Got Spirit?

            Mirrors lay across the wall parallel to the door in a caged off-d room filled with mats. The room next door to that one is a room with dingy white walls and a khaki based floor. There the cheerleaders would be stretching out and practicing.

            “Cheerleading is a sport,” Demicio Ross, sophomore and varsity cheerleader. “We get hurt, we have to tumble, and if you’re a guy, you have to do all of that and hold 110lb. girls above your head. So yes, cheerleading is a sport.”

Cheerleading injuries are in fact a reality. Some deal with bruises, some with sprains, others with fractures, and some experience broken bones. “When someone breaks something it affects everyone.” Demicio said.

            The injuries the cheerleaders get setback the team, yet that didn’t stop them from making it to state this year.

 “We work really hard all the time,” Kenyatta Johnson, freshman and varsity cheerleader, said. “And we were so happy when we made it to state.”

 Chamera Johnson, sophomore and varsity cheerleader, said, “We made it to state by working hard. We may not always get along, like we get into arguments with each other all the time. But at the end of the day, we find a way to work all of our problems out. And people don’t understand how hard we work.” The room got quiet. “Everyone is like ‘cheerleading is easy’ and ‘they never work hard’ but it’s not easy.” Chamera looked down at the varsity team and continued to say, “We worked hard to get to state and that’s why we made it.”