CCHS cheerleaders perform stunts at a cheerleading competition held at Nova High School. Photo Credit: GABI TABIB
BY SARAH ROUSSELL
Intense energy and fiery emotions spread quickly through the competitive atmosphere that envelopes the crowded gym. Sixteen girls wearing red, black, and white uniforms stand strongly in the center of tumbling mats that are spread across the floor. Loud music blasts on as the girls get into stunt formation and begin to throw up 120-pound flyers above their heads. As the flyers soar high up into the air, the bases prepare to catch them while maintaining high energy and a smiling face. The flyer sails back down and lands in a basket formation in the strong hands of the three petite, strong girls. These next few minutes are crucial to the team’s reputation as they cheer hard and perform extreme stunts to claim victory as competitive athletes. For Cooper City High School’s competitive cheerleading squad, this sport is taken very seriously, and everyday they train hard to prove that cheerleading is much more intense than commonly perceived.
When thinking of typical high school cheerleaders, one often associates them with girls crying out cheers from the sidelines at a football game. With this in mind, it is easy to claim that cheerleading is a silly girl’s hobby with a lack of the physical intensity that’s required to be identified as a sport. However, throughout the months of December to April, cheerleading is kicked up a notch during competition season. It is during these months that cheerleaders can truly prove the extremity of their sport by showcasing their physicality, strength, and endurance.
“I honestly don’t know why cheerleading isn’t considered a sport,” junior Amanda Williams said. “During football season we just cheer on the sidelines, but if people came to watch our competition cheerleading team, they would get a completely different view and understanding of what we do.
The competition cheerleading team at CCHS is a combined group of both varsity and junior varsity cheerleaders. Unlike the simple cheers and routines that CCHS cheerleaders perform during Cowboy football and basketball games, the competition team lifts cheerleading to another level by performing difficult stunts, creating choreographed dance and cheer routines, and tumbling routines.
“Cheerleading in competition is completely different than cheerleading at football games,” Williams said. “It’s a totally different atmosphere.”
Competitions usually consist of extreme routines and many difficult stunts. A routine has several choreographed components of both cheers and dances, and various stunts like the “Full-Up”, where a flyer is thrown up and does a complete spin, and the “Tick-Tock”, where the flyer is thrown into the air, switches feet position and is caught with the other foot. In order for these stunts and routines to be successfully accomplished it is extremely crucial that the team maintains their physical shape and strength throughout the year.
Before scheduled competitions begin, the squad doesn’t waste any time as they start weeks and weeks of rigorous preparation, training, and conditioning. Practice can range from a few hours to even the whole day for several days a week. These hours are devoted to different activities like stunt workouts where catchers hold their flyers up and down to get used to their weight, and different endurance building activities like stretching and running up and down CCHS’s bleachers.
“If we didn’t practice as much as we do, we wouldn’t be prepared for competition,” senior Stephanie Coffey said. “Practice helps us to gain confidence in our performance during competition.”
All the work, time, and effort that the squad puts into competition cheerleading are quite evident. Not only do the girls have to maintain bubbly attitudes and energy, but they also have to perform stunts, lift each other, and tumble all at the same time.
“You have to have a lot of strength and endurance to be able to do what we do, and people just don’t see that,” Williams said. “You have to be able to hold people up, you have to be able to jump, you have to be flexible, and you have to acquire so many different skills to be successful during competition.”
The squad has seven competitions this year. They kicked off the season at Stranahan High School, and are now looking forward to working toward their goal of making it to districts.
Trying to play the sport that you love can sometimes seem like wasted effort when it’s one that has fallen under constant harsh criticism, but the CCHS competitive cheerleading squad rises above the criticism and push their bodies to the ultimate extreme for this sport that they love the most.
