“Huskies, let me hear you go blue! Blue! Huskies, let me hear you go white! White!” reverberated off the walls of Hill Gymnasium last Wednesday as the cheerleading team warmed up for their final day of tryouts. Nineteen women underwent the three-day trial, lead by new co-coaches Melissa Bard and Valerie Pollard.
“I feel confident about my skills,” said Cheryl Sproul, a sophomore communications major. “I’m mostly just anxious. I feel like I want a chance to show them what I’ve got.”
Other would-be flagbearers of Husky pride were a bit more nervous about the tryouts, in which they were judged on a 1-5 scale for cheer, dance, jumps, stunts, and tumbling. The screening was tough, as coaches Bard and Pollard expect to lead a physically demanding season.
“I’m impressed with the amount of physical conditioning they’re going to do with the women,” said athletic trainer Pam De Lancey. “Cheerleading can be hard. Sprained ankles, sprained wrists. In the past I’ve seen flyers (the women who get thrown or tossed) who’ve been dropped. You can get some serious injuries.”
Yet, despite the inherent hazards, the women who tried out were ready to rise to the challenge, anxious at the chance to work with the team. Many have backgrounds in dance, aerobics, or gymnastics, and some boast a long history of cheering. Sproul has been doing it for years, though this will be her first season with USM.
“Cheering is a fun sport. You get to be happy. It’s a happy sport,” she said. “But it’s also very hard, physically and mentally. Jumping, yelling, and doing both at the same time. A lot of people don’t know it, but that’s hard.”
Coaches Bard and Pollard are former USM cheerleaders, and both have been cheering since junior high. They have a rigorous season planned for the new team.
“It’s a sport that requires a high level of discipline,” said Bard, and Pollard agreed. “I also like the spirit of it,” she added, “Being able to go to practices. I think cheerleaders are getting to be know as more than the stereotypical ditzy, stand-in-front-of-the-crowd thing.”
Stereotyping is something cheerleaders find themselves constantly up against, though many seem willing to break that stigma with academic achievement.
“The stereotype’s based on the whole short skirt, short top, head bobbing thing,” said co-captain Liz Adams, a junior athletic training major. “That has to be proven wrong. If someone were to look at the average GPA of our team, I’m sure it would be higher than most sports.”
In fact, the Huskies cheerleading team doesn’t even wear short skirts-they wear hot pants. Feminists throughout the ages have rallied against such displays of ass, but most team members have adjusted to the showy uniforms.
“I used to be a little uncomfortable in the uniform,” said Adams. “But it was more of an issue of being comfortable with myself. I’m fine with it now.”
Sproul was a bit more enthusiastic.
“I love the uniform, especially now that we’ve got the hot pants,” she said.
Sixteen of the women who tried out made the team, with two additional as alternates.