On Friday August 23, 2024 the varsity cheerleaders officially began their season. Even though this was their first game of the season, they’ve spent months over the summer preparing for the 2024 football season.
As the Bulldogs made the team, they were excited to start their season even though they had much to prepare for. Despite that, the girls have to relearn band dances, practice all their cheers, and prepare for their own season, while also having to do many stuff for the football team and the school as a whole.
For the football team, the cheerleaders create door signs from scratch. This process takes a lot longer than many people think.
Senior Raelynn Hall has experienced how much the cheerleaders need to do before their season even takes off. Hall exemplifies, “We start practices in June and soon after practices start, we begin making door signs up until around mid-August.”
After the door signs have been created, the Bulldog cheerleaders finally begin their season, which means they have to start preparing for pep rallies.
Senior cheerleader Katarina Candor has been a varsity cheerleader for 2 years. Candor is a huge help when it comes to planning these pep rallies, “We take the time to come up with different ideas for every pep rally. This allows us to spread school spirit and get everyone excited for the upcoming football game that same night.”
There is a lot that goes into these pep rallies that many of our Lakeview students do not recognize.
Candor expresses, “We as cheerleaders have to come up with and plan every game that is played at each pep rally. We also have to prepare speeches to whomever is speaking at that specific pep rally.”
During Bulldog pep rallies, the band plays a huge role.
Senior cheerleader, Addison Briell has been a cheerleader since her sophomore year. She has been planning these pep rallies for awhile now. She indicates, “We start the pep rally by marching down the halls while the band plays a variety of different songs. We then go into the gym where they play our most important song, the Fight Song while the football team comes running out.”
Everything they do at these pep rallies have to be approved by the administration. This is because of safety reasons and many other factors. Even though sometimes their ideas get turned down, they still have favorite parts about the pep rally.
Candor adds, “My favorite part of participating in planning these pep rallies is watching my classmates and teachers play the game.”
Outside of planning the school’s pep rallies, the Bulldog cheerleaders create more signs for the school. These signs that the Bulldog cheerleaders create are much different from the door signs they created earlier in their season.
Briell enjoys making signs to hang in front of the student section for both home and away games, “When making the student section signs, we first look up which theme the game is and then look up ideas on the internet that correlate to the theme. Then we all work together to trace out, paint, and decorate the sign.”
Almost everything the Bulldog cheerleaders do brings them together and allows them all to bond.
Candor feels as if, “Everyone is able to voice their opinions and ideas when discussing anything from ideas about door signs to ideas about an upcoming pep rally. Planning these things for the school brings us all closer together and allows us to bond while getting things done throughout the season.”
Even though this whole process leading up to the Bulldog cheerleading season is extensive, the girls enjoy participating in everything they do for the Lakeview High School.
