Inside the Pacelli High School gym hangs a banner recognizing the school’s last competition cheer team to be Region Champs. The year was 2002, and the new Vikings head cheer coach has some definite thoughts about it.
“It’s time for another team to be on that list,” said Jenna Poole, who took over the competition cheer program this year.
Poole, a 2006 Pacelli graduate, has a unique perspective on the Pacelli cheer program. She was a member of the 2002 region winning team. Along with assistant head coach Katie Mann, also a cheerleader on the 2002 team, Poole is determined to return the Vikings’ competition cheer program to prominence.
With only 10 cheer athletes on her varsity squad and no seniors, it might seem a little ambitious for Poole to be setting her sights on a run for the GHSA Region A championship. But Poole has a lot of confidence in her young team, and most of the girls on the varsity have been with Poole since she began helping coach four years ago.
One of the benefits for this year’s team and for years to come has been the establishing of a middle school competition team. While the varsity program at Pacelli has a history of competition teams, which was discontinued for a few years and reinstated not long ago, there had not been a middle school program for competition teams.
“The concept is to start athletes off early in middle school learning the techniques and skills required for a competition program,” Poole said. “A middle school program brings the girls along, trains them up, and acts as a feeder program for the varsity team as the athletes move into high school so they are ready to compete.”
Pacelli has spirit teams for sports events like football and basketball in addition to the competition squads. Some of the athletes participate in both, but the competition teams require more technical skills and athletic endurance for participation in competitions. The Vikings’ competition team has four competitions scheduled this fall before region finals. The middle school competition team will travel with the varsity and compete at the events, too.
During those competitions, each squad performs a two-and-a-half-minute routine. For the Vikings, the varsity routine consists of basically five components: jump sequences, dance, cheers, tumbling, and stunts. It’s a fast-paced, nonstop flurry of activity, and each athlete, whether a base or a flyer, has to be completely engaged as a team in order to succeed.
While practices for competition officially began Aug. 1, the Pacelli cheer athletes spent the summer conditioning and participating in work out sessions. The team also attended a cheer camp at Columbus State University where one of their community coaches, Tricia Hall, an alumnus of Pacelli, is also a member of the CSU cheer program.
Poole undertakes the responsibility of developing the team’s competition routine. She then breaks the sequences down so that each part of the routine is worked on until it becomes almost like second nature to the athletes. While both Poole and Mann have cheerleading experience, they are quick to point out the sport has changed tremendously since their varsity days.
“It’s funny because we will think about adding something to the routine that we think is pretty difficult in terms of technical skill and the girls will look at us and say, “That’s not hard,’” said Mann, who graduated from Pacelli in 2004 and teaches kindergarten at St. Anne’s.
Poole smiles. As an art and drama teacher at St. Anne’s and Pacelli, respectively, she has a creative nature which is helpful in developing the competition routine. She added just a bit of old school to the performance, which she says was pretty much standard when she and Mann were competing.
Because Pacelli is a private Catholic school, there might be an assumption that the Vikings’ competition cheer program would be severely conservative in comparison to their peers. The uniforms worn by Pacelli’s cheer athletes are no different than other high school cheer uniforms, and their competition routine features a dance segment and contemporary music.
“We do have a standard, but it’s not hard to balance the school’s standard with other schools because the routines these days are so technically difficult that the emphasis is on skill and athletic ability,” Poole said.
Mann gives credit to the Georgia High School Athletic Association for raising the bar on what is acceptable for competition teams.
“The GHSA has done a good job of setting the standard,” Mann said. “Nowadays, there are no midriffs showing, and uniforms can’t have cutouts in the back. Our moral ground may be a little more evident at Pacelli, but our competition teams have no trouble fitting in because of their skill.”
Going into the competition season, the Vikings will be facing some more experienced teams with established programs. Poole and her coaching staff are not intimidated and actually see this year as the beginning of the return to success.
“This is what we are calling the ‘Revamp,’” Poole said with a smile.
ITG Web Content
Vikings Looking To Begin New Era With Competition Cheerleading
By Beth Welch
Photos y Jerry Christenson
