Every week from Aug. 19 to Nov. 4, students head to the stands to watch the football team play. So many students gathered to watch the games that attendance even broke Burger Stadium records, where LASA plays for home games. As the sun sets and the football team prepares to start their match, the cheer team comes out to greet the crowd and keep the student section entertained.

Cheer coach Olga Alvarado has been coaching the team for three years, ever since LASA athletics became independent from Lyndon Baines Johnson Early College High School. Although she is the cheer coach, most of the responsibilities are carried out by the team which makes cheer a great place to learn leadership skills, according to Alvarado.

“It’s a lot of coordinating,” Alvarado said. “The team does their own thing. They’re pretty good about knowing what to do, but I just make sure that I do the adult stuff, like organizing the meals, organizing the practices, setting them up to do volunteer hours, things like that. I don’t do a lot of the day to day practices because that’s up to the captains to do all the other stuff.”

Senior Lola DeLeon is one of the captains of the LASA cheer team. Throughout her time on the team and as a captain, DeLeon said she has learned that being a captain is much harder and more involved than just having a title.

“Something I didn’t realize was that being cheer captain actually gives you a lot of authority in terms of event organizing,” DeLeon said. “I mean that’s how I was able to do announcements, but we plan pep rallies and participate in school outreach events as well as just interacting with other teams and making things with them.”

There is not a class period set aside for cheer, but they practice twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sophomore cheerleader Delphia Vo has been going to practices since she joined the team her freshman year and says they are structured in order to prepare for the upcoming games.

“We first stretch and then go over dances and cheers for the upcoming game, then sometimes we will practice jumps and or do tumbling,” Vo said. “Lastly we work on stunts, conditioning, give the announcements for the week, and roll up mats.”

Game days require a little extra preparation to make sure everything goes smoothly, according to Alvarado. The cheerleaders wear their full uniform to school and then meet in one of the gyms to go over dances and cheers. Parents deliver a team meal, and around 6:30 p.m. the cheerleaders load the buses to head to the game. 

“Once we’re at the game we normally just set up, and we start to warm up again,” Alvarado said. “We warm up the stunts because those are the most time consuming and difficult. We also have our Booster Club, and they do a tailgate, and sometimes we’ll make an appearance at the tailgate. We get announced at the beginning of the games and then we go and set up at the end zone to run out with the boys.”

The cheer team’s responsibilities are not only limited to supporting athletic teams at games though. Cheerleaders  also play a huge role in events around and outside the school. These extra duties allow the team to be involved and give back to their community according to Alvarado.  

“They do a lot of spirit stuff,” Alvarado said. “[They make posters] for homecoming and games. They do a lot of announcing the things that are going on, especially homecoming. A lot of spirit to raise the spirit up for the school. We’ve also done a charity, we did our first charity event this year. It was running for the Susan B. Komen Cancer Awareness run.” 

Oftentimes, cheering is only associated with the football season, however, the LASA cheer team does not end their season there. They continue into the spring season and support other sports on game days.

“During the springtime, we normally go down to one practice a week, on Tuesdays,” Alvarado said. “Then we cheer either on a Friday night or Tuesday night depending on the basketball schedule. We’ve tried in the past to do the senior nights or specialty games for the other sports, but there’s so many sports out there. I’m hoping that we can at least get out there to do something for those other sports because we normally just cheer for football and basketball.” 

According to DeLeon, the community is one of the best things about being on the cheer team. She has learned a lot about teamwork and the importance of communication from taking part in cheer. 

“My hope is that I’ve helped to create a community that loves each other and is good at what they do, not because they feel like they have to do well but because they’re dedicated enough to want to do well,” said DeLeon.

Coach Alvarado encourages more students to join the cheer team. Alvarado said the cheerleaders create a community that helps develop leadership skills and build character.

“A lot of times I feel that some students don’t think that it’s worth joining extracurricular because they’re so overwhelmed with academics, but I always encourage students to join something,” Alvarado said. “I’m always telling students this is going to help you in the long term to know how to manage your time. It builds discipline, character, and leadership. Your leadership develops that way and maturity develops that way too.”