There is one thing you can count on at all of Winthrop’s home basketball games. The presence of Alex Bowers and Joshua Frye.
Bowers is a sophomore Music Tech major from Indiana. He brings the passion he developed growing up there to all Winthrop’s home basketball games.
“I always grew up hearing that in 49 other states, (basketball) is just a game,” Bowers said.
“Basketball is like a religion in Indiana. Every kid by the age of two has picked up a basketball at some point,” he said.
Frye on the other hand is more local to the area. He was born in Charlotte and grew up in Anderson, South Carolina. His love for basketball comes from a different place.
“I was born in Charlotte (but I) I didn’t live in Charlotte at all. I live in Anderson, South Carolina. Right beside Clemson. So I grew up watching Clemson suck at basketball continuously,” he said.
“But I still loved it. I went to as many games as I could. I remember we beat Louisville 2014 right after they’d won the national championship the year before,” Frye said. “We beat them and it derailed them. Everyone stormed the court. That was insane. But it’s for the love of the sport. Like I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”
These two Winthrop students can routinely be spotted in the student section.
“We just do this for fun. We do this cause we love it. If anybody at this school loves sports like we do, we really would appreciate them coming out and helping us do this,” Bowers said.
Creating a fun environment for Winthrop students to coalesce in the student section at games is a big part of this duo’s mission, though Bowers and Frye also have more in mind than that.
“We want to become like an official organization at this school,” Bowers said.
The inspiration for these ideas came from Winthrop alumni Michael Covil from the class of 2022.
“He had always wanted to do something like with a student section,” Bowers said.
“Michael ran Winthrop Live, this big page on Instagram. He got burned out because he graduated. He was like all right, I’ll just give you this and we’ll use it for the student section. It has a mass following.” Frye said.
“He’s been building that up for years, four years. And it’s just been him. So we’re trying to see if we can keep building this up so we can have consistent people to hand it down to and keep this thing going,” Frye added.
The name has since been changed to @theflock.wu on Instagram. In addition to this podcast, Bowers and Frye have since created their own podcast.
“He’s the play-by-play and I’m the color analyst. If we had a dynamic to compare it to, that’s kind of us. He (Frye) runs the behind the scenes stuff. He gets all these people. He coordinates all this,” said Bowers.
“Then on the podcast episodes you’ll see I mainly write all the questions and then ask them and ask them–conduct the interview. But he does all the recording stuff. So it’s kind of like, we just play off that.”
Some notable guests they’ve had on the podcast are Winthrop play-by-play announcer Dave Friedman and current Winthrop president Edward Serna.
The podcast is called talkflock and can be found on spotify as well as by the same name on Instagram.
In the future Bowers and Frye want the Winthrop student section to be completely sold out.
“We want this thing to get bigger. We want to get more people involved. We wanna fill out the student section. That’s like the dream goal to have,” Bowers said.
This dream also can have a tangible effect on the court. Bowers and Frye are known for their courtside antics. They’re the main reason Winthrop is top five in the country in opponent field goal percentage in men’s basketball.
Frye and Bowers would love for students to join them in that mission.
