Unfortunately, we are in a very strange situation. At the time I am writing this I am stuck home from school due to the coronavirus outbreak and myself- as well as all of the world- are currently living through a major time in our history. For the purpose of my blog, I am going to find it very difficult to continue my blog because it is very much tied to school and tied to living my small bedroom in Richmond, VA. In order to continue on, I am going to have to dig into the archives of my cheer days in order to keep the blog posts interesting as I am seeing very little cheerleading in my days quarantined at home.
Before digging back into my old cheer days prior to Penn State, I wanted to talk about my team now and how we are working through this virus that seems to have no end in sight. The second semester, overall, for cheerleading is much lower key and does not have many activities, except two major things. The first is basketball, which ends very quickly into the second semester so that only really occupies a few weeks. The other major event during the second semester is tryouts. Every cheerleader tries out, whether they are returning or not, whether they are going to be a captain or not, and unfortunately this is very frustrating for current team members. While there is stress as an incoming freshman coming in, there is a also a lot of stress for returning teammates in order to keep their spot.
While most returners do make the team (apparently- I have never tried out as a returning member), typically cheerleaders are aware if their spot is in jeopardy. While this may sound like it relives a lot of stress for returners, it doesn’t, because you still have to endure the pressures of tryouts and learn/be evaluated just like new cheerleaders. This year, simply because of the coronavirus, tryouts are going to have to look completely different this year in comparison to any other year.
Typically, tryouts are held during a three period one weekend in March. If you cannot make the regular tryout, you are indeed allowed to send in a video with certain requirements fulfilled. This year, every single person trying out, returner or not, has to send in a video completing their required skills. There are both pros and cons to this situation- which I will get into.
Some of the positives of sending in a video allows people to submit their best-looking stunts and tumbling. For example, a standing backflip is a requirement to be on the team. If a cheerleader is not very good at landing a backflip consistently, they can take multiple videos and put in their best-looking video, even if that may not be what they all look like. Another positive is the lack of audience. When I tried out last year, there was a table of 10-15 representatives sitting in front of you starring into your soul as you preformed each activity. This can be VERY intimidating, especially if you are going one by one. Through a video, this eliminates in the intimidation produced by the coaches watching you, allowing you to most likely perform better.
Some of the cons of having to tryout via video are simply only roadblocks because of the coronavirus. Each athlete trying out was sent a list of things to include in their video, one of these things being 10 standing backflips in a row. While many cheerleaders do tend to take videos of different skills they do and learn, 10 standing tucks is a somewhat odd request so most cheerleaders, if not all, will not have a pre-recorded video. No big deal right! Just go and film it, one would thing, but sadly due to the coronavirus all cheer gyms are closed. This requires us to either go outside and film in the grass, which could be potentially dangerous if you are not comfortable with the skill. The same thing is similar for stunting. If you have a certain stunt you wish to put into your video because it is very elite, and you do not already have a video of it, most likely you will not be able to put that into your video because of the lack of open gyms as well as the lack of ability to get a group together.
While trying out via video is not ideal, it does allow athletes to show off their best skills to the best of their ability. Unfortunately, because of the virus, this is how 2020-2021 cheer tryouts will be conducted, make it very difficult on the athletes.
Throughout my season, my team and I have become heavily invested in raising money for THON, as It is a fundraiser very near and dear to our heart. As the event gets closer, my team and I become much more involved, as I am sure many organization do as well, and we begin to put on many different fundraisers in order to raise money. One of our all-time biggest fundraisers that we put on is an annual stunt clinic. This stunt clinic is open to anyone who is interested in learning, whether they be a high school student planning to tryout or just a younger kid who wants to learn more.
The clinic runs on a random Sunday before THON from 10-2. My team and I took the practice right before the clinic to practice and perfect the skills we were going to perform the next day. After spending an hour or so dividing up which stunt groups were going to demonstrate what, we decided to have a mini showcase with just our team where we should each other our stunts and cheered each other on.
The next morning, I woke up at 7am because I had to get completely ready and walk all the way from East to the White Building in the snow. After getting there at 9am my team had to warm up all together as families started coming in and preparing for the clinic. Once the clock hit 10am, everyone started running laps around the gym as our warmup. Next, we all stretched together.
