Friday nights are about more than just the scoreboard at Green Level. As the football team battles week after week through a tough season, one group remains consistently spirited and loud: the cheerleaders. There’s a lot more to cheer than pom-poms and backflips; the girls bring school spirit to the sidelines, lifting up both the team and the crowd every game.
The Green Level football team is 1-6 so far this season, winning only the season opener against Athens Drive. The team fights hard to put points on the board but still falls just short of a win.
“We want them to win and they want to win too, so it’s hard to see them struggle.” Said Emma Green, senior captain of the Cheer Team.
The Green Level student body generally regards Friday nights as a time to pick out a themed outfit and hang out with their friends, not necessarily to cheer on their football team. A prevalent pattern has emerged: many students only stay for the first half.
The Homecoming football game on September 19th had the best showing to date, with fans packed into the top of the student section. But by the time halftime concluded, the crowd had reduced to about half its size. The cheer team has noticed this trend and only uses it as fuel for their fire.
“Honestly, being on the sidelines for games that are not going well, which is unfortunately most of them, can be really frustrating.” Said junior cheerleader, Caroline Hamm, “But I think that it makes our team more determined to cheer for the football team and to pump up the crowd more.”
The cheer team has implemented a few methods to help engage the student section. Working together with the Gator Goonies, the student section leaders, they’ve created new chants to encourage crowd participation.
“We normally call cheers that are more likely to get the crowd involved, like something that they should repeat back to us or something that’s more hype and easy to understand,” Hamm said.
There are other creative ways the cheerleaders impact the game from the sidelines. The cheer team may not be able to directly influence what’s happening on the field, but they can certainly stir things up. The cheerleaders have pioneered a strategy to cheer extra loud when our Green Level defense is on the field. This helps limit what the opposing team’s offense can hear, sabotaging their plays and communication.
Many of those attending the football games may overlook the importance of a positive and proud cheer team. The cheerleaders put in hours behind the scenes, preparing for games and practicing stunts and sequences, aspects of cheerleading that many fail to notice.
Hamm said, “I don’t think that people realize the hours, commitment, and time that we really put in and out of practice, all the conditioning that we do, and the times that we have to focus and remember all the different sequences, which can be really difficult.”
As the Green Level football team advances through the second half of its season, cheerleaders and students alike are awaiting that inevitable comeback. The team plays Apex tonight at the Swamp.
Apex is 1-7 in their 25-26 season, a record that has fans anticipating a close match. What the Green Level football team needs now is some passionate support.
“I always like to have a support system, so I know that they want to have one too. So we just cheer them on as much as we can to hopefully help them do better.” Said Green.
Get out and support your Gator football team tonight, Go Gators!
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