Woodbridge High’s cheer team hosted their yearly one-day camp with 170 local elementary school students coming to learn routines and tricks, gearing up to perform beneath the stadium lights at the football game later that week.
At the Little Warriors Cheer Camp, kids spend the day learning stretches, stunts, and routines from the cheer team’s coaches and team members, a fun and active experience. Hours of preparation lead to the football game later that week, where all of the kids take to the track and showcase what they learned to students and families—giving kids a true impression of what it is like to be a member of the Woodbridge High cheer family.
While the camp is a major fundraising event for the cheer program, it is also a rare but important chance for younger students to be introduced to the sport.
Head cheer coach Kylie McBride spoke on why the camp is so important, namely due to the lack of programs and opportunities to try cheerleading prior to high school. “It’s really hard for little kids to find a place to learn [about] cheer,” said McBride.
In addition to exposure to the sport itself, the camp is a way for kids to have fun while also developing important life skills.
“It builds confidence,” said McBride, going on to explain how the camp’s performance aspect helps the kids to step outside of their comfort zones and teaches them to overcome shyness or fear.
Attendees are also encouraged to talk to others and socialize during the camp, fostering valuable social skills in addition to self-confidence.
However, they are not the only ones learning and growing from the Little Warriors Cheer Camp. With participation from so many kids every year, existing members of the Woodbridge High cheer team play a vital role in leading and teaching the campers.
“My favorite part is to see my athletes here in high school get excited and helping little kids,” said McBride. “So much of me and my JV coach, Christina, coaching them, and now they get to step into that role.”
Varsity cheer member and sophomore Cassy Alba views the camp and prioritizing the kids as a learning opportunity for herself and her teammates. “You need to learn to understand all of them and… what their version of fun is,” said Alba.
The kids serve as reminders of their younger days and where their passion for cheer began.
“Seeing the kids be so excited about something new and so willing to learn,” recalled junior Alana Lederman when asked about her favorite part of the camp.
Current cheer members also point out the camp’s value in breaking stigmas around the sport and in highlighting the strong bonds created within the team.
“It’s really important because cheer’s not looked at as a sport in a way, but it is, and it takes a lot of time,” said Lederman.
Along with being disregarded in consideration of sports, another often downplayed aspect of cheer is stunting, seen by most students only on the sideline at sports games, but something difficult, yet fun, according to Alba. Kids at the camp try stunting, seeing and enjoying it for themselves, something members hope will help to break the stigma in the future.
Both Lederman and Alba pointed out the participants getting to experience and witness the bonds formed between teammates and the family they have found in cheerleading.
The camp itself is a “full circle moment” for many of the cheer team’s members as an activity that they themselves partook in as a Little Warrior almost a decade before.
Many current members of the Woodbridge High cheer team, including McBride herself, had been a kid in the camp learning simple stunts and dances in their own elementary years.
The experience attaches personal and sentimental feelings when returning to the camp, no longer as a young kid, but as a now experienced cheerleader, hoping to help others find their passion for cheer just as they had.
