It’s not uncommon to expect certain privileges as a high school senior.
Maybe the rules are a little more lax, some schools allow open campus, and there is of course the all-important spot on the front row of the student section riser. In recent years, that front row at Twin Lakes High School had not been met with more support than a row or two in total for the Twin Lakes Roadies, the club name for the boys basketball student section, but as anticipation for a senior-laden Indians team combined with an 8-2 start, the crowd size across from the scorer’s table at TLHS began to climb higher and higher in the sometimes over-large home gym.
The larger crowds come at a pivotal time for the Indians and for the Roadies, as Twin Lakes opens its first sectional tournament since 1995-96. It will be the largest stage for Ruben Flores and the rest of the Roadies, and the Twin Lakes senior and unofficial yell leader has already put out a guarantee for tonight’s crowd.
“All I have to say is that we will not disappoint,” said Flores, who has set the bar for audacious outfits with his elderly woman look earlier in the season, including a cane.
“We’re going to be loud, we’re going to be good, and we’re not going to stop yelling.”
The Roadies are somewhat of an anarchist club at Twin Lakes, with no set leaders or organization beyond simple seniority along class lines and the level of creativity a student can bring. Organization does become apparent, however, when the coordinated costumes are seen and game-specific cheer sheets begin to be passed around. Twin Lakes senior Holly Adams credited several members with doing a higher level of research, while the recent swelling of the student section’s ranks could be attributed to a certain level of wrangling on the older students’ part.
“Cole Guingrich has always come up with a lot of ideas, and him and Jordan Crabb have looked up chants that we can do,” Adams said. “We also invited the middle-schoolers to stand behind us, so that lets us look bigger. Other schools have roadie sections too, so now it’s like a competition to see who can be best. We’re there to watch the game, but we also want to outdo their roadie section too.
“It’s kind of a competition.”
That kind of competition was likely at its most fierce in an overtime thriller in Monticello against Delphi. The Oracles student section, with more than a few other White County students in attendance to take on the county bully, was a sea of black in the otherwise red-tinted crowd, and each played to the other’s newest barbs. Other senior members of the Roadies, including Wyat Ezra, Levi Lotz and Harry Dickson, put a greater emphasis on being clever in their chants as opposed to driving for a skewering line. The crowd isn’t above playing to the stereotypes surrounding an opposing community, though.
“It’s a lot more about the school’s location, and if you know people there it’s a lot easier to takes stabs at them without being too mean,” Dickson said.
While the crowd size has grown to a level not seen in several years, Twin Lakes has not been without its own controversy this season. In a heated matchup against Hoosier Conference rival West Lafayette, a plastic cup full of ice was hurled onto the court in the closing seconds. The following technical helped ensure the Red Devils’ win, and the question remained on how the Roadies would respond, even if the thrower was not technically a member of the club.
The response has been a lesser emphasis on singling out certain players, and the student section along with the members of the basketball team (many of whom are in the club on top of on the team) showed a high level of maturity in the aftermath.
“We talked about it, that obviously we don’t want to be like that, we want to have good sportsmanship as well as making our cheers more clever and not making fun of people,” Adams said. “We want to have good sportsmanship and keep people thinking about what we’re saying.”
For the remaining seniors, the status of the Roadies heading into sectional play has already been lifted, but they hope that the tradition endures even after they step down from the stands for the final time.
“I think we’re setting it to where next year it’s going to be just as intense, just as good,” Lotz said.
Ezra added that the future is safe with several underclassmen ready in the wings.
“There are always a couple people in each grade that like to step up and show an example for the next grade,” Ezra said.
- Article on the growth that a local student body has seen in its student section as the new host of a local sectional playoff tournament.
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