Battle of the Fans: Halftime is G.R. Christian's Time
January 29, 2012
GRAND RAPIDS – For many high school hoops fans, halftime is a break – perhaps an opportunity to grab a pop or some popcorn, catch up with old friends, or at least take a seat and catch a breath.
But for the Grand Rapids Christian student cheering section, it’s no time for rest. Those 10 minutes might be when Eagle Nation does its best work.
For this “Battle of the Fans” finalist and its six senior leaders, halftime is their time. Some schools play music between halves, or run contests on the floor. At Grand Rapids Christian, everyone knows that after two quarters of supporting the play on the court, the halftime action is in the stands.
It’s cheer after cheer after cheer, with only a few 20-second breaks along the way.
“People get into it, and it’s over in a flash,” senior Jesse Ludema said.
“We frown on down time,” senior Evan Metcalf added. “You can have down time when you get home.”
Grand Rapids Christian is one of five finalists for the MHSAA Student Advisory Council’s “Battle of the Fans” competition. MHSAA staff visited both the Eagles and Reese on Friday after starting the tour Jan. 21 at Frankenmuth. Trips will be made to both Rockford and Petoskey over the next three weeks, with videos posted of all five finalists on the MHSAA Facebook page. After an online vote and SAC discussion, the winner will be announced on Feb. 24. Clips from all five MHSAA-produced videos will be shown during the Girls and Boys Basketball Finals in March at the Breslin Center.
Eagle Nation prides itself on bringing the same enthusiasm to every game. But it was tough to ignore the extra juice Friday, with Grand Rapids Christian facing rival East Grand Rapids. The schools are just 2.5 miles apart, and their two football games this fall received hype statewide.
Eagle Nation’s senior leaders contributed in those grudge matches as well – but from their spots in the stands. “Our school is better served with us in the stands than on the field,” senior Joe Schierbeek laughed.
Ludema sarcastically agreed: “They don’t need my ‘huge’ muscles; they need our loud voices.”
So what happened when Grand Rapids Christian’s second-quarter buzzer sounded?
Students go bananas in a cheer led by costumed senior leader Cody Powers. Each Eagles class – seniors through freshmen – takes its turn doing a collective hip shake, a favorite in the Eagle’s Nest. A boxer throws left and right uppercuts before landing a knockout blow that falls the entire section backward. And on this night, Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo was in attendance and got some love from Eagle Nation – although it is only unconfirmed speculation that Izzo was there to check in on the “Battle of the Fans” craze.
Eagle Nation plans a theme for every home game, and Friday was all about neon. More than 400 students packed the sections behind the north basket, glowing in all hues of neon covering T-shirts, tank tops, pants, socks and head bands. Those six leaders each wore a hot pink tank top, with one letter painted on each spelling E-A-G-L-E-S. With help of the administration, the leaders even sold bright $1 bandannas to everyone in the student section to top off the neon look. Even the basketball team got into the act: Players surprised their classmates by wearing neon-green ankle tape and those same neon bandannas during warm-ups.
While Eagle Nation had been loud in the past, this level of organization debuted this school year. Before, the students were always told to just cheer louder, but without much of a plan. Now, there’s a Facebook group. Theme nights are mentioned with other school announcements. On Friday, leaders held a lunchtime pep assembly for student section members, and they had a similar training assembly with eighth graders earlier last week.
Leaders also take seriously the word “Christian” spelled out in the name on their team's uniforms. Being an example of their faith is a priority.
“People don’t see what happens in our school every day. And when they come to games, they see our student section, and they take that as an example of who we are as a school,” Powers said. “So we want to show them who are, and that’s why we value character.”
“That’s not to say we don’t get rowdy, though,” Schierbeek quickly interjected.
In the end, it’s all about having fun – a theme that played loudly in Frankenmuth as well. Metcalf watched the Frankenmuth video with a big smile. “Let’s visit them,” he said. "We can have a fan section dance party.”
But first the focus is on winning the “Battle of the Fans,” which to this student section is its “state finals.”
With his voice almost gone, Ludema gave some advice to the other finalists.
“Cheer loud,” he said. “And get some throat lozenges.”
View Grand Rapids Christian's application video, created by GRCHS senior Andrew Pruim.
PHOTOS by Grand Rapids Christian junior Janina Pollatz.Report by the MHSAA's Andy Frushour.
Simple Act Sets Example Nationwide
October 29, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
In many respects, Dansville junior Clay Soule is your average high schooler from a small town.
He plays sports all year long, and when he’s not playing basketball in the winter he’s definitely snowmobiling. He’s not sure at first when asked his favorite class, but zoo-bot – zoology and botany – was pretty interesting last year. Like a lot of high school football players, sometimes he loses focus and his coaches have to reel him in. Soule also isn’t a fan of chopping and unloading firewood, which is pretty typical too.
And when his minute of fame came on a national television show generations know by name, Soule missed it. At 7 a.m. Sundays, he’s sleeping.
“I’m just a normal kid, I guess, in Dansville,” Soule said Wednesday during a break from gym class.
