Is Cheer a sport? Or are we just on the sidelines for your entertainment?

Can’t we be both?

Some people think that cheer is not a sport, but we put in a lot of hours and we do stunts. And cheer is not just for  entertainment on the side lines for football games. There is also competition cheer.

Most people don’t understand how much cheerleaders actually practice. You have to practice your cheers along with your fight song. Normally, when the cheer season starts, we have two days where two cheerleaders from UWSP come to teach us the half-time routine that we do at most of the games. But this year, we practiced every day in August, and when school started, we began to practice four days a week.

This year we have a new coach, so things were a little different. The Amherst Dance Team coach, Bradlyn Anderson, has also taken over as the Cheer coach. Bradlyn taught us a little piece of a hip hop that we did on October 25 at our home playoff game that we won against Oostburg.

People do not know how hard it is to be a cheerleader. Most of the time people think that you can go out there and do all of our routines and stunts in the blink of an eye. But it takes a lot of strength to lift people over your head. The flyers have to be very tight. If you are very tight in the air, you are less likely to fall. People think you have to be flexible to be a cheerleader but in truth you don’t always have to be super flexible.

A couple of senior football players were asked what the most difficult part about the Guy/Girl homecoming routine.

“The most difficult part was just remembering everything,” Benjamin Kisting said.

When Jaxson “Juicy” Smith was asked about basing — being the person who holds and catches the flyers — he said he was lucky to be paired with Logan Stout. “Logan was very light. Nothing was really difficult with him.”

If you are interested in joining the Cheer team, here is a little more information. The Amherst cheer team includes both middle school and high school students. This year, we had four middle schoolers, one freshmen, four sophomores, and seven juniors. All of these young athletes have made this team whole. All teams have their ups and downs. We have them all the time, too. But one thing that helps this team get to a better place is talking out what may have happened during a stunt and working hard to get it right the next time.