CHEER AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

While many cheerleaders do not continue cheering beyond their high school career, many others still do. Here at Beyond the Poms, we really want to highlight different options and pathways for athletes to pursue the sport that they love so much, even after high school. One of the most common ways is to cheer in college! Hayley has so graciously agreed to share some parts of her journey to the University of Michigan Cheer Team with us and we hope you can learn and takeaway lots from reading about her experiences!

Introduction

Hayley is a current freshman at UMich, studying Industrial Engineering. From 2020-2023, she was on World Cup Shooting Stars, a large all-girl cheer team and one of the most popular in the world. Currently, she flies on the UMich Coed Team

When applying to universities and ultimately, choosing schools, was being able to cheer a priority for you?

Cheer was not a priority but rather a bonus. Hayley knew that she wanted to attend UMich because of its amazing industrial engineering program as well as family ties. Her mothers’ side of the family are all big UMich fans because that is where she went for university

After she was accepted, she reached out to the cheer coach (and her current coach now) to learn more about the cheer team and what they could offer her. From there, she was able to get additional tryout info and even the chance to attend clinics beforehand.

What advice would you give to someone who is looking to tryout for UMich cheer next season?

“Tryout no matter what! Even if you are unsure. Be confident in all of your skills; don’t worry about what you don’t have and have fun with it!”

Can you walk us through what the tryout was like?

She was sent a skills list by the coach that she reached out to earlier and she pretty much just worked on those She found that the tryout was mainly tumble and jumps because she did it on a different day than most people. Her tip is to make sure to come with the cheer and dance prepared It can be the hardest part when transitioning from allstar cheer but it is one of the most important aspects of college cheer.

How are you liking the general environment?

The environment of the team was “just what [she] needed”. It is definitely more chill than allstar cheer and everyone on the team is super encouraging and helpful.

What was it like switching from being a base to coed flying?

This is what many are scared of when going from an all-girl team to a coed team and Hayley admits to having a bit of a fear of flying as well. However, the more she did it, the more her confidence began to rise. Especially under the supportive and encouraging environment of her teammates and coach, she has become more comfortable with being a flyer now.

How do you navigate school and cheer?

For the first half of the year, in order to make sure that all the freshman are well adjusted and can handle the demanding schedules, there is no freshman travel for games, competitions, etc. The cheer team does practice 4 times a week which is a big commitment alone and especially on top of rigorous college work, it is no doubt that time management is an extremely necessary skill to master