After warmups, we started our demonstrations- which was my favorite part of the whole day. I loved cheering on my teammates and watching them demonstrate their best skills in front of a crowd. After this, we broke up into girls wishing to stunt with all-girl and people wishing to stunt with coed.
Since I am on coed, my partner and I spent the rest of the day getting to know and teaching three younger girl’s different skills that they had never done before. It was really fun to watch them get excited for the accomplishments that they were achieving and to see them doing things they never thought they would be able to.
One of my favorite things about my sport is that there is so much interaction between me and the community/kids around me. I love interacting with them and teaching them different skills because their excitement and reactions are half the fun of what I do.
After my last blog, I thought going back in time and revisiting cheerleading events that I had missed out on telling you guys about might be interesting- especially because I do not really get to do much with my team during this month other than the occasional basketball game, which are pretty much the same thing over and over again. In my last blog, I decided to talk about the events leading up to tryouts, so to continue the story I thought I would talk about tryouts themselves. Many people like to assume that cheerleaders get recruited and, in some instances, at some schools they do however most schools hold tryouts sometime in the spring.
Back in March of 2019 my mom and I left school early on a Thursday to come to the weekend event of Penn State Cheerleading Tryouts. Since they started early Friday morning and continued throughout the weekend, I had to come up a day early because I live so far away.
On the first morning, I woke up and started getting ready. Cheerleading, unlike any other sport, requires a certain aspect that is traditionally frowned upon and that is the aspect of appearances. The shiny uniforms, big bows and bright red lips make people think that cheerleading is a sport solely based off of how you look. While appearances are important in the sport, the doesn’t take away from the skill level and commitment level required within cheerleading.
After putting on my makeup, including the bright red lipstick, I changed into a Penn State T-shirt and got into the car. I headed to the white building on campus to get my name tag and start stretching. The whole atmosphere was very intense and intimidating, especially for someone like me who knew no one. As we started to warm up our tumbling, it became even scarier to me. With the older girls who were comfortable with their skills decided to go first followed by grade all the way down to the freshman.
After tumbling we got in line to learn a set of dances and cheers which only got more complicated. After learning the dances and cheers, our day was pretty much over. Since it was the first day, there were no cuts, but every other day there would be.
The next day, I woke up and got ready, but skipped the red lips because our schedule as very different today. A large part of cheerleading is being able to communicate with fans, alumni and other people in the university, so today we had to participate in an interview with our coaches. To me, this portion was much more intimidating because for cheerleading, you either have the skill or you don’t, but having to hold a conversation about yourself with someone you are trying to impress can be really difficult.
After the second day of tryouts, we all gathered in the building to hear the numbers called out of those who made it to the final day. Waking up that next morning was so terrifying. This was the round where we were going to be tested on everything we had learned the prior two days. After running through each aspect of cheer one at a time in front of everyone trying out- tumbling, stunting, and cheering- we gathered in the front of the mat for a discussion. They told us results would be posted online in two weeks, and just like that tryouts were finished.
Finding out I made the team was one of the best days of my life. After reading my name on the website, it felt so surreal that I was actually on the team, and little did I know what the next few years would have in store for me.
For my first blog back after the closing of the semester and the start of this new one, I was browsing for topics or events that I had encountered in my cheerleading career. This became extremely difficult as I started to think, mostly because this whole month of December was one big break for me and cheerleading. With little to no events occurring, it was nice to take a breath from cheerleading, unfortunately, however, it left me with nothing to talk about for my blog! While brainstorming, I suddenly thought of the idea to talk about why I started cheerleading in the first place and how it led me to where I am today, a topic that I have not really touched on throughout all of my blogs so far.
Going way, way back in time, I figured I should briefly touch on my background before I became even remotely interested in cheerleading at all, so essentially all the way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody was the most amazing TV show in the world. Before even considering entering into the cheerleading world, I was a gymnast. I loved the sport and it became to overtake my life. Starting at nearly 1 year old, by the time I had reached age 10 I had started to compete- and win- multiple titles for my district and state. As I started getting better, practices started getting harder, longer, and much more physically demanding. While 13-year-old me was so in love with this sport, I finally got around to realizing that this was too much for me and this I had other goals in my life then just school and gymnastics.
