Cheerleading is a sport, and it has been officially recognized as a sport in the state of California since October of 2015. Cheerleading has existed for a really long time but has not been called a sport until 2015. Members of the Lincoln High School cheer team–a team judged on skill, showmanship, execution and overall performance–have answered some questions on what cheer is all about. With competitions on September 24th at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, October 23rd in Stockton, January 21st in Antioch, and February 5th at U.C. Davis, they stay busy by cheering at Lincoln’s sports games.

One of our cheer coaches for varsity, Ashley Walsh, gave us an inside scoop on the sport.

“A typical cheerleading routine consists of stunts, tumbling, dancing, jumps and motions. A competition consists of many local and traveling high schools split up in divisions based on skill and competing members. All skills are put to music or with cheer words and performed for judges and spectators,” said Coach Walsh. “Seeing the team come together and work as one is one of my favorite parts about coaching. It feels great to see the team love a routine and enjoy performing that routine you taught them.”

To prepare for competitions and performances, the team practices for several hours each week.

“We practice 3 days a week for 2.5 -3 hours from 5 to 7:30 pm with our other coach, Taylor Formosa and assistant Coach, Ashley Nguyen. It’s a big commitment and a lot of work but it comes with lots of rewards and lifelong friends,” said Walsh.

Lion Tales also interviewed some student cheerleaders to get more details on the life of a cheerleader.

“I love doing cheer! I think it’s an amazing sport,” said 12th grade Varsity cheerleader Jordan Plemons. “You learn a lot of responsibility and life skills like teamwork. You learn you can’t always do everything on your own. This is not an individual sport, this is a team…sport. It’s a time for us all to come together as strong teammates and to put in all our skills together. These are times when we get to improve together throughout the year. Practice makes perfect and without it, we would not be the team we are today.”

Sophomore and Varsity team member Taylor McCabe also said “Cheerleading is more than just cheering on football players, we are athletes who do terrifying, dangerous stunts for the love of the sport.”

“love the feeling of hitting a routine perfectly or hitting a new stunt. I always leave practice feeling super accomplished and very tired because of how hard the entire team works.”

“It’s a great sport and everyone on the cheer team is amazing,” said freshman JV cheerleader Nyanah Haliburton Gatto. “The practices can be pretty intense sometimes and everyone gets those days where you do not want to get out of bed but it’s really rewarding when you’re there. They can be hard but we always work as a team. ”

We appreciate all that cheer does for us and thank them for keeping our spirits up, so look forward to seeing the team perform at the next game!