This week’s Campus Celebrity is Karen!
Karen is 20 and a Second Year student at Strathclyde studying Mathematics, Statistics and Accounts. However more importantly, Karen is also a member of the University Cheerleading Team, Strathclyde Warriors!Â
Did you have any experience in cheerleading before joining Strathclyde Warriors?
Yeah, I’m also in a team called Phoenix Flames; I’ve been competing with them for over ten years.
Was there anything in particular that drew you towards starting cheerleading?
I hadn’t joined any other societies at University and knew that I wanted to join one, I also knew that I really liked cheerleading, so I chose to join Strathclyde Warriors. When I was younger though, I was originally drawn to it because I went to a dance school from when I was 3 years old and the dance teacher was wanting expanding the classes she taught, so began her cheerleading classes. The class wasn’t serious at first, but as more people joined we began competing.
What’s your biggest accomplishment as a cheerleader for Strathclyde Warriors?
Being an integrated part of the group, I feel everyone knows me well and that they can talk to me.
What’s the training like?
It used to be one night a week for two hours but we now do two nights a week for two hours. It’s quite relaxed and non-judgmental, which is good if you’re not used to it- it’s more for fun than anything else though at the moment.
Someone people claim cheerleading is a sport, someone people claim that it isn’t. Where do you stand on this view of it “not being a sport”?
If anyone came along to any of our practices, they’d see that we put as much effort into our training as any other of the sports teams. It should definitely be recognised as a sport.
Your team done fundraising to get your new uniforms last year. What was the inspiration behind your uniform design?
The colour scheme was already chosen as all Strathclyde teams tend to wear maroon and gold. So we then went for a traditional American outfit, incorporating the Strathclyde colours.
Many people worry about joining teams due to tryouts and fitting in with everyone. Can you give us one main tip for joining the team?
There is no tryouts for the team, so anyone can join. This year we had 70 people joining, so you would be joining in with our normal sessions.
One thing that every decent team has got to do is have socials. Give us an insight into the cheer socials…
Cheerleading definitely has the best societies, I may be biased though! We usually have joined socials with other sports teams too, so we must be doing something right at them.
What’s the upcoming plans for Strathclyde Warriors this year?
We are starting competitions this year hopefully in May or June, we are going to be cheering at the Strathclyde basketball game next Wednesday (as well as cheering at other events), we’re also going to be fundraising for charities and also be doing lots of socials!
Why should people join your team?
You meet loads of friendly and interesting people, get to go on great socials and it’s good exercise. I think the society is definitely going to become bigger in the next couple of years, so joining the now would make you a firm member. Hopefully, we’ll become a member of the sports unions soon too so it would be good to be a member when that is done too.