Firstly, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! For the Saints, we’ve been off uni for the past 3 weeks. Training will start back on the 9th of January with Varsity and Scarlet. I wanted to touch on a few different topics for this month’s edition. Namely, how the team deals with the financial side of cheerleading. I also want to talk about the difficulties with university cheerleading in terms of having to work around so many different schedules to put a routine together, which I feel is seldom talked about. So, keep reading to find out more!

A Quick Update

  All of our teams are well on their way to having a full routine. Varsity is in the process of being planned as well as our fundraising showcase in support of The Hygiene Bank. For Level 1 Scarlet and Level 3 Midnight, it’s just dance and pyramid that needs to be learnt now, with both teams taking the floor for the first time at Future Cheer in February.

What is it like paying for Cheerleading at University?

There’s no doubt that cheerleading is a very expensive sport. Within cheer, you’re paying for training kit, training sessions, uniform, shoes, transport to comps, entry fees for comps, accommodation for comps…the list goes on. So how does a university student even begin to pay for all of that?

“The sad fact [is]…it’s not financially accessible for everyone.”

At the start of every academic year, we begin the long process of advertising our team and sport to freshers at the Sports Fair and all over social media, in order to get people to come to our taster sessions and tryouts. We might have a hundred people come along, but before we get too far into the process of tryouts and tasters, we have to put out the dreaded disclaimer about just how expensive cheerleading is. The sad fact about this wonderful sport is that it’s not financially accessible for everyone. As a university team, however, we are extremely fortunate to be a part of DMU Sport. DMU Sport heavily subsidises many of the costs we have throughout the year. Without them, it’s unlikely that we would have enough students to join who could pay. Even though we are lucky enough to receive funding from our university, this does not totally cover the costs for the sport. We still need our athletes to put money towards uniform, and this can be a pretty big ask when we are heading towards the end of the first term when funds are at their lowest. Last year, athletes were encouraged to potentially get money towards their uniform as a Christmas present from family, to assist with the cost. Our teams still also need to pay for their shoes. Because we are a university team, we enforce that only flyers are required to have actual cheer shoes as they are so expensive. Many, if not all our girls who get cheer shoes will get them secondhand. Of course, it would be safer and better for all of our members to have proper cheer shoes, but this is just not feasible. The uniform is the most expensive part of cheerleading for us within university cheer. Our teams must buy training and performance kit. I spoke to our Kit Officer, Ellie, about what goes on behind the scenes of designing kit to appeal to all tastes and budgets: Hello, I’m Ellie and I’m the kit officer for the Saints and I’m on COED level 3. I was really excited when I earned the role of a kit officer and couldn’t wait to start sorting everything for our new season. The team was well in need of a revamp in all aspect regarding kit. The training kit is quite a big one as we will now have matching sets which will include a sports bra, leggings and/or shorts.

“Sparkle comes with a price.”

Bows made by Primacy Bows: http://www.primacycheer.com We are lucky enough to be funded by DMU for our competition kit making it easier on us, as we all know kits are expensive. The thing I love about kits is the sparkle! However, sparkle comes with a price. Being a design student and taking part in cheer since 2014, I knew what I wanted to create a refreshed look but I wanted our new uniform to keep up with all-star cheer as I feel university cheer gets left behind. I had to keep to a strict budget for each athlete meaning I had to sacrifice a few sparkles and special touches. It hasn’t been easy for us getting our kit, with many bumps in the road. In the end, it may not be quite as we first planned. However, we are trying our very best to give the girls and boys the kit they deserve. Having our sponsorship with Primacy for our bows has really helped keep pricing down for us. Plans are well underway, and mock-ups are being created. I really can’t wait to see how everything turns out this season.

What’s been our biggest challenge this month?

Asides from issues with kit, our biggest challenge of the past month has been attendance, particularly in our level 3 team. Again, I feel this is a little talked about the issue within university cheer, despite it being so crucial. Naturally, as with any sports team, a member being absent causes problems. This is particularly evident within cheerleading, as not just anyone can step in when needed to make the routine work. In the past month, we have been dealing with several injuries and absences that makes it difficult to keep pushing forward with our routines.

“For most illnesses and injuries, we still expect attendance…”

The grey area within university cheerleading, however, is how strict you can be with attendance at university level…after all, we’re here for our degrees, not our sports teams. But, of course, we all want to do well when it comes to competitions. This all comes full circle. If we do well in our comps, DMU Sports maybe even more generous with their funding. So where can we draw the line with absences? Our Secretary, Grace, is the first point of contact when it comes to absences. Here’s her take on the situation: I don’t think it’s really possible to understand how important attendance is within cheer without being on a team. Being the secretary, I have been the main point of contact for absences. This year, as always, we have a 3-strike rule in place. If you have 3 unauthorised absences, sadly, we have to let you go.

“…we don’t have people that can just step in…”

Which is one of the hardest things to do and we really try to avoid doing it as, unlike other sports, we don’t have people that can just step in at any point. It is always difficult when deciding whether an absence is acceptable or not due to different circumstances and new problems each year. Though it may seem harsh, for most illnesses and injuries we still expect attendance. Even if you need to sit out, you can still learn the routine this way and stand in your space to show formations. Obviously, we understand it is not always possible for 100% attendance. We do allow absences for university study trips and family emergencies. However, if you are hungover you better have some paracetamol and some water to sober up ASAP for training!

“Creating a cheer routine takes a lot of time from the coaches…”

Creating a cheer routine takes a lot of time from the coaches and even longer to teach and perfect it, this then becomes harder when athletes don’t come to training. Stunt groups only consist of a maximum of 5 people (usually less), when 1 person doesn’t show the whole group won’t be able to practice fully which puts stress on the whole team, especially when pyramids rely on having at least 2 stunt groups working together. Timing is such a big factor in cheer and it’s really important that everything is in time. When missing training you aren’t there to be working on the timing as a whole so the timing won’t be perfect.

What’s coming next?

Next month, I’ll be catching up with one of our level 3 girls to talk about what transitioning from gymnastics to cheerleading is like and what difficulties are faced. We’ll also take a look at the most common stereotypes regarding university cheerleading, because boy, are there a lot! If any of our readers have got any opinions on this month’s topics or next, please contact us! We would love to hear from you. You can catch us over on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram: Twitter: https://twitter.com/dmusaints Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dmusaints/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DmuSaintsCheerleadingSquad/ Much Love, DMU Saints xxx

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