This week, Her Campus Durham were lucky enough to speak to the captains of the Van Mildert Cheerleading Squad, who helped lead their team to victory in the recent Intercollegiate Cheerleading Competition.
To start off our interview, I asked what the sport cheerleading involves. In fact, it requires a multitude of skills including dance, jumps, tumbles and stunts (where the flyer is lifted into the air). This clearly requires a vast number of different skills, and a high level of performance and energy to pump up a crowd during a sports match or at a competition.
Both Orla and Alice got involved in cheerleading whilst in their first year at university. They both had previous dancing experience, so they decided to give college cheerleading a try when they saw it advertised at the Fresher’s Fair.
Two years later, Orla and Alice became the captains of this cheerleading squad. They were motivated to become captains as they had enjoyed their cheerleading experiences so much so far, they appreciated all the hard work that their previous captains had put in, and they also wanted to contribute to the development of the Van Mildert team. The responsibilities of being a captain include choreographing the routine that was performed at the competition, planning and organising all the practices, and finally corresponding with the organisers of the competition.
The best parts of being in a college cheerleading squad are being part of such a close knit team and as a result meeting people across all years who share similar interests, and becoming really good friends with everyone. It is also really exciting being able to learn lots of new skills whilst having a laugh at the same time! The worst bit is the fact that cheerleading can be a dangerous sport and injuries can occur. Luckily their team didn’t have anything too serious this year!
According to Orla and Alice, a good cheerleader is someone who is willing to try new things that might be out of their comfort zone, and who is committed to being part of an organised team. Any cheerleader will tell you how hard it is when someone is missing, particularly when the team wants to practice lifts. Cheerleaders must also have lots of energy and be willing to expose their fun, preppy side!
Why should you join cheerleading? Cheerleading is different to other sports as you have to completely trust each other, and so you make really strong friendships through cheerleading. As cheerleading still isn’t that popular in the UK, most people haven’t done it before so you can still join in even if you’ve never done anything like it, as you are all learning together. Cheerleading is so much fun and so rewarding when you see all of your hard work pay off at the competition. Being on the Van Mildert cheerleading team has definitely given us some of our favourite memories from university!