When most students have gone home, Powell High School’s cheerleaders are hard at work, breaking a sweat from rolling out the mats in the school’s lobby, stretching, running and calisthenics before they’ve even begun practicing their cheers.

This year’s team, as others have before, is working hard during the more than six-month season. The cheerleaders want their performance to be the best. 

“I just think that it’s just a different sport that people, once they get into it, they realize how much fun it is, and how it’s a different dynamic than other team sports,” coach Vicki Walsh said, adding “It’s just totally different than like basketball or volleyball … and so I think that’s a big part of it.”

Walsh has coached cheerleading for 26 years and was once a Powell High School cheerleader herself after moving to Powell her freshman year; she said the sport helped her meet new people. 

Here for cheer

Many of Powell High School’s cheerleaders have found the sport to be the best fit for them, like senior Maggie Atkinson who has been in cheer since seventh grade.

Atkinson has tried other sports but cheerleading is the one that’s stuck, she said. She likes performing and supporting other teams.

“My smile is really genuine when I step out onto the mat or when we’re at basketball games, it’s just something I really like to do,” Atkinson said. “I’ve always been a little outgoing kid, and so cheering became an outlet for that to really just shine and kind of have the spotlight for a few seconds.”

Kate Miller, a base on the cheer team, likes “just throwing people around, it looks really cool and I think it’s really fun.”

But it’s the people who have kept Miller in the sport that she started as an elementary student, even when her swim season leaves her a month to learn routines. 

Like Miller, senior JJ Gardner has stuck with the sport despite being in multiple activities. Gardner will attend cheer practice and then run to make the second half of robotics practice where she is co-captain of a team.

“I just love it. I love the team and just the sport aspect and how much [of a] family it really is, like we’re together from August to March so it really does create a family aspect, which I really love to lean on,” Gardner said. 

Junior Luci Dees started mid season as an eighth grader because her friends were doing it and she began to really enjoy the sport.

“It was something I realized I was really passionate about,” Dees said. “I could actually put my energy into, because I’m a very energetic person, so I was able to express that somewhere.”

Cheer was different from other sports she had tried in the past. She understood it quicker and was learning the sport within the first week, she said, which helped her like the sport. 

Due to the long cheer season, Dees prefers to take a break in the offseason. However, she started tumbling this year which helps her with her cheer routines. Venice Gann, a senior on the team, used to play volleyball, but she prefers the atmosphere of cheer and has picked up leadership skills in the sport, she said. 

Freshman Hayden Hinojosa, one of the team’s flyers, started just last year when she decided to branch out from clogging and enroll in the annual cheer camp. 

“I liked just the sharpness and cleanness of it, and just kind of that rhythm and just all being in sync,” she said. 

Right now Hinojosa is focusing on nailing the little things, which she says makes all the difference.

Practice makes perfect 

The cheerleaders train everyday, Walsh said, running and working on lower body and core strength. When it comes time to perform at state they only have two-and-a-half to three minutes to get it right, and this year in order to have judges present the state competition is one week earlier. 

“Two-and-a-half to three minutes seems like a short time, but it takes so much stamina to get through a whole routine in that short amount of time,” Walsh said. “And you have to be in shape, you have to work hard, and I think a lot of them, now that we’re really getting into it, are starting to realize that.”

The cheer team learns between 60-70 cheers for when they attend games, Atkinson said, and about six dances which are different from what the team performs at their state competition.

The team is sent videos of the cheers to learn over the summer, Atkinson said. It’s their responsibility to memorize the cheers and routines throughout the season — she likes to watch the videos ahead of games.

Aside from keeping the cheers and routines in the front of their mind the cheerleaders train to be able to carry out their state routine. They have three minutes or less to catch the judges’ attention and if someone is gone that can affect the routine. 

“They work super, super hard, and it just takes so much time and commitment,” Walsh said. “Commitment is a huge part of all of it, and being at practice every day, and wanting to commit to making
yourself better.”