For decades in Utah, high school cheerleaders have performed their routines during football games, basketball games and pep rallies, with a whole competition schedule spread throughout the school year.

Competing for a sanctioned state title? For the first time, that’s added to the list.

Cheerleading squads get their time in the spotlight this week with Utah’s first sanctioned competitive cheerleading state championships.

The UHSAA announced a couple years ago it would add competitive cheer as a sanctioned sport. This school year brings the first season the sport has competed under the UHSAA umbrella.

There have obviously been kinks to work out, hurdles to clear and paperwork to file associated with the sport being sanctioned. But on the eve of Friday’s 6A and 5A state championships, cheerleading coaches at area schools say their teams are feeling a mix of excitement, gratitude and nerves.

“We’ve placed well in region before but never in a group of this size, so they’re all just so excited and so thankful that they get to go to state, and in such a good position,” Roy High cheer coach Taylor Brown said. “So every time I talk to one of them they’re just like ecstatic, ready to go and it’s going to be so much fun for them.”

There’s a lot of gratification within the cheer community about being sanctioned after years and years of being heavily present in schools, but not being recognized on the same “official” level as other teams.

“I believe the role of a cheerleader is to build school spirit, entertain and engage the crowd at special events, and strive for excellence in the skills necessary for such entertainment and crowd engagement. As a UHSAA sport, we finally feel recognized as the athletes we’ve been for so many years,” Layton High coach Mandolin Martini wrote in an email. “This cheer season is different because now that we are one of the UHSAA teams for which we strive to support in competition, we must find balance between supporting others and competing ourselves.”

Cheerleading is basically a year-long sport. Tryouts take place in the spring and teams work throughout the summer to practice routines, which range from complex to even more complex, for the upcoming school year.

Then, the state championships are staged in the winter and, a couple months later, tryouts for the following school year take place.

For years, cheerleading has been hit with an “it’s not a sport” stigma, despite teams of 20-plus athletes practicing choreographed routines for hours per week — routines that include a variety of motions, stunts and tumbles.

Some moves require skill and athleticism (back handsprings, for example) and others require strength and coordination (pyramid stunts).

Depending on the difficulty of a routine, it can take anywhere from a few practices to multiple months to prepare.

“To get an entire team in synch can take a significant amount of time. Great routines require creative intricacy and uniformity in body angles, positions, facials, vocals, etc.,” Martini wrote.

Cheerleading at the competition level is a judged sport, or a “cheer-ocracy,” as explained in the hit 2000 film “Bring It On.” The more in-synch a team can be in a competition, the better.

For Utah’s state championships specifically, classes 6A-1A are split among eight divisions and cheer teams pick whether they compete in the co-ed division or the all-girl division; they can’t compete in both.

The 6A co-ed, 6A all-girl and 5A all-girl divisions have their state championships Friday at Utah Valley University. Roy High’s co-ed team is particularly looking forward to the state meet, Brown said.

At the Northern Divisional meet last weekend at Ben Lomond High, Roy placed first in the sideline timeout/dance and sideline/timeout cheer categories, and placed second in the show cheer and sideline/timeout fight song categories.

Layton placed first in the 6A all-girl sideline/timeout fight song and third place in sideline timeout/cheer.

“It’s all new, we’re still all learning how we’re going to have this be a sanctioned sport, you know, working out the kinks,” Brown said. “For Roy, we’re pretty excited because we’re one of only four 6A teams — 6A co-ed teams — that qualified in all four of their routines, so we’re pretty proud of that.”

Friday’s 6A and 5A state championships will be the second of two days of state competition this week.

The 4A/5A co-ed, 3A/4A all-girl, 3A co-ed, 1A/2A co-ed and 1A/2A all-girl divisions had their state championships Wednesday.

Among area schools, Ben Lomond took third place in the 3A co-ed show and sideline/timeout dance categories.

Morgan was third in 3A/4A all-girl overall standings and Bear River was second in the 4A/5A co-ed overall standings.

Gunnison (1A/2A co-ed), Juab (3A co-ed), North Summit (1A/2A all-girl), Snow Canyon (3A/4A all-girl) and Crimson Cliffs (4A/5A co-ed) were crowned overall champions in their respective divisions.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.

Newsletter