The JV sideline cheer team… who cares? Who wants to hear about sports that aren’t in the spotlight? The sideline cheer team is literally sidelined to the other sports. The WOHS JV sideline cheer team is important. The JV team members are only one step away from Varsity. The sideline cheer teams are under appreciated among the other fall sports teams, heck, the cheerleaders warm up for practice is a mile run!  It’s time to highlight them.

Soph. Alyssa Moralez was on the Freshman sideline cheer team her freshman year. This year, Moralez is on the JV sideline cheer team. Clearly, the WOHS sideline cheer teams cheer for the WOHS football team. The cheer team does chants during the game and helps get the crowd more involved in the game.  “When we do chants that have crowd response, it feels so great when they actually respond to our chant.“ Moralez said. However, the crowd doesn’t always join in with the cheerleaders.  “When the crowd doesn’t respond to our chants, it’s kind of sad for us. We all smile way bigger and yell way louder when the crowd is doing the responses.” Embarrassed or not, it’s important to cheer with the sideline cheer team as they cheer on the high school team to give them confidence in the win.

One of the most embarrassing and difficult things as a sideline cheerleader is to drop a stunt on accident in front of everybody. “When a stunt falls or if you fall when you’re tumbling, it’s really embarrassing and you kind of lose confidence in yourself but you just have to either keep working really hard on your tumbling and fight for all of your stunts,” Moralez said. The JV sideline cheer team vigorously trains for the football games. They train every day after school to make sure their stunts are hit clean and precisely, making sure they have everything perfect for the big game. They even work on tumbling (flips) to be able to showcase those in front of crowds. Sideline season for the cheerleaders is like a preview for the competitive season that follows.

A lot of people don’t give the sideline cheer teams enough credit. They train hard and give up time with family and friends in order to make sure there is a cheerful atmosphere at the WOHS football games. They deserve more credit than what is given.