Watching the football game in the stands or stadium has its differences compared to watching it from a cheerleader’s perspective. The cheerleading team at Saint Francis practices twice a week for about two hours and attends games usually on a Friday or Saturday. During our practices were do several different things to get us prepared for the football games and we work hard.
Every practice we warm up with three laps around the parking lot, stretches, kicks, and jumps. We stretch our legs and arms and work on our jumps. There are about five to six different jumps we do. After warming up, we work on our cheers for defense, offense, and spirit. After about a month of practicing, we were able to get most of our cheers down with the motions and slowly started to clean them up and make them tight. Uniforms came in which meant the time was coming up to cheer at the on season football games. We got our pom poms and began to work on our cheers even more. If we did not do our cheers right, our punishment was to run.
When we arrive at the games, varsity or intermediate, we stretch, kick, and jump before the game starts. Our job is to support the team and school in a positive way and be loud and proud with our different cheers. Being a cheerleader, we have to pay attention to the game and focus on whether our side is on defense or offense and call a cheer for the certain play. There are multiple cheers therefore, we are not repeating ourselves too much. It is very hot and sunny during some of the games, but we try our best to push through the sweat and heat. However, after the game, and Saint Francis takes the win, all our cheerleading and supporting feels worth it.
