Being a Martinsville High School cheerleader
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. — Every Friday night and sometimes in between, nearly every high school in America, bleachers come to life. Swarms of students, parents and fans cheer for their team/players as they explode onto the fields and courts, transforming hundreds of individuals into one undivided cheering machine. This is about more than winning or losing; it is about elevating school spirit experiences through sporting events, and it can change the climate of a school. Cheerleaders are at the frontline of this machine.
Being a Martinsville High School cheerleader is more than just looking pretty and being loud.聽 Each member of the team must perfect basic motions and stances so they operate as a unit.聽 They don鈥檛 just walk onto the team. Tryouts are usually a 3- day process and begin with learning tryout material which includes a cheer, chant, and the school song. Tumbling isn鈥檛 required but can boost your overall tryout score.
Martinsville cheer usually consists of 14 Varsity cheer members and 10 Junior Varsity members. During football season both teams cheer at home as well as at away games with the only difference being that Varsity is Friday nights and JV is Saturday mornings. Basketball season is a different story. Varsity cheers at all girls鈥� and boys鈥� home games and travels to almost all of the away games.
Cheer practices can vary. During football season they will practice two days a week for 2.5 hours. Basketball season is different. Sometimes they have one practice to get ready for nine games. In fact, sometimes they only have time before the game to practice. It all depends on what the week looks like with games.
Being a Martinsville cheerleader is a huge commitment. They have some weeks when they have a game every day and some weeks where they have one game. With cheering boys鈥� and girls鈥� games, they go non stop. When asked how many games they cheer at during the year, they counted聽 70+ games!
Besides games the Martinsville High School cheerleaders also have a competition team. They compete in 鈥淕ame day competitions.鈥� In the past three years they have won two mid-state championships, qualified for state and placed ninth in the state. The competition team practices two days a week. They hit competitions hard in November when they have mid-state and state within two weeks of each other. Cheer coaches work diligently to create new routines. In the summer and winter they host cheer clinics for the little kids where they teach them fun dances and cheers and then the littles get to perform at a game.
The team also travels to National Cheer Association in the summer which is a four- day- long camp at Ball State. They stay and learn a lot of the material for their upcoming seasons. At the end of the camp聽 they compete against the other teams. 鈥淲e love camp,鈥� Varsity cheerleader Graycie Branham enthuses, 鈥渂ecause it is when we bond as a team.鈥�
Coach Cheatham wants to highlight that when the team isn鈥檛 cheering they are providing community service. Recently, they raised money for childhood cancer and for some local cancer survivors. They sent care packages to local first responders and military members as well as purchased Christmas gifts for the children at Desert Rose. The squad also started their first 鈥淪parkle Cheer Club鈥� with some special needs students.
Cheerleaders put in a lot of hard work to be role models within Martinsville High School, and that includes in the classroom. Academics are important.聽Most of the varsity team are within the top 25% of their class. Almost all on the team take AP and dual credit classes which tend to be much more rigorous. A lot of people do not see cheer as a sport but in all honesty they put in just as much work and time as any other sport. These days, cheerleading takes time, skill, physical fitness, determination and dedication.
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