Two weeks ago, at a break in play during his football game against Laingsburg, Soule shuffled across the line of scrimmage and tied the shoe of the Wolfpack’s Kevin Koenig, who was wearing gloves and having a hard time getting them off.
Soule didn’t think it was a big deal.
He can’t believe how big a deal it’s become.
The video clip of Soule literally lending two hands has been viewed in its original YouTube post nearly 200,000 times, and after being picked up by multiple national media entities reportedly has been watched nearly 1 million times.
Arguably the topper? Soule’s assist made ABC’s Good Morning America on Sunday.
“I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal, to be honest. I just tied a kid’s shoe,” Soule said. “I really didn’t think it would be going anywhere. I just thought, ‘Oh well, I tied a kid’s shoe.’
“I guess it’s a big deal because you don’t really see that, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal as it is right now. It should be something people should do, but a lot of people don’t do it. I guess it’s sportsmanship, helping another team out. (For me), it’s just a normal thing.”
More than a moment
The Aggies were leading 14-0 during the second quarter of an eventual 35-20 win over Laingsburg on Oct. 16. The Wolfpack were driving when Koenig, the quarterback, dropped down to tie his shoe.
Koenig is towering for a small-school football player, at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds and a two-time MHSAA Division 4 wrestling champion. But there’s Soule, playing the defensive side of his atypical quarterback/defensive end combo, trotting over and kneeling down as he asked if Koenig wanted some help.
A couple Aggies know Koenig from wrestling, but Soule doesn’t wrestle. The only conversation Soule recalls was when he asked Koenig if he wanted a double-knot, and was told no. Aside from what might have been a puzzled look on Koenig’s part, that was that. Soule shuffled back across the line and could hear a blend of laughter and clapping from the crowd as play resumed.
But his simple act is being hailed as much more.
The shoe-tie started gaining attention the last week, when it was submitted to the Lansing State Journal for its Video of the Week contest. The State Journal is owned by the same company as USA Today, which picked up the video. Then Huffington Post did the same. Then 530 Project Productions, which films Dansville’s games and posted the original clip to YouTube (watch it below) was contacted by CBS Sports and Good Morning America. Their coverage led to an appearance on Fox Sports' national network.
As of Tuesday, the video had been viewed in all 50 states and 173 counties, according to the 530 producers.
USA Today called Soule “a nice guy doing a nice thing for someone else.” From Huffington Post: “In an age where athlete celebrations and taunting are amusingly received as viral sensations, the reaction after the play almost supersedes the play itself.”
“I’m not trying to make it a big deal. I’m just trying to let it go, let it run its own course,” Soule said.
But …
“It’s pretty cool.”
Above average
To be honest, Soule really isn’t an average high schooler.
He carries a 3.8 grade-point average, and a discussion from that zoo-bot class about the science of raising crops has him thinking already about studying in college something related to agriculture with the idea of becoming a farmer like his grandfather was when Soule was a kid.
He plays three sports, and stands out. He joined the varsity for both baseball and basketball as a sophomore, and he quarterbacks an 8-1 football team that takes on Carson City-Crystal in a Division 7 District opener this weekend and can tie the program record for single-season wins with one more victory.
Football coach Mike Galbreath called Soule “an all-around good kid. The young man is a great leader, and he has led our team tremendously this season.”
“He’s clearly someone with excellent character,” athletic director Julie Odom added.
And humility. His school has 300 students, and Soule knows them all by name. Yes, he slept through the Good Morning America segment, so he caught up by watching later that day on Facebook. He read some of the comments that went with the story, but not all of them – he’s just not into social media that much, and not into being the center of attention.
His brother Garrett is an infielder at Saginaw Valley State University, and they talked about the shoe-tie a little. Mostly, Clay and his parents joke about it, in disbelief of how the video has taken off. “(My parents) expect it out of me. That’s the way me and my brother were raised – to help out people,” Soule said.
Classmates joked with him Monday, asking for help tying their shoes. A student from Concord – this week’s playoff opponent – direct messaged him on Twitter, asking if Soule was that guy from the video. Soule said, “Yeah, that was me,” and that was it.
The whole thing is a little ironic; in preschool, Soule was afraid to tie the shoelaces on a practice shoe in front of his class. Clearly, he’s mastered the skill – and then, unintentionally, used it to set an example of sportsmanship for athletes all over the country.
“People should expect it out of other people. Maybe it happens but it never gets videotaped and made a big deal,” Soule said. “(But maybe) tying a shoe goes above and beyond what most people would do.
“People would just wait for him to tie his shoe. But I just went over there and tied it for him. I didn’t really think twice about it. I just went over there and did it.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA as its Media & Content Coordinator in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He has served as Editor of Second Half since its creation in Jan. 2012. 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) Dansville's Clay Soule kneels to tie Kevin Koenig's shoelace during a break against Laingsburg two weeks ago. (Middle) Dansville celebrates another victory from one of the best seasons in program history. (Photos courtesy of Dansville High School.)