Deciding to give up gymnastics was a very difficult decision for me, especially because it had been such a large part of my life for so many years. I felt like I was losing part of myself and part of my purpose. Once I had given up, I decided to try cheerleading because it took some of my favorite aspects from gymnastics (such as being on a team and of course the flipping), but it also incorporated some new aspects I was unfamiliar of, such as being lifted by other people and of course the actual cheering portion.
Throughout middle school and high school, I found myself fully immersed in what cheerleading had to offer- and little did I know at the time the major impact it was going to have on my life. As I grew older, I found myself craving new tricks and always wanting to learn more, something I feel like usually people get tired of the longer they do a sport for. High School cheerleading was my favorite thing about school. I loved my teammates, I loved my school’s spirit, and I loved the tricks and flips of the sport, but never had I considered moving on past my senior year.
Very few girls from my high school cheer program had ever actual gone on to cheer at the collegiate level, and coming from a non-cheer background, I never really expected that to be me. I knew I had loved the sport so much but I also knew in order to cheer in college I had to be able to stunt with a male- something I had never even experienced before and it would take a lot of effort to learn since it requires completely different techniques. After contemplating a few times in my head, I finally came to my senses and pushed the idea of collegiate cheer to the back of mind- until one very special day.
One of my friends from high school, who I had known since I was a young girl, started talking to me about college one evening when we were with a big group of friends. After getting deep into where we both wanted to go, he had asked me if I had considered cheerleading in college- a question nobody had asked me before. I quickly answered no and expressed how I felt I was not good enough, yet he simply did not seem to like that answer. He said that if I enjoyed something that much and was willing and excited to work and make myself better, why not just work at it and try out? His advice really resonated with me.
So, I started to work for my goals. I took numerous lessons in order to enhance the skills I had already had, as well as gain completely new ones. After months and months of preparation and practice, I tried out for the cheerleading team. Little did I know all I needed was one friend to tell me that I had a real shot, and in taking that shot, I unlocked a whole new door to my future I didn’t even know existed.
For this blog, I thought I would go more in depth about what cheerleaders do at basketball games, since I only merely mentioned it in my last blog. Other than football, basketball is our next most popular sport. Men’s and women’s games are completely different experiences, and usually, very few students attend the women’s games at all. While the crowd levels and the excitement levels may be different, we typically do just about the same things at both games.
My whole team is never assigned to one basketball game, as that would be about 40 people in only small corner of the stadium! Each month our coach sends out a calendar with some basic rotation that switches off who cheers for what game. Typically, about four boys and sevens girls will be assigned to each game. Basketball is very interesting and VERY different than football. We typically arrive one hour before game time in order to warm up and eat. Yes, I said eat. I am not sure how many of you have ever been to a men’s basketball game, but they always serve free food before it, so you should definitely go. There are very few places to warm up so typically we have to warm up in a hallway, which is very difficult, especially when stunting.
After warmups, we go onto the court to make a tunnel for the players to run through. After that, we move to our side of the court, which is in the opposite corner. My favorite part of the football games are the pregame activities, however for basketball, pregame is much less exciting. Essential, we do not really do anything special at the beginning of the game- other than welcoming the team members.
One main difference between football and basketball is that we get to sit down. While this may seem nice, I would actually prefer standing because every time we score, we have to stand up, cheer, and sit back down, which can get a little bit repetitive when we score approx. 70 points a game. Another major difference is we only really get to stunt during timeouts, which is very different from the constant lifts and tricks we do all football game long. While I personally think it is more fun to do stunts throughout the game, more attention is on us when we do them on timeouts because we are in the center of the court. We have created many different formations and tricks that are flashy and exciting for the crowd to watch and even participate in, including things such as WE ARE and Rock and Roll chants.
Throughout basketball games, we also get to constantly do different things such as t-shirt tosses. It’s a much different experience cheering for basketball because you are so close to the fans and you can see all of them- usually during football you can only see the first few rows, unless you’re in a stunt. This allows you to better interact them as well as feel their excitement.
Another major difference between football and basketball is that we constantly are calling cheers. During football, we do a lot of dancing with only a few cheers here and there but since we are sitting we do a lot less dancing and a lot more cheering. Basketball games are also MUCH quicker than football games so we try and squeeze in just as much excitement as we would for football but in a smaller time period, so we are constantly busy. Although I find basketball games very fun, football will always be my favorite sport that I cheer for and football and basketball are very, very different.
