Game day is a major part of college cheerleading, especially for the Tarleton State Cheerleading Team. Tarleton fans live for GAME DAY!! We get excited about ours sports from the minute the schedules are released! I would like to give you an idea of a football game day prep for college cheer at Tarleton.
Tailgating
Tarleton State has created an amazing setup for tailgating called Texan Alley. This amazing tailgating event starts 3 hours before kick-off with an incredible turn-out of students, faculty, alumni, community, and football fans. Texan Alley, is a FREE event, with amazing food, music, and lots of Tarleton State Spirit. Our Texan cheerleaders are definitely a familiar face at Texan Alley as we lead the Football team from the bus through a spirit tunnel as they make their way into our stadium to start their pregame warm-up. This is just the beginning of a new tradition we started here at Texan Alley, a tradition of love and spirit for our Tarleton Texans, a tradition we hope to continue and grow into an even bigger event.
Preparation for Game Day
The week prior to game day we practice for 6-8 hours to learn new skills so that we can show off for our Texan Nation from the sidelines to support our purple and white. During these practices we perform our run-throughs on the actual Memorial Stadium field to prepare ourselves for the pre-game and the game day activities. It takes a certain amount of coordination to keep a balance between The Sound & The Fury (our marching band), and The Texan Stars (our dance team) to ensure that our pregame agendas all run smoothly while performing for the Texan crowd and getting everyone pumped up for the Texans as they run on the field to the sound of the Tarleton Fight Song. Some of the cheerleaders tumble out to the middle of the field while other cheerleaders run with the flags while the remaining cheerleaders stunt and/or shake their poms until the last player or coach runs through the spirit tunnel that we have created for them.
Once we have completed our run through, we must hustle to the sidelines to get into position for kickoff and to continue cheering our Texans to the victory. I consider sideline cheerleading the most difficult aspect of game-day routine as we are constantly calling chants, throwing baskets, tumbling, building our cheer pyramid, which is one of newest routines we just conquered, performing our elite stunts, and last but not least, performing different jumps! “Cheerleading's 100 year history has developed as its own unique sport; but also why our sport's "cheer leading" or "leading" of "cheer" skills are used to enhance crowd participation at sporting events. You'll notice these skills have been technically developed specifically to lead and energize sporting event crowds which easily transforms to the great excitement we all see today at cheerleading competition venues around the world.”2
When the Texans score a touchdown, I have part of the cheerleaders run onto the field with the Texan flags, while the remainder of the cheerleaders run to the endzone to execute the ripple standing backs. If we have any promotional items like t-shirts or footballs we throw these to the ever roaring crowd in celebration.
According to an article I read on Varsity Cheerleading’s website, “A larger crowd, more spirit, and fans that genuinely care if the team wins the game are just a few things that make a difference when cheering in college.”1 Tarleton students have amazing school spirit, a spirit that fills our stands chanting and making it known that We Are, Tarleton State! If you have never experienced a Tarleton State home game, I encourage you to follow us @TarletonSports to stay in the loop of each upcoming event, you won’t be disappointed.
References
1(2017). Retrieved 1 March 2017, from https://varsity.com/images/library/pdf_college/college.pdf
2(2017). Cheerunion.org. Retrieved 1 March 2017, from http://cheerunion.org/history/gameday/
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