Cheerleaders down in Daytona

The Georgia College & State University cheerleaders are tumbling, stunting and dancing down in Daytona, Fla. for the National Cheerleader Association Nationals.
The team left Wednesday, March 31 with high hopes for the competition.
The NCA Nationals are the most prestigious in the country with over 40 Division 1A programs competing in two categories: dance and cheer.
The team’s performance must be less than 2 minutes and 15 seconds long and the Grand National Champions Cup will go to the overall highest score in both dance and cheer.
In the past, the Bobcats have been very successful at the NCA Nationals, finishing in second place last year.
“We have won three times and we have been in the top for the last seven years,” said Head Cheerleading Coach Dr. Jerry Fly.
Displaying their excellent performance skills at nationals requires hard work, and the team has been busy in the gym crafting their routine.
“We have a couple of new things. We have a really exciting pyramid, a nice strong, elite stunt sequence, some good baskets and a great jump sequence,” said Fly.
Performing new moves is difficult and it is even harder attempting them at the Nationals. Fly pinpointed a few parts of their routine that hinge on their success.
“I think the critical parts would be the elite stunt sequence and the pyramid and how clean we are in presenting it,” Fly said.
Fly says that the team’s strength lies in their tumbling, dancing, motions and baskets but he worries about their presentation and stunting, which generally involves a male “base” as the foundation and a female “flier” hoisted up into the air by the “base.”
“Our weakness might be clean. I have a hard time getting my team to be as clean as I would like them to be. They need to make every motion precise and sharp and strong,” said Fly. “I think stunting might be a little bit of a weakness, but we have improved a lot in that area.”
The Bobcats will bring a healthy group of cheerleaders into the competition, with a lot more experience than last year’s team. This year’s team has only two freshmen, as opposed to a freshmen dominated team from the previous year. Hopefully, this hard work and experience will prove to be a recipe for success down in Daytona. Coach Fly believes it will be.
“I think we are going to win,” Fly said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 2 2004. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry