The crowd is sitting there, watching the big game and waiting for something good to happen. The crowd lulls, interest wanes. This crowd needs something: cheerleaders.
 
    Cheerleading is best known for bringing spirit to games, but it is much more than leading the crowd in a cheer or promoting school spirit, cheerleading is tumbling, dances, and commitment. “You have to keep your grades up and be ready to practice,” says sophomore varsity cheerleader Melanie Herrera.
 
    Just like other sports, much of cheerleading is practice. From Monday to Thursday the cheer teams practice for two long hours of hard work.
 First, they stretch and warm up, and then they go over their motions to make sure they are on-point. Then the cheerleaders go over the cheers and the dances they have learned to make sure they look clean, as in precise and not looking sloppy. Then they practice jumps and stunts.  

     One of the key elements of cheer is stunting, a performance displaying a person’s skill in an acrobatic stunt. Stunts consist of the flyer, front spot, back spot, and the two bases. Stunting is when the two bases, front spot and back spot hold up the flyer into various skills that the flyers have learned. Herrera and fellow sophomore Baindu Idriss are bases for the varsity and junior varsity teams, respectively, and their job is to hold the flyers’ feet when they do the stunts. “It is hard,” says varsity back spot Bryanna Simpson whose job it is to hold the flyer up and catch her if necessary. 

     “At the games we do cheers to support our team, hype the crowd, and encourage the football team. We also do stunt routines,” says tenth grader Gloria Penka. 
 
    During the games, all of the cheerleaders combine their hard work as they perform the cheers and dances they have learned and do stunts and jumps to get the crowd going, which is what they work so hard for in practice.  “I wanted to become a cheerleader because it looked fun and challenging,” said Herrera.
According to Idriss, it is a big commitment that takes up a lot of time and money for uniforms and other such items. All cheerleaders have weaker and stronger skills that they work on constantly. 

     Jumps are an important part of cheerleading, and working on these is something all of the cheerleaders interviewed said they need to work on. Also, hitting tight motions and following through with the jumps or cheers are also important to the stunts the cheerleaders do.

    According to Herrera, to be a Panther cheerleader you have to be ready to commit to the squad. You have to make sure that you show that you are passionate about the sport and prove it while you cheer.  Herrera notes that you have to be friendly and try your best to show that you did earn a spot on the squad.  Most of all, you must show your school spirit.