By: Brittany Kroeger
We’ve all seen those preppie valley girl cheerleaders in the movies, but is that what high school cheerleading is really about? In comparison, a high school cheer squad might be a great thing to have. As we have seen, our Madison squad has a lot to do before they reach perfection, but who’s perfect anyway? There is much dedication, effort, work, school spirit, and pride needed to be a good cheerleader. This year’s squad has slowly but surely been improving. “Last year, we weren’t as dedicated. This year we have improved and we’ve been challenged to do things we never did last year”, says first year varsity cheerleader, Jennifer Getz.
Movie cheerleaders put a lot of wrong ideas into the heads of students. As mentioned before, those cheerleaders are perfect and mostly all white. There are many male cheerleaders to even out the squad, and they are all very popular. However in real life, cheerleading is not so much like that. Linda Duong said this on some differences between movie life and the Madison cheer squad, “In the majority of the movies I see with cheerleaders involved, most of the guys and girls are white. Our squad at Madison is very diverse. Almost every race is represented. In the movies they show these perfect routines, and them getting it right the first time. What they don’t show is how hard we have to work to get the routines looking the way they look.”
Male cheerleaders are very scarce at Madison. We do have one new male at school, names Aaron Jones. When asked about being on cheer he commented, “It’s cool, but at first everyone stares at me like a freaking idiot because I’m a guy and they aren’t used to it. Then they get used to it and its all good.”
Madison cheer is getting better. They are slowly improving and becoming more dedicated. On average, the squad puts in six to nine hours of practice weekly. And even more when in competition.
Let’s all get to the game and cheer on, not only for our football team, but for our cheerleaders as well!
