A Day In The Life Of A Cheerleader

By Jordan Snyder

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Most people only see cheerleaders during the morning pep rally or during the game and they assume being a cheerleader must be easy. However, much more goes into it than it may seem.

To even become a cheerleader you must first make the team. Tryouts are a very stressful time and weeks’ worth of hours go into preparation for it. The day of tryouts is the biggest stress a cheerleader encounters. If one makes the team it is exciting, but it's also the start of hundreds of hours of hard work.

As soon as practices begin, cheerleaders must attempt to run a mile in under 9 minutes. This may not seem hard, but in the summer heat, it is. Until everyone has met that time we keep doing it at each practice. If one doesn’t meet their mile by the jamboree they will sit out until they have. Each summer, returners must also teach the new members all of the material. This can be very stressful for both the person learning and the ones teaching. If a new member doesn’t know the material, their whole group will sit out until they do.

During the summer we also have our UCA and Youth Camps. Both are 3 days long. Even though it is short, UCA Camp lasts all day from 8:30 am-4 pm. All-day we are learning and practicing new material such as chants, cheers, dances, and stunts. Once camp is over we get a break from cheering, but once we come back we are right back to our normal activities plus Youth Camp.

Youth Camp is when cheerleaders are split into groups to create chants, a cheer, and a dance to teach to the Powell Rec team. Each group has a different age level that ranges from 6 to 10 years old. We have to work hard to create the best material for our age group and put in a lot of effort to teach them. After Youth Camp ends, we get another break, but when we come back it’s football season.

Football season is exciting, but it's also very stressful since we have to perfect everything. We practice twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays are our normal practices that last 1 hour and 45 minutes. During this time, we go over the material and do stunts to try to get prepared for football games. We also learn more of our band chants during practice.

Thursday’s practices are a little different. We still practice, but first, we must either create a bust out or work with the PEPS for an hour. We are split into 2 groups that alternate between the two activities. If it’s your bust-out week, the group will create a bust-out for the football players to breakthrough. This is fun since you get to talk and have fun with the others while you’re doing it. But, it can also be a lot of work. If you are in the PEPS group, you are working with the special needs cheer squad and coaching them. The PEPS are so sweet and love getting to spend time with us. However, it is a lot of work to get them to learn and focus. Some PEPS require more assistance than others, so a cheerleader may go over to work with them specifically. After we are done with either a bust out or PEPS, we have our normal practice for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Depending on the day, practice can be extremely tiring and rough.

Now comes the best part of being a cheerleader: game days. Even though it may seem easy, game days are much harder than they appear. To start off the day, we do a morning pep rally. We have to get here at 7:45 to sell spirit ribbons for 15 minutes, and then we go outside to begin the pep rally. We do band chants and cheers out there and then we move inside and do the same thing. After the pep rally, we have to get changed into our normal school clothes and quickly go to class.

When we leave school we only have about an hour to relax before we have to get ready for the game. We usually arrive at games anywhere from 6:00 to 6:30. As soon as we get there, we have to warm up for stunts and prepare for the game. If it’s a home game, we will get ready to run flags. If it’s away, we get ready to hold the bust out. Right after we are done with either of those we get right to cheering. For the whole first two quarters, we are constantly cheering, dancing, and even stunting. Once halftime hits, we get a break, but once it’s over we are right back to work. The third quarter is very important because that’s when the PEPS join us to cheer (only at home games). We have special cheers that we only do when the PEPS join us, and the whole time we are helping them and making sure that they are having fun. Once the Peps leave at the end of the third quarter, we are back to normal for the rest of the game. By this point, we are exhausted, but we have to push through and keep cheering. Once the game ends it is usually between 10:00 and 11:00 PM and we are completely worn out.

The life of a cheerleader is way harder than it may appear, but it is so much fun and so worth it. Check out the “Video of the Week” to see what our Fridays are like.