S. P. I. R. I. T., spirit, let’s hear it

Published 1:00 am Wednesday, October 15, 2008

KINGSTON — Perhaps the sport world’s most under-recognized athletes, cheerleaders require the endurance of long-distance runners.

They also must tap into a never-ending supply of energy and enthusiasm and possess the memory of an elephant.

The 13 members of the Buccaneer cheer squad are experts in all three.

Most football games run two and a half hours and the cheerleaders rock it the whole time, taking only a seven-minute break at halftime.

“The biggest thing most people don’t see is when we’re at a game we’re constantly moving, kicking and jumping,” said Buc head cheer coach Heidi Uher. “They have to be in very good condition or else they’re not going to make it through the game.”

Their season is also longer than other typical high school sports, practicing from mid-May through March, three days per week for two hours each day.

They spend their time memorizing approximately eight dances and more than 80 chants and cheers, and more are piled on for basketball and wrestling season. All the cheers must be performed in unison, with the precision of a synchronized swimming team.

But above all, their job is to entertain the crowd at their school’s sporting events, and it’s a duty they thoroughly enjoy.

“It’s energizing and just super fun to get in front of everyone and show what you’ve been working on the whole year,” said senior captain Paul Thorpe. “Our focus is getting the crowd involved and giving them something to watch and look forward to.”

On Friday during the Bucs’ homecoming game against the Sequim Wolves, which did not go so well on the football field, the cheerleaders never lost steam.

And they brought home their goal of keeping the crowd in the game.

“Everybody is full of energy,” said sophomore football fan Katarina Krieger. “The crowd is cheering with the cheerleaders and the chants go through the crowd and that’s the energy that keeps everybody pumped up and ready to fight.”

Although it’s showoff time during games, behind the scenes it’s not all glitter and glamour.

Take the dances.

Uher said the dance steps are learned one eight-count segment at a time.

“Until they perfect that one eight-count they don’t move on,” she said.

The chants are an entirely different beast to tame. When learning the rhythmic, catchy melodies the squad tackles six or seven in a day, and then it’s on to the next round or to practice at home, Uher said.

Last year the cheer squad created all their chants and dances from scratch.

Junior captain Madalyne Lindgren said they took the basic cheer moves and sayings and combined those in a way they liked, was fun to do or looked cool to them.

And one cheer in particular is a must perform, behind the scenes of course.

It goes a little something like this: “Let’s get fired up. Who? Who? Ahhh who? Who? One, two three, Buccaneers.”

Like a true captain, it’s a chant Thorpe invented on the spot at a cheer camp and it stuck.

“It really gets us pumped up and you can totally see the energy flowing through everybody when we do it,” Lindgren explained. “If we don’t do the chant our energy doesn’t seem to be as up or as happy. It’s our major starting thing.”

While the cheerleaders love their motivational post, a possible drawback is having the cheers circulating ‘round and ‘round their heads like a broken record or a song that just won’t go away.

Lindgren said after drilling a cheer at practice it’s stuck in her head the entire next day. Sometimes in class she can’t write the phrase, “Be aggressive,” without busting out the cheer in her mind.

And then there’s the spelling of Buccaneer, and the chant to accompany it.

“None of us knew how to spell Buccaneers and that’s (the chant) how we learned,” Lindgren said. “I have to say the cheer in my head to be able to write it.”

But it’s all in a season’s work for the cheer squad, which is also perfecting its routines for a competition of their own.

Just like the national college competitions seen on television, the Buccaneer squad will compete in a local cheer competition Jan. 17 at Klahowya Secondary School in Silverdale.