Photos and story by Myla Cathey.
Leaving a Legacy
Competing at a UIL meet for the first time ever, Tiger Cheerleading showed their skills at the UIL Spirit State Championship on Jan. 13 in Fort Worth. From getting to cheer at home during football playoffs to winning big at summer camp, the road to competition was uniquely traveled, and the team made Tiger Cheer history.
The team was led by competition cheer captains and seniors Hannah Stivers and Brenna Joy Wilfong. Stivers commented on the importance of the word “legacy” to the athletes this year. The word was used as a mantra, and the team feels they did indeed leave a “legacy”.
“Winning titles at camp, having a great football season, and this being the first year [competing], I feel like we’ve already left our legacy,” Stivers said. “[Competition] was a big deal also because, skill-wise, we grew so much.”
Just days after football’s playoff run ended in October, the team jumped into learning choreography for the championship, including rehearsing a brand new fight song that replaced the previous tune one that was used for over 20 years.
“It was a process of cleaning it up, going through each section of the routine, and perfecting each skill and motion in it, as well as, when it came down to the competition, just encouraging our team to be the best that we can be,” Wilfong said.
Another special aspect of the team’s season was that Stivers and Wilfong decided to create their own choreography for competition, taking inspiration from Alamo Heights High School’s cheer team. Stivers says the team’s game-day routine was a simple, yet structured performance they were hoping to compare to.
“Teams pay lots of money to have work choreographed for them,” Stivers said. “Brenna Joy [Wilfong] and I decided we didn’t really want to go that route. We wanted it to be our own material.”
Stivers and Wilfong pitched the idea of “competition captains” to coach Jodi Slaughter, who was supportive of the two taking over.
“They both had competition experience, so that brought something to the table that maybe wasn’t going to be available anywhere else,” Slaughter said. “It also kept us from having to go to an outside source. I think that cheer is also supposed to be a lot about leadership and giving them that chance.”
On Jan. 12, the cheerleaders got to experience the opposite side of a send-off, a tradition in which the band, cheerleaders, and Bengal Belles perform as a recognized team walks through the halls to be sent-off to competition. This time around, cheer was the sport being recognized.
“Hannah [Stivers] was crying as we were walking down the hall,” Wilfong said. “It feels like we don’t get a lot of support and encouragement from the other sports, but this time, we felt all the love for sure.”
Students were even allowed to get a signed permission slip to ride a fan bus to watch them compete, showing further support.
“Sometimes it’s hard when you’re supporting so many different things,” Stivers said. “It’s hard to feel support back, but this was just so overwhelming and amazing.”
After competition, the seniors on the team cheer at a handful of basketball games and attend the team’s end-of-year banquet, so UIL was essentially their final major event.
“[The seniors] all brought so much to the table leadership-wise,” Stivers said. “We made changes and brought the team together. Having the team all together one last time was really sad.”
Overall, the competition was a learning experience since–according to Slaughter–the program continued to focus on raising morale for other sports rather than taking time off to practice for competitions like most teams do.
“[We got] a great score, especially for our first time,” Slaughter said. “About six [places] around us were separated by less than two points, so that was phenomenal. We also learned a lot about competition, and that’s going to be great going forward.”
Finishing 25th out of 73 teams at the UIL Spirit State Championship, the team unfortunately did not advance. But both the captains and their coach are proud of the team’s competition debut that secured their “legacy”.
“We left every bit of energy and all of our skills out on the mat,” Wilfong said. “Even though we didn’t make finals, it was worth it, and I don’t regret anything.”