In many, if not all, of my past blogs, I aimed to help people understand what a typical Saturday at one of the biggest football schools in the world looks like for a college cheerleader. While many of the posts have been somewhat similar in regard to the overall topic, football games, I wanted to take this blog to talk about something super different. I know you all are aware by now of what weekends look like for my team and I, but I have never really talked about a typical week schedule. In the beginning of the day, I am just a normal student like everyone else, however past about 5pm my day takes a turn and becomes drastically different.
After a busy football Saturday, we receive the biggest blessing in the entire world- a day off. Sundays are pretty much our only day off the entire week, so it is a great time to catch up on homework, do laundry, and honestly, just take a break from cheerleading and exercising before Monday comes around again.
Monday-Thursday, we have normal practice. 6:30pm-9pm in the Multisport building. For the most part, this is pretty consistent, unless there is some sort of event which I will get more into later. When we arrive at practice, the first thing that we do is roll out the mats and this job is so tedious. The mats are huge and so hard to move because they do not slide on the turf, so it takes about 4 girls just to open up one and there are 7. After the mats are out, we all change into our cheer shoes and patiently wait until the clock strikes 6:30.
As soon as its 6:30, we all get up and run two laps around the building then go right into stretching. After stretching, we typically gather at the front of the mat to discuss the weekend and then what practice will consist of for that day. After talking, we break, and all the girls spread out on the mat to do back flips. As soon as our coach starts counting we all have to do synchronized back flips, 5 total, and if someone doesn’t go, falls, or touches their hands to the ground, it doesn’t count and we do them again. Some days are really great, and we only have to do 5, but there have been multiple occasions where we would have to do 10, and it gets hard.
Directly after doing our backflips, we go to the corners of mat where we do running tumbling (series’ of multiple flips in one turn). We usually take about 3 turns each, unless we got in trouble for some reason and then we just keep on going.
After all of our tumbling is done we break off into teams (coed and all girl). I am on the coed team and I am so thankful for that. I love me team and we are all so close- and also the boys throw you higher which I personally think is way more fun. For the rest of practice, we work on stunting and pyramids, essentially the stuff you see at games and events every week. For the most part, practice is pretty much the same, unless it’s a Wednesday because on Wednesdays we start every practice with a timed mile run.
While typically every team member will be at practice for the full 2 and a half hours, there are exceptions to this- one of them being cheering at a basketball or hockey game. Hockey, basketball, and volleyball are the only other ports we cheer for, and while they are fun, none of them measure up to football.
I know what you’re thinking, cheerleaders? For hockey? Do you cheer on the ice? And the answer to all of those questions is yes we cheer for hockey and no we are not on the ice. Hockey is actually very simple to cheer for and we are actually located above the student section. The only thing we really have to do at hockey games is dance and do small promotional things like Treat in Your Seat.
At basketball, however, we do so much. Almost every timeout we do some sort of stunt or dance in the middle of the court. Basketball is really fun, especially when there is a lot of people so hopefully as the seasons goes on more people will show up.
Typically, in a week for me, I would attend 3 practices and one game of some sort. While we technically get Fridays off, sometimes you will be assigned to cheer another game. If I am not cheering a game though, many of us cheerleaders will get together and drive to a cheer gym just outside of town to practice even more.
Throughout the week, my life is pretty busy with cheer and I devote so much time that I know other people are unaware of. My team and I put so much work into what we do and many people do not understand the amount of time and dedication it takes to be a college athlete of any kind.
Last week I posted a blog about my College Gameday and Penn State Whiteout experience, however I found the blog in its entirety was very very long. I decided to break it up into two parts and this is the second! For this blog I am going to talk about the rest of the day after College Gameday.
As soon as the event ended, I found myself with a little bit of free time before my game time priorities began. My parents were in town for the weekend, and my brother is a sophomore here, so we all decided to go out to lunch. Being in the uniform I was, with my red lipstick and pom poms, walking downtown was so crazy as people kept stopping me and asking me to take pictures with them. What should have been a 15-minute walk turned into a 30 because I was stopped so many times. When I finally got to the restaurant, I was super excited to sit down and have a nice meal with my family. That did not happen. The restaurant was PACKED as it was whiteout weekend and college gameday just ended.
