Behind the scenes of any performance, there is hard work, dedication, traditions, and superstitions. Nerves and adrenaline can take over the body when it comes to being up next to take the competition floor; to calm those nerves, the cheerleaders continue to carry on their traditions before every competition.
“The [cheerleading] team and I have many traditions,” junior Riley Conway said. “One of them is having a team dinner at a teammates house or the coaches before every competition. Towards the end of that dinner, one teammate buys a charm to put on a necklace that everyone has and it has a lot of meaning to the team.”
There are many things that the cheerleading team does together, but there are also a lot of personal superstitions that they each have.
“One thing that I always do is retie and double knot both of my shoes right before we compete,” sophomore Hadde Luebke said. “One of my worst fears is my shoe coming off on the competition floor.”
Without doing these traditions that the cheerleading team has, this could lead them to having anxiety and not as much confidence as they need to feel good about the routine that they put out on the mat.
“I feel that if we did not do any of the traditions that we do before we went out on the floor, then we would all be even more nervous than we all already are,” freshman Alexis Dalton said. “I feel like when we all come together and talk, it makes us all feel supported.”
Feeling supported and coming together to make one big family is just one major component of the team. The sequoit cheerleaders plan to stay connected with the history of superstitions that the team has to get rid of their nerves and butterflies.
