Throughout the years at Newton High School, there has been a rise in students who have decided to try out for the NHS cheer team. Usually, cheer teams do a lot of cuts, but this year is different. As of 2022, there are a total of 22 girls on the cheer team and every single one that tried out made it on.
Freshman Chloe Harder tried out for the cheer team this year because her older sisters have done cheerleading and she did Junior Railer Cheer when she was younger. She thinks that the team should be bigger. Harder also says that there are so many more pros than cons to being on this large team.
“The pros are, being more involved, having fun, stunting and having a family where I feel safe,” Harder said. “The cons are getting injured, feeling exhausted, how time-consuming it is and the stress. But all of the pros just cancel out the cons. I think that cheer makes the school more cheerful and overall, just makes school more spirited.”
Harder still thinks that it would be better to have more people on the team so they can do more pyramids with stunting. She thinks it would be great to have more people be more involved in an activity at the high school.
“I think that it would be better if we had more people because then we could have more pyramids and ripples. Overall I think it would be cool to have a big team,” Harder said.
Freshman Makayla Peterson tried out for the cheer team because she has done cheer since she was in second grade, and she loves doing it. She thinks that the cheer team should also be bigger because then there could be cooler stunts.
“In my opinion, I would like the cheer team to be as big as possible,” Peterson said. “We would have many more stunt groups, and have more cheer friends.”
Makayla says that a positive of being on the cheer team is how each cheerleader can all lean on one another and treat each other like they are each other’s second family.
“A con would be how at times it can be very stressful and overwhelming, but we get through it,” Peterson said. “I think it would be great to have more people on the cheer team, because it would let others see how fun and awesome cheer is.”
Junior Brooklynn Black decided to try out for the cheer team this year because it is something she has been involved in for the past two years at the high school. She was a dancer for eight years of her life but when she got to high school, she wanted to switch it up, so she changed to cheering. She thinks that even though there are many girls on the team, it is a lot better and she would rather have more people.
“In my opinion, the cheer team is a really good size. We have around 20 people so we can have five solid stunt groups so that we can do lots of pyramids,” Black said.
Black feels like it has made the environment better than if it was a smaller cheer team. She thinks that it gives you more friendships as well as more ideas for stunts, performances and uniforms. “I would say the only con is that sometimes it gets stressful when we are putting together performances. If you don’t hit stunts or do the performance just right you can be really hard on yourself,” Black said. “Some of the pros are that the cheer team is like an extra family. You get to do bonding activities together and it creates another safe space for cheerleaders”