After talking with my family and finishing up our meals, my parents drove me back to my dorm to get ready for my next assignments. I had about an hour to fix my hair and makeup in order to be at the student bookstore. After meeting my friend and we both walked to the bookstore together, the cheerleaders on the shift before us handed us a role of stickers. Our job for the next hour would be to take pictures with people and offer them stickers as they walked by. This sounded very boring, but it was actually fun to talk to people and give little kids stickers.
When we finished, we walked back to our dorm to grab our stuff to take into the stadium. One fun fact is that we actually are not allowed to bring our cheer backpacks into the stadium on gameday, we are only allowed one clear Ziploc bag. On Friday’s, we have to walk our backpacks to the stadium before 3pm so that they can be sniffed by a bomb dog… weird right. Well, nonetheless, we have lots of makeup and outfit changes that we need throughout the day on Saturday and with only a gallon size Ziploc bag, and 2 pairs of shoes, pants, jackets, and sometimes even uniforms, it is near impossible to fit it all in, As a results, we have to put on as many layers of clothing as possible in order to get it into the stadium.
Once in the stadium, there was literally no time to breathe whatsoever. Our shift at the student bookstore was particularly late so we were super rushed when we got to the cheer room. We put our stuff down to run onto the field and just like that we were in warm-ups. Oddly enough, this was one of the best warmups we have ever had.
After coming back to the cheer room, we were instructed to get ready for pregame and as you may know, this is my favorite part of the whole game. We grabbed our phones and ran out onto the field. A tradition of whiteout is the use of cell phone flashlights to light up the stadium and being in the center of the field when this happened made it look so indescribable because I could truly see everyone. Instead of using my flashlight, I decided to put on my flash and take a video of the entire stadium so I could remember what it looked like for the rest of my life.
Cheering the whiteout game was absolutely incredible, especially because we were winning. This was a special game for my team because we got to spend an excessive amount of time on the field. Our program has been given so much recognition this year than past years in regard to the amount of time we are allowed on the field and I love it. The experience I had at the whiteout game was particular amazing just because of the fans. Seeing everyone in the same color and the amount of noise was so loud all you could do was stand and look and listen.
I am so grateful for the experiences I had at both College Gameday and the Whiteout game and I will never forget how amazing both were to be a part of.
As I am sure all of you know, this past weekend of October 19th was one of the biggest weekends at Penn State all year. With college gameday, the 7:30 primetime spot, and the whiteout against Michigan, this weekend had little to no downtime scheduled, especially for me and my team. In order to accurately describe everything that went down this weekend, I decided to break the day into two blogs. For the first blog regarding this one weekend, I wanted to start by talking about College Gameday and how this was one of the most thrilling and special things I have ever done and will always remember.
College Gameday, an American College Football tradition chooses one school each weekend to film their show at. The decide which college to go to based off of the fan base, the game rivalry, and the rankings of both teams, among other things. This year, Penn State was picked yet again for the whiteout game for the third year in a row because the atmosphere we have is simply unmatchable. The College Gameday traditions started, for me at least, on Friday as I was chosen to be in the pre-show the day before.
After reporting to the Hub lawn at 3, we were greeted by College Gameday employees and taken backstage. As the sections behind us began to fill, it become real to me that the show I had seen on the television every weekend for years now was being filmed right in front of me and I was going to be a part of it. A lot more people came out to the show than I expected and while the crowd was big in my eyes, it was nothing like the crowd I was going to see the next morning. This being the pre-show, nothing too exciting was going on other than me standing in the corner, waving and smiling to the camera, however it provided me with a little taste as to what was going to go down the next day.
Unfortunately for the students, College Gameday has a start time of 9am, which doesn’t sound that bad until you realize that a school this big with this much school spirit is going to have many kids eager to be in the front row. Luckily for me, I did not have to get up at the astonishing times that other students did just to be seen by the camera once.
My wake-up time was at a beautiful 6:30am, much better than the 2am other students had planned to do. At 6:30 I put on sweatpants over my pajamas and my friends and I on the cheer team walked down to the waffle shop for our team breakfast. With my preordered pancakes on the stove before I even walked in, all the cheerleaders filled the restaurant while the line outside the door only grew. As we finished eating all the freshman walked back to one dorm in order to get ready for the actual gameday.
Since my team is so big and everyone wants to be on television, my coach split the filming into two sections, the first section for the all-girl team was 9-10:30, and the coed section, mine, was 10:30-12. Thankfully, this allowed me plenty of time to go back and get ready before arriving for College Gameday. After getting ready, we walked to the Hub lawn and started taking pictures with people in the crowd and with each other. We reported to our side of the stage, and the fun began quickly after that.
