Respecting Roosevelt Spirit

An inside look at the community of high school cheerleading

When you think of school spirit, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps the student section, sports teams, or assemblies. However, there is one group that is often overlooked, yet is primarily responsible for sustaining the very soul of school spirit: the Roosevelt Cheer Team. 

Through time, cheerleading has evolved into a spirit-based culture focused on athleticism and built on a strong sense of community. Yet in recent years, people have associated cheerleaders with negative traits, largely due to misconceptions that the media and film industry perpetuates.

From the ‘skinny, blonde haired, blue-eyed cheerleader’ trope, to even ‘Satan with pom-poms,’ many movies and TV series about high school seemed to include the stereotypical ‘mean cheerleader.’

Former Roosevelt cheer member Francoise Musafiri speaks on these stereotypes, saying, “Some people think [cheerleaders are] ‘bitchy’ and some people think they’re kind of fake, you know.” She explains that people often misinterpret the positivity of cheerleaders as not being authentic despite it being one of their responsibilities in being on the team. 

Cheerleaders often have a very specific image to maintain as representatives of the cheer team; positivity is what fuels their routines, helping bring out athletes’ high energy and enthusiasm.

Roosevelt cheer captain and junior Emma Wolfe shares her thoughts on the Cheer Team’s positive community. She says, “As a whole, it’s kind of just like having a bunch of sisters and yeah, you can always count on your cheer girls.”

Another Roosevelt cheer captain, senior Corinne Fischer, speaks on how the support from the team impacted her personally. “I’d just grown super close with the girls, and they are kind of my safe spot and my place to go,” she says. “Whenever I’m feeling down or whenever I need to be picked up, whenever I walk into cheer, they always, you know, they make me feel so much better and they just always turn my day around.”

When asked about the one thing they wished people would take away from a cheer performance, many members shared that they wanted others to understand the amount of work put into their practices and performances. 

Wolfe explains that while the community is one of the things she loves about cheerleading, the hours can be very draining. “It’s just like, a huge chunk of your day that’s spent in the rain sometimes and it’s always cold, and then you have to go home and still do homework.”

It frequently takes the Roosevelt cheer team months to prepare for a performance. Wolfe adds that “it takes us a lot of falling on the ground.”

Despite their many hours spent in training, some members feel that there is a clear lack of respect for cheerleaders. Musafiri says, “I’ll hear people make fun of the cheer team for messing up.” She goes on to say, “It’s not easy, and I think a lot of people don’t recognize it as a sport and I wish people would just give it a lot more respect, because it takes some guts, definitely.”

Fischer discusses how the effort required during the team’s long practices is often disregarded, saying, “Whenever I tell people I have cheer practice for three to four hours after school, a lot of people say, what do you even do for three to four hours?”

Fischer says it is frustrating that their work often goes unnoticed. “You only see it for two to three minutes, but [those minutes took] hours and hours of cleaning and learning dance moves and perfecting it,” she says.

Roosevelt cheer coach Jordan French says, “I want people to feel happy after they see the performances. That’s kind of the intention, to raise school spirit and to raise energy and to just be fun. All these routines are super high energy.”

The Cheer Team has helped to cultivate school spirit at Roosevelt, so the next time a game or assembly rolls around, perhaps Roosevelt should double down on its efforts to support the team and acknowledge the sacrifices made to perfect each performance for the student body.