North Decatur High School

Brent Luken

Everyone knows how much work an athlete puts in to be successful in their sport. What a lot of people might not know is how much work cheerleaders put in to support those players from the sidelines.

The North Decatur cheerleading squad works extremely hard when preparing for the games.

According to North cheer sponsor and coach Carol Davis, the individuals on the Charger cheer squad come in two or three times a week at 6:30 in the morning to practice for the week’s events.

But cheering the players on during the contests isn’t the only job the Charger cheerleaders are responsible. They also are in charge of various “spirit” functions throughout the school.



The squad is responsible for decorating the hallways and doing other various spirit raising activities with the school and sports teams.

Every sports team in high school has strict rules and regulations they have to follow to be eligible to take part in school activities. The same holds true for cheerleading.

There are many rules and regulations squads must comply with in order to participate in the school activities. According to Coach Davis, the Charger squad makes following these rules their main focus.

“We put a lot of focus on the ever changing rules and regulations for today’s high school cheer squads,” Davis said.

“And we make following those rules and safety our main priority,” she added.

Before the start of the school year every high school cheer coach was encouraged to attend the Indiana Cheer Coaches Conference in which the rules for cheerleading would be handed out and every coach was asked to follow the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) Spirit Rules Book.

However, there are also rules set forth by the individual states that squads have to follow.

Some of the new rules set this year are: Basket tosses are to be done only if there is a mat in place or if done on grass, rubberized or soft-yielding surfaces; “Double Down” dismounts (the flyer makes two complete rotations with her body) are not to be done at the high school level; a flyer cannot be in an inverted position (feet over head) unless she maintains constant hand to hand contact with her bases and is shoulder height or below; and when standing at attention, apparel mush cover the midriff.

According to Coach Davis those are only a few of the rules the cheerleaders have to follow and the entire rule book is rather long.

As far as competition, the North cheer squad only competes once a year. The Chargers attend the Universal Cheer Associations Cheer Camp that is held at Ball State University in June.

There are approximately 20 squads and over 300 girls who attend the camp and this past year the Charger squad did quite well. The squad won two camp champ trophies for extreme routine and camp cheer and were runner-up in the home routine category.

Members of the North varsity cheer squad are Jordan Gahimer, Lauren Miller, Betsy Cleland, Kera Davis, Emily Dieckmann, Erin Fee and Sarah Peters. Junior varsity cheerleaders are Kendra Fasbinder, Monica Garlitch, Kayleigh Knecht, Jessica Rand, Taylor Rempe and Lauren Sauley. The freshman squad is made up of Jessica Miller-Combs, Abby Coy, Sara Niles and Kristen Robbins, while the stuntmen for the Chargers are Matt Vanderpohl, Derek Wilson, Korby Day, John Garlitch, Cody Banks and Adam Hellmich.

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