I want other kids to feel that way too.”
Battle of the Fans III is sponsored in part by the United Dairy Industry of Michigan.
PHOTOS: (Top) Traverse City West fans cheer on the boys basketball team during Friday's game against Petoskey. (Middle) "Bleacher Creatures," led by two "Bucket Brigade" members at the lower left corner, fall backward on a "punch-out" to celebrate a 3-pointer. (Photos courtesy of Rick Sack/TC Rick Photo.)
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.)