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Cheerleaders prep for another winter season

By Maggie Brandenburg
<mbrandenburg@hilite.org>

This year, just like all the others, the men’s and women’s basketball teams will take to the court with the winter cheerleading squads backing them the entire way. This will be no easy task with the crowds the men’s basketball games attract and with the added pressure that now rides on the women’s team due to the State title it won last season.

“Usually (the crowd) is pretty pumped up already, and it’s just a matter of keeping them entertained and enthusiastic throughout the game,” Alyson Endicott, men’s varsity basketball cheerleader and senior, said. “We do, you know, cheers that they know and can cheer along with and just kind of like defense, offense. They can really get into the game that way.”

To earn a spot on either squad, cheerleaders stated a preference for which team they would like to cheer for and then had to participate in a try-out process where they were graded on different cheerleading techniques such as jumps, motions, personality and leadership. Based on the scores they received and their preference, each cheerleader is assigned to a squad.

According to Jennie Strauch, men’s varsity basketball cheerleader and junior, “You put down what you want and then you try out. So it’s like if I only wanted to cheer boy’s varsity, I put down boy’s varsity. You try out, and then they decide whether or not you’re capable of being on that squad and if not, then you just don’t make it.”

Also, Vickie Walsh, women’s varsity basketball squad head coach, said that to begin preparing for the season, all of the squads, including the freshman and junior varsity groups, practice together and are taught the cheers and chants of the winter cheerleading program. The squads then split up to begin putting stunting groups together and learning their routines. The squads even receive help from outside sources to help the cheerleaders master their skills.

According to Walsh, that help includes this Saturday’s cheer camp where, “a group of college cheerleaders will come in and just do things (to help the teams).”

While fall cheerleading involves competition, winter cheerleading is more of the traditional cheering type of situation, and according to Walsh, with games being the main focus. For cheerleaders who compete on both squads, how far the football team goes into tournament play can become hectic.

“It’s totally different,” Walsh said. “First of all, the fall cheerleaders participate in competitions, and that is definitely the major difference, and so there are really two types of cheerleading; there’s the classic game cheerleading, and then there’s competition cheerleading, and not everybody enjoys both. Some cheerleaders prefer the competition, and some cheerleaders enjoy the game situations; some prefer both. So for those cheerleaders that prefer the classic game cheerleading, that’s what our program is for. For those that prefer competition, fall cheerleading is perfect for them.”

Strauch, who competed on the fall cheerleading squad and the winter cheerleading squad, said she agrees. Strauch said, “Football and basketball cheerleading are two totally separate worlds. If you do football cheerleading, then you also have to do competition cheerleading and so it’s not just all like ‘rah-rah’ like cheerleading, like sideline cheering.”

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