CHS cheerleaders reveal how different sports affect the cheer season and how their routines change for different sports they cheer for. The girls give a deeper insight into how their lengthy season looks and how their dynamic changes throughout the school year.
Beyond the classic football games, CHS cheerleaders also cheer for basketball, as well as have their own separate cheer competitions. While a lot of the same concepts from football overlap into the basketball season, there are still some stark differences that change the whole experience.
“I honestly like [basketball] a lot, because you’re more involved,” freshman Andi Robinson said. “You’re right on the court with them.”
While the training and practices vary depending on the sport that the team is cheering for, the cheer team is always practicing consistently. But without the football season, the practice atmosphere and energy change.
“We don’t practice [together] for basketball [season],” senior Charlotte Anderson said. “ We’ll send out cheers and hope the girls learn them, but competition practices are 3 to 4 times a week, and that’s a pretty hefty practice schedule.”
The attention switches from cheering for football to basketball, but for most of the team, the main focus is the competition season. The cheer season never fully seems to end as cheerleaders find themselves practicing for the next performance, no matter what they are cheering for.
“[There are] clinics before tryouts, and then we start tryouts in March, and then we start practicing in May,” Robinson said. “[During the off season] some people go back to their all-star teams, I’m taking a tumbling class and stuff like that, just staying practicing in the off-season.”
The competition team is a different experience for the cheerleaders, as it allows them to work with different people and really develop their skills. The switch in environments also allows for a different vibe and teaches the cheerleaders how to work with new people.
“Getting to stunt with older girls on older teams, like, girls on varsity,” freshman Reese Fernandes said. “Its been really nice to up my skills.”
While cheer has always been a large and well-known sport, it is often only recognized because of other sports. But as cheer continues to make itself known, it has grown into something outside of routines on the sidelines and is moving towards something more center stage.
“[Football] helps to make us seen as more of a sport, and it would be nice if we got more recognition aside from football,” Anderson said. “We’re definitely more recognized as a sport because of that.”
