The Dos Pueblos High School Cheer Team has been around since 1966, the year that DPHS was founded. The competition cheer team placed fifth out of 12 teams from across the country in February of this year. Cheerleaders from junior varsity will often perform with varsity at an important sports event, like the Homecoming football game.

“It’s fun to perform what we have worked on for a long time,” varsity cheerleader Piper Allin (11) said. “It’s scary sometimes. I get nervous, but it’s fun to see people I know and to see people in the crowd.”

The cheer teams’ job is to hype up the crowds at every football game and put on a show during halftime. Not only do they physically put on a show, but they also put on a smile for every performance and chant their cheers.

DPHS recognizes that cheer counts for the physical education requirement.However, the cheerleaders said that cheerleading is an “underappreciated” sport.

“When you see a performance, it looks easy, and everyone says ‘it looks so easy,’ because that is the point of cheer,” Malia Rocque (9) said. “We try to make it look easy, but people don’t understand the work we put in to make it look like that.”

During cheer practice and performances, cheerleaders work on stunts where they support, catch, and throw people in the air. The person in the air is called the flier, and the supporters catching the flier are the bases. In the back of the formation, there are spotters waiting in case the flier falls. Allin said she learned a lot about “communicating with the team” during her time as a cheerleader.

The cheerleaders practice twice a week for two hours, and, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, they have weights and conditioning.

“Even though it can be a lot of hard work, it always pays off at the end of the day,” Tatiana Gonzalez (9) said.

Edited Oct. 22, 2024 for misplaced captions.