Battle of the Fans: Blue Crew Legacy
February 18, 2012
PETOSKEY -- Directly across the gym from the Petoskey student cheering section Friday, a toddler played on the first row of bleachers.
He wasn’t paying much attention to the Northmen’s boys basketball game against West Branch Ogemaw Heights. But he was wearing a blue T-shirt that read “Future Blue Crew” -- guaranteeing he will be soon enough.
At Petoskey High, a Class A school in a town where families have lived for generations, kids grow up aspiring not just to be the athletes playing for championships -- but also the Blue Crew members cheering them on.
While the other cheering section finalists in this season’s MHSAA “Battle of the Fans” contest were officially organized, for the most part, over the last year or two, Petoskey’s Blue Crew is nearing a decade as a constant at its school’s athletic events -- and a source of community pride.
“It’s such a legacy. Eighth grade, you’re looking forward to to being even involved in the Blue Crew, ... and now that we’re all seniors, everyone is listening to us, and we just want our teams to do well,” Petoskey senior Hayley Fettig said. “That’s a big part of it. We’re here to support our teams and cheer for our teams, and be a team ourselves.”
Petoskey was the fifth and final stop on the Battle of the Fans tour to find Michigan’s top student cheering section. Over the last five weeks, MHSAA staff and members of its Student Advisory Council also visited Frankenmuth, Reese, Grand Rapids Christian and Rockford. MHSAA-produced videos of all five finalists have been posted on the MHSAAsports YouTube page. Online voting will take place Monday-Thursday on the MHSAA Facebook page (you must “like” our page to vote). The winner will be announced Friday.
For most of its basketball history, Petoskey played in its old Central Gymnasium, an arena straight from the movie “Hoosiers” which seats about 1,500 fans and turned into a giant tunnel of cheers and shouts for every home game. But late in the fall of 2002, the newly-built high school opened a much larger gym that not only holds more fans, but also is more cavernous.
A bigger room meant a need for bigger spirit. And that sparked the Blue Crew, the brain child of members of the student council, some of whose names are still thrown around the halls to this day -- although the current seniors were in elementary school when it all began.
About 140 students piled into a “whited out” Blue Crew on Friday, plus 60 more in the jazz band that plays every home game and easily could be confused for one at the college level. To the left of the Crew sat about 50 more students not yet in high school. All sub-high school students are known as “Future Blue Crew,” while teachers are “Old-School Blue Crew.”
The Blue Crew often stands larger than it did Friday -- but on this night, the junior varsity and freshman basketball teams were playing simultaneously at other sites, and the hockey team was on the road. Petoskey’s Big North Conference foes are spread throughout the northern third of the Lower Peninsula, but the Blue Crew is known for making hours-long trips and constant support.
Members of the student council still play a big part. Those 12 students, plus 10 more take a one-hour leadership class taught by former girls varsity coach Matt Tamm. His classroom is a hall of memories itself, with photos of teams going back decades. Taking up center spot on a main wall is the original Blue Crew banner including its mission and three directives for generations to come.
“When I was younger, the older kids always told us, ‘You have to watch how we do this so when you’re older, you can do it how we did it,’ senior Brad Berkau said.
“You begin to learn when you’re younger what we do and how to go about cheering the right away. Not just boasting about our team, but not putting down the other ones too,” senior Nick Godfrey added.
That “right way” includes refusing to cheer negatively. Petoskey athletic director Gary Hice said it’s been four or five years since he’s had to tell the Crew that one of its cheers was crossing the line. Counselor Karen Starkey, who helps by coordinating parents to cheer with the students, said she hasn’t seen the Blue Crew respond to an opposing cheering section’s negative chant in at least two years.
Instead, the Crew pours its energy into more memorable ventures.
Starkey was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2011, and her first chemotherapy treatment was on a game night.
She showed up in white, anticipating a white out. Instead, she found the entire Blue Crew in pink -- before receiving a group hug from the 200 or so students there supporting her as well.
“Those are the things these guys just jump out and do,” Starkey said. “It’s so not necessary, but it was just so cool.”
PHOTOS courtesy of Larry Tracy and CMA Action Photography.