Once it was a commercial break, we quickly switched teams behind the camera and as they counted down, we were suddenly on camera in a matter of seconds and boy was I lucky. We had designated lines that we had been assigned to since the beginning of the season and it just so happened my position was just off the shoulder of the cast sitting in their chairs. Another lucky thing for me, my partner is 6’7. Tall Right. Every time the camera was on the cast, I found myself in the air in direct view of the camera. My position was golden. They placed televisions all over the place not in view of the camera so we could watch the actual show while it was being filmed and I could not believe the amount of time I found myself waving through the camera to see it as its happening on TV. After what felt like 30 minutes of waving and smiling (which in reality was probably 5 minutes) we would take a commercial break and I was able to come down from the stunt and rest my cheeks from all the smiles. This repeated about 10 times as we switched between commercial and shooting and I was in the prime spot the whole time.
During commercial breaks we would turn around and face the thousands of attendees and cheer them on and get them excited. While we do cheer for many more people on the actual field, this was so much more personable, and I was able to see the faces and the smile of the people standing in front of me.
College Gameday was a truly amazing experience for me and I cannot believe the opportunities I am given as a cheerleader to be involved in events like this. After the show was over, we got to go onstage and take photos with the cast of College Gameday. When the event was over and I was able to check my phone again, my messages were flooding in of people sending me pictures of myself on TV. I was truly amazed. Having already completed so much that morning, I was so tired, but my day didn’t stop there, in fact, it got even more exciting as the day went on, but you’ll have to wait until next week to hear my experience at the Whiteout game.
In my last blog, I briefly stated how all football games in State College would be very similar for me, aside from my first game and the White Out game. The homecoming weekend, however, exceeded my expectations and was probably the most fun weekend I’ve had thus far. With everything from going to Nittany-Ville, to the parade, to the actual game itself, everything was just as exciting, with a little extra something else mixed in.
The homecoming festivities began for the cheerleaders on Thursday. Thursday is typically a regular practice day for us, and we go over everything we are going to do at the game. This Thursday was a little different. We were instructed by our coach to meet at the stadium fully dressed in our uniforms. It was absolutely freezing that night and all we had on were skirts- not a good combination. After standing outside the stadium for about 10 minutes waiting for my coach to arrive, he finally walked up and gave us further instructions.
As I am sure you have heard, Penn State is being premiered on the HBO show coming up this fall and little did we know we were about to be a part of it. Nittany-Ville is a tradition at Penn State where people stay in tents for a week outside of the stadium in order to have the chance to sit first row at the football game. The HBO team wanted to film the cheerleaders and football players at Nittany-Ville surprising the students with pizza and music. When we ran over, energy was soaring, as people were so excited to receive free food- as any right-minded college student would be. The HBO crew wanted a show, and boy did they get one, as it started pouring down freezing rain. For some reason, this only added to the excitement and chaos that this event turned out to be, and HBO must’ve gotten great shots of students dancing in the freezing rain eating pizza- a true representation of the Penn State school spirit.
After the music had stopped and the pizza was all gone, us cheerleaders made our way to practice soaking wet. The mixture of the cold and the rain would provide all of us with obstacles regarding our health later on in the weekend.
The next day, we had our second major homecoming event- the parade. All sniffling and still cold from the night before, we reported to the Natatorium to walk in yet another event that we were ill-prepared for regarding our attire. Since we were the end of the parade, we waited for as little as 2 hours to begin actually walking in the parade. In the meantime, we warmed up, ate some dinner, and did some team bonding as we stood waiting for our turn. Once it was finally our turn, we walked all through campus, stopping periodically to stunt. This was by far my favorite event of homecoming weekend. One of the things I enjoy most about cheering for a large university is the crowd involvement. We got to take pictures with kids and say cheers with the crowd.
When the parade finally came to an end, we all rushed home to get as much sleep as possible, as kickoff tomorrow was at 12:30, meaning our assignments began at 8:30, and we were all as sick as can be from the night before.
