by Azhar Gonzalez
SAsports.com Cheer Columnist
Week of December 6, 2007

Jordan Davis is a varsity cheerleader at Churchill High School. Originally, she dreamed of becoming a gymnast, but inspired by a friend, Kendra, who has always posed as an older sister and a great role model, she became a cheerleader in 5th grade. She finds that being a cheerleader is not only an energetic and exciting sport; it has also kept her in excellent shape by the team’s daily practices. These practices end with conditioning work outs that consist of three or more laps around the running track, sets of 100 crunches, and going over their two minutes and thirty seconds competition routine over and over, which gets exhausting after a while. Her goals are to individually progress in all her skills as a flyer and become much more flexible. Her goals for the team are that they eventually develop better stunting skills and that they become a full standing back tuck squad. The necessities of being a cheerleader, according to Jordan Davis, are to be able to hold a smile while managing difficult cheer tasks and to constantly keep up a good and positive attitude no matter what the situation may be. The toughest thing about being a cheerleader is dealing with numerous rumors that spread and the stereotype that follows cheerleaders everywhere about how a majority of them are promiscuous and “air headed”. Although many cheerleaders are able to contradict this stereotype, it seems to be never ending and has been around for quite some time now. Jordan would love to continue cheerleading after high school and hopefully receive a scholarship to a college of her choice and even further her skills there. Churchill’s next competition will be soon, but it is still unannounced.

As for this past Saturday’s “Cheering in the Spirit of Giving” Competition the results were:

Stevens High School was awarded best group dance.
Reagan High School was placed 1st in the junior varsity division and 1st in the super large varsity division.
Clark High School placed 1st in the small varsity division.
Warren High School placed 1st in medium varsity.
San Antonio Christian School placed 1st in the private/parochial varsity division.
Stevens High School placed 1st in the large varsity division.
Zion Williams from TJC Rockets was awarded Best Cheerleader and Austin Hayes and Jeremiah Howe were awarded Best Cheerleader Duo.
Stevens High School teams and fans were awarded most spirited, as well as having the most donated items brought to the competition.
Reagan High School was awarded “High Point” in the entire competition.
There was also an exhibition performance by the Pink Penguins from Cheerriffic Techniques.
As for the fundraiser itself; all teams and supporters donated a total of 300 food items for the San Antonio Food Bank.

Azhar Gonzalez is our SAsports.com Cheerleading columnist for the 2007-2008 school year. Azhar has been in cheer since she was eight years old. She has been involved with the TCCA Stallions, San Antonio Jets, Holy Cross Knights, Alamo Cheer Sports, and currently with Cheerific’s International Coed Squad. Eash week she will give our readers a better understanding of the cheerleading world by interviewing cheerleaders from different schools and organizations, and posting up major competitions and information on different cheer teams.

Week 1 - HERE!
Week 2 - HERE!
Week 3 - HERE!