Cheer physically: Cheering increasing in popularity

By TRAVIS METCALF

TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS — Fans of football and basketball normally see cheerleaders on the sidelines of games jumping, yelling and swinging pompoms around.

Few get to see the competitiveness of the sport.

These days, the sport of cheerleading is just as much of an athletic event as football and basketball.

This new version of cheerleading combines the athleticism of gymnastics with the pure beauty of figure skating.

“This is a time when a cheerleader is considered an athlete and they work out just much as a football player would or a baseball player would,” cheer coach Tad Pruetz said. “A routine contains motions, tumbling and dance. it’s pretty hard core.”

Pruetz is a coach and co-owner of Extreme Cheer Company. The group is competing at the World Cheerleading Competition in Orlando on April 26-27. There will be over 200 teams from 30 different countries competing.

And the sport has suddenly turned into a something just as physical as football.

“We have a stunt where we throw a girl up in the air 20, 30 feet, they do a kick and twist twice, then [the group below the flyer] has to catch her on the way down” Pruetz said. “We get a lot of bumps and bruises just learning the skills. It’s really physical and then just the endurance and stamina needed to go through our routine, it takes a very athletic kid to be an all-star cheerleader.”

And the sport isn’t limited to boys either.

The team going to World competition, there are 16 girls and four boys.

18-year-old Wade Jameson is one of those boys.

“It is female dominated, but it is growing a lot more with guys,” Jameson said. “There are teams out there with more guys than girls. A lot of people don’t think about it but in other sports, guys will maybe throw a couple pound ball and we hold up 130-pound people. A lot of guys don’t understand it, but when you explain it to them and they see you do that, then they kind of understand.”

Jameson said he has been a tumbler since he was 3 years old.

“I think boys are getting more comfortable with it,” Pruetz said. “Just to see their skills, the boys do stuff that some girls wouldn’t try. Their athleticism is is an advantage.”

Extreme Cheer isn’t the only cheer company in Tahlequah, in fact, it’s only been in existence for a year.

CHEER IT UP!, on State Highway 51, is run by Vicki Elliott, who coaches the Tahlequah High School cheer team. CHEER IT UP! does both cheer education and gymnastics education.

Elliott said some cheer stunts have even been banned because they’ve gotten too dangerous.

“I’ve been teaching cheerleading for 24 years and in terms of a competitive squad, we were doing stunts much more difficult than now,” Elliott said. “They’ve restricted a lot of what we can do now, especially at the high school level.”

Elliott said she has always had guys on her squad.

“In my first year, we had two guys on the squad,” Elliott said. “I’m not sure it’s increasing, more maintaining.”

Elliott said she has 120 students enrolled in CHEER IT UP!.

Another cheer company in the area is Tumble & Tricks Cheer.

And the cheerleaders start out young. All of the cheer companies have groups that start as young as 4-years old and all of the schools in the area, including elementary schools, now have cheer squads.

While the sport is trying to reinvent itself, there is one holdover from the old days of cheer leading — make-up.

Unlike other sports where make-up is not a big priority, make-up is considered a judging criteria in the sport.

“The judges score us on appearance,” Pruetz said. “You want everyone to look the same. It’s designed around appearance.”

The team is trying to raise money for the trip to Florida. Recently they had a garage sale and car wash, however they are still taking donations from area residents.

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