Ben Rico already knew he has a prominent nose.
But in case he needed a reminder …
“Pinocchio!”
“Toucan Sam!”
“Big Bird!”
“Squidward!”
Squidward?
“Squidward’s a SpongeBob SquarePants character,” Rico explained. “He has a big nose.”
Besides having a wonderful ability to poke fun at himself, Rico is an outstanding basketball player at Sonora. He just admitted that players do notice what’s being said, or, rather, shouted and chanted about them in the student sections of opposing teams.
Anyone who thinks school spirit is dead is dead between the ears. School spirit is very much alive, and kicking, in Orange County. Student sections have become such a big deal that we’ve ranked them, like we do football and soccer and other teams, for the second school year in a row.
A few years ago, it was unusual to walk into a high school basketball game and see dozens of students in attendance. Now it is typical to see in a gym dozens of students standing together for the whole game, wearing identical t-shirts, chanting and cheering, singing and dancing, pumping fists and pointing fingers, jumping and hollering.
And you experience it in gyms you might not expect to experience it.
The Garden Grove League is not the hottest league in Orange County athletics. But a Garden Grove-Santiago boys basketball game is as wild as it gets. Their student sections are not as organized as the ones in the student section top 10, but the energy and vitriol is there, and once they get some organization going, look out everybody.
Sometimes things get out of hand. Racial remarks have been made by the student section groups at Esperanza and Foothill this season. Perhaps elsewhere inappropriate things were said that did not get public attention.
The administrations at Esperanza and Foothill quickly acted on the misbehavior, and their student sections were outstanding after those episodes.
It’s good to remember that these are kids. They are learning. That’s why they are still in school.
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Related stories:
Fryer’s rankings: Top 10 student sections
Damian Calhoun’s favorite student sections
Brian Whitehead’s favorite student sections
Kenny Connolly’s top student sections
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DOING THEIR HOMEWORK
These kids sure do their homework about opposing schools’ players before game time.
“We do our research,” said Canyon student Nolan Fitch, “Facebook and Twitter have all the answers.”
Such as …
“At one game against Yorba Linda,” Fitch said, “we had a sign that said, ‘Brook Stop Calling Me.’ That was the name of the point guard’s girlfriend.”
Fitch, a senior, is ASB president at Canyon. Many of the county’s student sections are led by ASB leaders. Fitch has that double duty at Canyon.
Kevin Sowski, a leader of Esperanza’s section, which is known as the EHS Sixth Man, is ASB senior class treasurer. When he was a freshman, Esperanza students would print out the roster of the opposing team, check those players’ Facebook pages, write down the learned details on the roster, make copies and hand them out to the rest of the Sixth Man for game chants.
“But we can’t do that anymore,” Sowski said. “Our administration put a stop to that.”
Still, the kids do slip in a good one here and there. Esperanza knows one of Canyon’s better players repeated a grade in junior high.
“So whenever he got the ball,” Sowski said, “we chanted ‘super senior.’”
Santa Margarita principal Ray Dunne said the school’s activities director meets with the school’s Eagles Nest leaders before and during the season to make sure the ground rules are understood. Dunne knows how important that is. He had his hands full when he dealt with The Pit Crew at Servite when he was principal there.
“The Eagles Nest has been very good,” Dunne said. “Sometimes they slip, because they are kids, of course, and we’re quick to remind them about positive support. I’ve been very, very pleased with this group.”
JOCKS, NERDS UNITED
Something else has pleased Dunne, as it has administrators at other schools with strong student sections. Those invisible borders that divide high school kids into cliques and groups don’t exist at a basketball game. The jocks are elbow to elbow with the nerds, cheering and chanting together.
“This has become the thing to do,” Dunne said. “Kids who would not normally get involved are showing up to games.”
Canyon athletic director Pat Bendzik has seen this happen at his school, too.
“When you look up at that group of kids,” he said, “you see this unbelievable cross section of the student population. We’ll have some disenfranchised sort of kid standing next to a kid who will be going to Harvard.”
Many of the student sections have nicknames. Canyon’s is The Tribe. Foothill has The Dungeon. (Foothill Knights, get it?) Santa Margarita has the Eagles Nest, and Servite has The Asylum.
Social media plays a huge part not only in opposing player research but in organizing everything the student section will do and wear at games. Maybe it will be a “white out” night when everyone wears white. Maybe it will be hat night, or Hawaiian shirt night.
“Mostly it’s Twitter,” said Jack Jennison, a senior who is ASB president at Santa Margarita. “I run our official Eagles Nest Twitter page. We’ll talk to people around school about what they want the theme to be, then I’ll put it out on Twitter: ‘Hey, wear white tonight, game’s at 7, be there.’”
And when they get there …
‘KIND OF AN HONOR’
Sonora senior Josh Rodriguez was having a challenge this year with a math class he needed to get through to get into Point Loma Nazarene where the standout point guard will play college basketball. The Sunny Hills student section was aware of this. So Rodriguez heard “Algebra 2! Algebra 2!” when he had the ball.
“I’ve also heard ‘shave your chinstrap,’ said Rodriguez, who has a thin beard that goes from ear to ear. “But the guy everybody talks about is Ben.”
Yes, they do.
“I’m just an easy target, I guess,” Rico said. “It’s kind of an honor. They know my name and they know who I am.”
It seems that everybody in the Crestview League knows that Canyon’s star guard, Nick Anderson, had older brothers, Jerime and Chris, who played for Canyon and were All-County players.
“Esperanza’s Sixth Man would chant, ‘shadow, shadow’ kind of quietly,” Nick Anderson said. “As in, I’m in my brothers’ shadow. I block out everything else, but that one I heard, and it was a good one so I respect them for that.”
Anything else, Nick?
“At our last game at Villa Park, they would chant ‘Chris is better,’” he said. “I remember that.”
The Tribe has Nick’s back.
“I do something good,” he said, “like back-to-back baskets or get a steal, and our guys will chant ‘He’s an Anderson.’”
The best part of student sections might be the inspiration they give to their schools’ teams.
“When our students are going wild and crazy,” Anderson said, “they make me want to play even harder.”
The student sections add to the fun for the players and everyone else in the stands, and even the media people covering the games.
Thank you to all of the student sections, the ones in the top 10 and the ones who did not quite get there, for helping make this basketball season fun.
The competition for the top 10 was close. The competition for No. 1 was close, too.
Congratulations to all. Congratulations to Canyon’s Tribe. You won it by a nose.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
