At a varsity football game with your friends, you usually only see the game and the players. But, there are other essential individuals involved in the game. The students cheering on the sideline the whole game and the dancers who perform during the halftime show. In the past year, Northeast High School’s cheerleading and dance team, the star strutters, have experienced some changes to the way things are run in the activities.
Last year, the old head cheer coach found another job and announced she was going to be leaving. By tryouts in late March, they had decided the previous assistant coach Stefani Lloyd would be the new head coach. The two new coaches, Kamaya Long and Carlie Saben, were not official until June. Returning cheerleaders say the attitudes and amount of respect have definitely changed drastically towards the coaches and fellow cheerleaders. It is said the change has been for the better, and that the girls work much better together than last year. Varsity cheer captain Aloni Daake says “Attitudes have changed. It is a lot better. Lately, there has been more positivity. We work much better than we did last year, for sure.”
New coaches say there is a new expectation on the sidelines, and that the girls represent cheer and themselves very well. From what people have been saying, the change has gone very smoothly. “The returning girls took the change well, for the most part,” says returning coach Schlake. There have been a few issues adapting to the change, but otherwise, the change went well. The girl’s relationships with each other and the coaches have even improved, so everything has been going very well lately in cheer.
In the last year, the star strutters have also experienced some major changes. Originally, when star strutters were first introduced, they only allowed juniors and seniors to try out for the activity. In later years, they discovered it would be a good idea to allow sophomores to try out. It was like this for a while, until recently. This year, the coach, Erin Pauley, decided to allow freshmen to try out. Pauley says she feels the change has gone tremendously well, and that she plans to continue to allow freshmen to try out in the future. The girls have all connected very well, and the team is extremely talented. This may be due to the fact that most of the team has taken dance classes since they were very young. These changes have gone very well, in both cheer and star strutters, and the coaches and girls say they hope both are continued in the long-term future. On both cheer and strutters, half of the girls participating are freshmen. This factor suggests there is much to be seen in the future for both of these activities, and the possibilities are endless.