GARNET VALLEY CHEER

The garnet valley cheer team is made up of two teams, junior varsity and varsity. We work together as a team to work through practice and competitions. Varsity has had two games that junior varsity joined them to cheer the garnet valley football players on, one game was when the garnet valley cheerleaders had little girls come to the high school and we taught them how to be the garnet valley cheerleader we hope the aspire to be. The other game was homecoming, this was a rough game for garnet valley, our quarterbacks were hurt and we were playing against another undefeated team, sadly to say but it was a bad turnout for the garnet valley jags.

We are always busy, there is always stuff to do. Our main focus is to get involved with the community in an effective way, we get involved with charities and we help with local causes. So far we have raised money for hurricane irma and breast cancer. Every year the cheerleaders go to disney world to compete at nationals and to participate each cheerleader needs to get $500 worth of sponsor money and in result that sponsor will get an add in our newsletters. Those sponsors can give any amount of money they would like to give and you can have multiple sponsors to make up the $500. Competition season is literally right around the corner, our first competition is November 5.

Cheerleading may not be considered a sport but it's harder than you would think. We practice 3 times a week, 1 practice is for sideline and 1 is for competition, on thursdays we go to a gymnastic gym and work on our tumbling. Tumbling classes are very intensive practices, we have to be constantly moving and trying to perfect our skills, the last 10 minutes are for conditioning and our exercises can be so challenging that not even our strongest girl can finish the exercise without falling or stopping. Cheer can also be very frustrating. When you are stunting with your group and you can't hit the stunt, it can make you very angry, also when you know when someone isn’t doing something correctly and you can’t find a nice way to say it, you have to try and help in a nice way and trust me, the last thing you care about is being nice after working for an hour and you're tired.

What people don’t understand about cheer is that we work hard for what we want to achieve, and we are a lot more competitive than what we may seem. When we go to competitions we want to be the best, I mean who doesn’t. To be the best you need to work together as a team, over the summer we all went to a camp that was 4 days long and you spent your night in cabins with your teammates. I cried almost every day working from 6am till 9pm, it was rough. As soon as I got home I thought to myself that I would never participate in this god awful camp again. Later through the season I learned that going to camp really improved my leadership skills and made me a better person, the tears, no voice and bruises on my knees were all worth it because it all gave me a bond with my teammates that I would never want to give up.

The school personally doesn’t give the cheerleaders the opportunity to show the school that we can also be the best. Not once at any sports meetings I've

been to has anyone ever said anything about all the stuff we do for this school. No we may not be a sport and no we may not have games but I think we should have the same amount of attention that any other sport would get. I have personally heard my teammates say that this has been a problem and I have heard the upperclassmen that I look up to say it because it is a very sensitive topic to us. I would definitely recommend becoming a high school cheerleader if you are not one already or if you would like to be more involved with school activities. The cheer team has been a great experience for me so far and it would be for you to, we work together as one team and accept one another for themselves as a person and not what their skill level is, but I would like to see more junior varsity girls step up and try to be leaders too because skill levels do not determine responsibility and leadership qualities.