'Mailloux Management' Goes Global
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
December 17, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Leslie (Barnhart) Mailloux graduated from Ogemaw Heights High School in 1999 and since has lived in New Mexico, Texas and Ohio twice.
She’s traveled to parts of Africa and Europe multiple times, plus Haiti, with a voyage to Switzerland planned for next month.
She’s served as a supervisor in a foreign exchange program, mentoring students as they make adjustments to living in the U.S.
Needless to say, Mailloux has gained plenty of worldly knowledge since becoming an MHSAA Scholar-Athlete Award winner as a high school senior in 1999.
“It was good to get out of the small-town America, meeting people of all walks of life,” Mailloux said. “People are different, but we’re all doing the same things: having families, working. We just do it differently.
“We’re all different, but we’re all the same. We’re on this planet for a reason ... and we can learn from each other.”
A three-sport athlete – who played volleyball, basketball and soccer – Mailloux (pronounced May-you) was one of 24 scholar-athletes recognized during the winter of 1999 by the MHSAA and Farm Bureau Insurance, which continues to sponsor the Scholar-Athlete Award program that has grown to 32 recipients. In advance of this March’s 25th celebration, Second Half is catching up with some of the hundreds who have been recognized.
Leaving home
Mailloux, now 32, met her husband Logan while earning a degree in architecture at Southfield’s Lawrence Technological University.
Logan grew up in Farmington Hills and when they met told Leslie he never wanted to leave Michigan. But that was before he joined the Air Force and ascended to the rank of major, which led to the family's moving to the southwest and now back to the Dayton, Ohio, area for the second time.
When Leslie and Logan moved to New Mexico, she had initial thoughts they’d landed in a ugly desert. But they fell in love with their new home: “You learn to appreciate different kinds of beauty. Fountains, blue skies, you appreciate the creation,” she said. “You really have to keep your eyes open.”
While in New Mexico, Mailloux found a way to mix working abroad with an opportunity to become involved in that community. Through a posting on Craig’s List she landed with the Council of International Education Exchange, a program that specializes in study abroad. As a coordinator for the CIEE, she helped foreign students “make the jump” to living here while providing them support and mentoring.
She also has managed to stay active athletically, playing volleyball competitively including on two teams that have advanced to USAV national tournaments. And she has passed on the lessons she's learned on the court and field during two high school coaching stops, including as the varsity head coach at Dayton Christian High School during the couple's first stop in Ohio.
“Hard work does pay off,” Mailloux said of her coaching focus. “Obviously (my players) had some God-given talent; some had a lot of talent and some a little. But with hard work they could be good, whether it’s in a sport, career or school. If you work hard, you’ll succeed.”
Traveling abroad
Mailloux no doubt has seen plenty as well during her international travels, including the mission trip she took to Haiti while in college. But her favorite excursion surely came a little more than three years ago, when Mailloux and her husband journeyed to Ethiopia to bring home their adopted twin sons.
Leslie had hoped to adopt siblings and was drawn to Ethiopia with a sister living there at the time. After some prayerful consideration, she and Logan began a two-year process that led to then 6-month-old boys Nathan and Issac becoming part of Mailloux family.
“Finally having the babies in our arms that God wanted us to have, it was a beautiful moment,” Mailloux said.
Her sons “are all boys, 250 percent," and keep her running around most of the day – Mailloux calls that fulltime job “Mailloux Management.” But she also does contract residential design work for Archetype Designs, a firm based in Texas.
She wasn’t alone among family members who journeyed far from home. In addition to her sister who lived in Ethiopia for three years, another sister plus her brother both moved to Seattle.
The sister in Seattle has moved back to Michigan, and the Maillouxs now are only six hours from West Branch. It could be only a matter of time before Leslie and Logan consider making good on his original desire to stay close to home now that they've experienced so much in this country and abroad.
“When it’s your roots, it’s still in your blood,” Leslie said. “We still love Michigan.”
Click to read the series' first installments:
PHOTO: Ogemaw Heights' Leslie Barnhart (middle) poses with her Scholar-Athlete Award next to Larry Thomas (left), the then-executive vice president of Farm Bureau Insurance, and MHSAA Executive Director Jack Roberts.