College Cheer | cheerleading

College Cheerleading

College cheerleading is the transition from high school to college cheerleading. This can be a lot different and even more difficult than high school cheerleading. There are many things to expect when transititoning. For this page, I am going to talk about the Boise State Cheerleading Squad and what to expect when being involved with a college cheer team.

Tryouts

To be on the team, you first have to tryout. Tryouts are different for all college teams. The tryouts usually take more than one day, because there are usually a lot of girls that tryout for the team and the judges/coaches need a lot of time to decide who would be best. Skills are the main focus in college tryouts, its not like the typical cheer, dance, and jumps you do infront of the judges. Some college tryouts are mainly based on stunts and tumbling. The tryouts are not so much of a preformance, but more of an observation in an enviornment. Tryout requirements range from attire, skills, knowledge of the team, and others.

Attire:

Female- black shorts/compression shorts, black sports bra, athletic cheer shoes, hair must be down
Male- black shorts, black t shirt, cheer or athletic shoes, hair can be any length, but if longer than shoulder length you must pull it back.
Additional Info- no logos besides Nike or Boise State. Tattoos are acceptable but must be easily hidden. No jewlery at all, no color on nails, they must be clean and well groomed. Appearance should be game day or appearance day ready.

Tryout Requirements:

Timed mile under 10 minutes but requires 9 minutes
Recommened 25 push-ups in 1 minute, but require 35 push ups.
Proper voice projection
Proper arm placements and sharpness
Maintain spirit and energy throughout tryouts
Standing back hadnspring required, but recommends a standing tuck, handspring tuck, cartwheel tuck
Minimum of 5 cheer or gynastic experience (high school or club).
Triple toe-touch and pike jump parallel to ground or higher (recommended to handspring or tuck out of all jumps)
Minimum of 1 year partner/group stunting in the position you audition for.

Camp

Camp in college is so much different than high school camp. In high school, you probably competed (in a fun way) to see who was the most spiritual or game-ready team. But in college camps, it is a lot more laid back and relaxed. The main focus of college camp is getting you ready for the upcoming games. The staff of the camp will teach you the best ways to be fully involved with the crowd at games, carry on university traditions, and make the alumni cheerleaders proud.

Practices and School

Dealing with school and cheer can be tricky in high school, but it may seem even more complicated in college. This isn't totally true. You are able to schedule classes and practices and still be able to enjoy your college your experience. Although it may be very stressful at times! For college cheerleading, you will have set scheduled times for practices and weight lifting. Weight lifitng is to gain strength for the endurance, and practices are for stunts and any other thing they need to work on. Athletes will have to schedule their classes around these times.

Click this link to view the 2014-2015 Boise State Cheerleaders Roster

Below are videos of the Boise State Cheerleaders showing off their skills to announce for their tryouts two years ago.

Game Day Attire:

For college cheerleading uniforms, they are more revealing than what high school uniforms would be. The typical college uniform is a sports bra-like top with a high rise skirt. Other colleges that are more conservative have full body uniforms much like high school. Some are full body, while others show the mid-drif, and some even have pants! In the slideshow, you can see Boise's different uniforms they had over the years.

Stunts:

College cheerleading stunts are WAY more advanced than high school. College is allowed to do flips in the air, higher pyramids, and two-two stunts. These type of stunts ihelp the crowd get more excited. They also get the crowds attention if there is a time out in the game or something is happeneing that stops the game from going on. In the slideshow, you can see the different stunts that Boise does during their games!