School Cheer vs Competitive Cheer

Kate Clayton, Staff Writer

School cheer and competitive cheer are two completely different things, two completely different atmospheres, and both have very different practices. 

Violet Jacobsen, a sophomore at IFHS, has done both school cheer and competitive cheer. She says, “The two are very very different. Competitive practices are usually at night, whereas school cheer is in the morning. Competitive cheerleaders compete almost once a week for two months, whereas school cheerleaders mainly focus on games and districts.”

Not only are competitions different, but so are the uniforms. Rylie Orr, a senior from BHS says, “School cheer uniforms are a little more bland, where ad competitive cheerleaders have more sparkly and bold uniforms.” This could be because competitive cheer has sponsors to help purchase upgraded uniforms and equipment.

When competing, competitive cheerleaders are scored out of 100. They have overall scores, which are the score out of 100, and there are technique scores out of 5. Scoring for school competitions is a little more complicated. 

School cheer uses pom-poms and yells cheers at games, whereas competitive cheerleaders don’t do any of that. “School cheerleaders have small routines that they practice and competitive cheerleaders have one routine that is 2 minutes and 30 seconds exactly that they spend all year perfecting,” says Lyla, a seventh-grader from Taylorview Middle School.

Even though they seem like they are the same, school and competitive cheer teams are very different. Their techniques are different, skill requirements are different, coaching is different, stunts are different, and so are practices, competitions, and uniforms

People usually just assume that they are the same, because they are both cheer. But in the end, there are many differences that give cheerleaders options for how competitive they want to be within the cheer community.