Give A Cheer!

Everyone needs a cheerleader’someone to lift you up when you’re down and to give you the spirit to hang in there. Even the Palisades High School cheerleading squad needed their own cheerleader earlier this year. The PaliHi cheerleaders say their sport takes more athletic ability than people think. However, the activity, which has always been a part of the high school program, is not funded by the athletic department. And this spring, the program was in danger of coming to an end. The former coaches, Cellia and Cat Whiteford, had found other jobs and were no longer available for practices. The program had become disorganized. And due to the high cost of cheerleading, girls didn’t want to spend the money ($1,200 this year for new cheerleaders, $400 for returning ones) for a program that was falling apart. Many team members quit. Junior Bridget Bruner, who was planning to switch schools, was one of them. But when four freshmen came to her and said that no one showed up for practice besides them’she started calling the other girls one by one. All of the returning members on the squad came back. There are now 37 cheerleaders, and this summer a new English teacher at Pali, Olivia Castro, was hired as cheerleading coach. So the sounds of ‘Let’s go, Pali, let’s go!’ will again be heard again as the cheerleaders, bright in their blue and white uniforms, perform at all the school’s football and basketball games Loud voices are important in cheerleading, so in practices, captains Bruner, Morgan Brown and Jasmine Thomas have the squad continually repeat, ‘C’mon, C’mon yell defense go, yell defense go!’ loud enough to be heard by the crowd. ‘I’m a loud person,’ says Bruner. ‘It’s okay to be loud in cheer.’ She and the other two captains lead the practices, which have taken place twice a week at PaliHi for the past month. Cheerleading fees cover uniforms’which this year includes a new A-line skirt to replace the pleated fly-away skirt of previous years’mats, sound system, cheerleading camps, buses to away games and all related costs of the program. Kim Thomas, a special education assistant who has been the faculty sponsor of the team for 22 years, organizes the paperwork, orders uniforms and arranges for the buses. The team raises money and takes private donations, in hopes that no one who wants to cheer will be turned away because they lack the funds. Two tryouts were held this spring before the new coach came aboard, and although boys have been a part of the squad in the past, no one tried out this year. The importance of the program is not lost on the athletic department. ‘They are a large part of spirit on our campus,’ says Leo Castro, Pali’s athletic director and football coach, who is also Olivia’s father-in-law. ‘Cheerleaders get the fans involved in the game. The crowd motivates the game and motivates the players.’ Castro would also like to see a drill team and marching band perform during halftime. During a recent practice, the girls were practicing some football season cheers. ‘Tighten up that defense, you say hold, hold that, that line,’ moving in unison with precision arm and leg movements and claps. The squad comes up with many of their own cheers, and also performs stunts, such as forming pyramids, by holding up three girls at shoulder height. The girls watch the game and respond to the action with an appropriate cheer. During halftime, they turn on the portable sound system, and perform dances as well as cheers and stunts. They also ‘rally’ to get the crowd going. ‘Dolphins, Defense, You say, Stop that drive!’ During basketball season, they do sit-down cheers on the front row bench during the game, and also perform between quarters, at halftime and during time-outs. Castro came to the team in July with a background in dance drill, from Hollenbeck Middle School in East L.A., where she coached the drill team. ‘The girls will get a sense of being part of a team’something bigger than themselves, representing their school and their community and looking out for each other,’ Castro said. Some of the cheerleaders come with experience from elementary school and middle school squads, others with a dance or gymnastics background, and still others with natural ability and attitude and the desire to learn. ‘I started off as a beginner,’ said junior Victoria Choi, who worked her way up to the varsity squad and likes cheer because ‘it lets me express my energy and spirit.’ The squad members continuously come up with new cheers and routines: ‘Who rocks the house? The Dolphins rock the house! And when the Dolphins rock the house, they rock it all the way down.’ The camaraderie of the squad is a draw for the girls. ‘I like that not everyone is from the same group of friends,’ says junior Nicole Tirosh. ‘The stereotypical cheerleader is ditzy. Some people don’t know us, and they say we’re like that.’ Bruner says, ‘If two cheerleaders talk in class, the teachers think the cheerleaders talk a lot. If one person slips up, it’s all of us.’ A Palisadian, Bruner adds that ‘most of my friends I met through cheer. The hard part is I have to go far to see some of my new friends.’ The squad members come from all over Los Angeles. Candy Brown, mother of team captain Morgan Brown, had a sleepover for 36 cheerleaders last year at her house in Baldwin Hills, and has helped organize garage sales to raise money to help those who can’t afford the team dues. ‘Cheerleading is very necessary for the school too,’ she says. ‘If they didn’t have cheerleaders, even though [some students] like to tease them, it wouldn’t be as much fun.’ While some of the cheerleaders agreed that Pali’s school spirit is strong, others feels there needs to be some improvement. ‘It feels good to pump your team up,’ says senior Jessica Santos, who joined the team as a freshman, took a break and is back this year. ‘You have to be loud and proud’put some attitude into it. At games, we compete against other cheerleaders, try to have fun and see who can do better stunts.’ Senior Nikita Hearns is fulfilling a long-time dream by being part of the squad for the first time this year. ‘It makes you more outgoing,’ she says. ‘It makes you happier. You express your feelings by cheering for the team.’ For junior Jasmine Thomas, competition is what makes cheerleading fun. The competitions take place in the spring and summer at amusement parks and major high schools. As a captain, she wants to lead the squad to its best potential. Strong motions and good personalities make for a successful squad. ‘We’re not a part of the athletic program but we work just as hard and get hurt just as much.’ In addition to afterschool practices three afternoons a week, they work on their conditioning three days a week’doing ab work, lunges and squats in the fitness center. For their new coach, the goal this year is no injuries, and that ‘we all stay on the team and treat each other right.’ She’s ordered two-inch thick cheerleading mats that velcro together, for the team to practice stunts on. ‘We’ll also be stretching out and warming up ahead of time, and working on getting down safely from stunts,’ Castro says. Next week, the Cheerleaders of America camp will come to Pali to instruct the squad for a week, then junior varsity and varsity squads will be selected, and then it’s ‘Go, big blue!’ for the football season opener on September 10 at Sylmar High School. (Donations for the program can be made out to Palisades High School, earmarked for cheerleading, mailed to 15777 Bowdoin St., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272.)