Usually on gamedays I get assigned to team arrival, but this game I got assigned Presidents Tailgate. After getting picked up by a mysterious man driving a white van, my 5 teammates and I were driven out past all of the tailgating fields to a building I had never heard of before. We were welcomed by men and women formally dressed and taken to a room full of food. After going through the buffet line, we returned to our table with plates full of delicious fruit, pastries, and other breakfast foods (You may be sensing a theme by now, yes, we get free food a lot). After scarfing down everything we could possibly hold, we were welcomed to the stage to perform. A quick 10-minute performance and we were out the door on the way to the game.
While the game itself was very similar in respect to what we do and how we do it, it was also very different because there was approximately 500 additional people (alumni) on the field for the game. We continued to do everything usually did, but with half the space and double the sound.
Overall, homecoming weekend was a blast and I love going to new events and experiencing new things as a team. While many people (including myself until now) may think we do the same things over and over each gameday, they are all a little different and a little special in their own way.
After talking about my first home game cheering on the field, I started to brainstorm what I was going to write about next, and while many other home games have passed between now and then, they have all rendered very similar thus far. One experience that was actually one of the most interesting and exciting events I have partaken in thus far has actually been my trip to the University of Maryland for the first away game of the season. For away games, only a few males and females are assigned, usually around six to eight, and I was lucky enough to be assigned to this game, as it occurred on a Friday and 8pm.
Since the Game was on a Friday and the University of Maryland is only about four-hour drive, we left at 10am, and we were permitted to be excused from our classes for the day. As the 8 of us boarded the bus, we were given bags by our coach, full of snacks for the ride down. While it was early in the morning, being the typical college students that we are, we all expected to get on that bus and take a four-hour nap. My coach, on the other hand, had other plans for our journey. For the whole bus ride, we continued to play many team bonding games, one right after another, and honestly, it was a blast.
Once we got to Maryland, we went straight to the hotel to get ready for the game, and the events leading up to the game. After what felt like 30 seconds, we were required to be downstairs in the lobby, ready to get on the bus. After taking the bus directly to the University, we were dropped off at what was coincidentally, a big University of Maryland tailgating location. I was very unprepared for what was about to happen.
Getting off the bus, with all of our Penn State Uniforms and flags and bags, many University of Maryland fans started shouting at us! It was a sight I will never forget. Some of the fans were very nice, making jokes about how the game was going to go, or commenting on the irony of us getting dropped off at this location. Unfortunately, many other fans did not show us this same courtesy. As we walked to the Alumni Event, many people would yell things at us as we walked by and it was honestly a very strange experience for me.
Once we found ourselves in the building of the Alumni event, the entire mood changed. We went from walking around people who hated us, to seeing so many people that seemed so excited to see us. I personally love going to different events, such as Alumni events, because they will always give you amazing food. Being away from home and living in a dorm does not give you much opportunity to have well-cooked meals, however every time we go to an Alumni event, we are fed the most amazing food until we cannot eat anymore. In exchange for the loads of food we are given, the cheerleaders and the blue band, as usual, put on a performance for all of the alumni.
After the event was over, we said our goodbyes and took many, many, pictures. When we were about to leave, our coach made us get into a special formation, a formation I had no idea would be necessary. With the girls in the center and the boys making a circle around us, we headed off to the stadium entrance on the other side. This this was my first away game, so I had little knowledge about what the walk entailed. As we walked through campus, we were cursed at and yelled at, and I was shocked. While many people just walked right past us without notice, it was hard to ignore those who did notice us and said things to us. Although I was shocked by how people could be rude to us without even knowing us, many other members of the team told us stories of people throwing food at them. I was both shocked and lucky to have that not happen to me.
After we finally go to the field, things started moving quickly. As we worked through and eventually finished warm-ups, the stadium started filling up. The Penn State section seemed as if it overtook the rest of the stadium. By halftime, the entire Maryland student section which, at the beginning of the game was completely packed, was now reduced to what seemed like 100 people.
As Penn State’s lead increased, the game only became more fun for me. We got to do tricks we never got to do before, and we were in direct contact with the crowd as we were much closer than at home. I really enjoyed cheering at this game and I had felt a completely new connection with the crowd. After the game was over, we boarded the bus with no problems, as many of the Maryland fans had already went home.
Even though this was a quick trip to Maryland, it is probably the most amazing experience I have had so far as a Penn State Cheerleader. It’s so amazing how the Penn State community is so large, no matter where you go you feel the presence.
