With the Asbury Eagles back for the winter season, the cheerleaders have begun working, too. While men and women basketball players run up and down the court, shooting three-pointers or raising their arms in defense, the cheerleaders recite routines and chants to keep the crowd active and engaged.
Currently, the women practice twice a week for routines on the sidelines or during time-outs, but there is a desire among the team members to break into competitive cheering. Sophomore Addie Smith said it’s “pretty cool and fun” to learn new material but actively competing would allow them to show off their skill sets in a different way for more people.
Sophomore Maria Kime agreed. “We currently do not compete at all, but we’re wanting to start doing that over the next couple of years,” she said.
One of the reasons it’s been difficult for the women to branch out into the competition aspect is the lack of members.
“We’ve lost like five people from the team throughout the entire season,” Kime said. “Some people have quit, they just couldn’t do it, or they didn’t come back for the semester. It’s just hard to maintain a stable team when everyone is leaving.”
The roster isn’t the only thing that would need to change for the women. There is a necessity for perfection among the kicks and flips for safety reasons. However, to do this, the practice would no longer be only twice a week. A more competitive schedule would demand more intense practices, like any other sport. Hill said she thinks practice would be daily, with a heavy emphasis on conditioning and creating a different type of routine.
She is currently the only one on the team who did competitive cheer in high school, allowing her to understand the difference in approach..
“I think it would definitely be a mindset change for everyone,” she said. “It’s much more intense than what we do right now,” said Hill.
Hill believes it could become a possibility soon. In the meantime, this winter, she and her teammates are encouraging students to pack the Luce for the basketball games. “It’s really fun and exciting during a game,” Smith said, “and it’s even more exciting when you see people cheering for them.”