The LTHS cheer team works tirelessly throughout the year to put together routines for sports games, pep rallies, and UIL each year. LTHS cheerleaders have learned the importance of dedication and have grown emotional, physical, and mental strength because of the sport. 

 The cheer season does not end with football season; cheer is a year round sport. Once football finishes it is straight into basketball season, then there is competition season which goes till January; in between all of that are pep rallies. All of this means it requires the team to spend a major amount of their time with one another.

 “This year especially it feels like a really big family, I’ve made friends with people that I wouldn’t have made if I wasn’t on the cheer team,” junior Sydney Grant said. 

Even though cheer is an extracurricular activity it has taught members lessons which can be applied to their everyday lives. For Grant she has learned how to work with all types of people. 

“I have 2 younger siblings and 4 older siblings and they all have different personalities so I’ve learned how to interact with different personalities,” Grant said.  “You’ll never regret being kind, my time in high school is when I’ve really put that into play.” 

For Grant’s fellow junior Mytae Hickman she would much rather work alone than work with other people. Cheer has pushed her to learn how to work with others since teamwork is considered a requirement for cheerleaders. 

“[I’ve learned] how to work well with other people. I like to work by myself a lot but with cheer it’s a team thing so you have to work with each other, so that applies to real life,” said junior Mytae Hickman. 

To be a part of cheer one must give up a majority of their free time to their team and to the sport. So because of this case for cheerleaders a major amount of their high school experience and high school chapter is cheer related, so is their high school memories. 

“[My favorite memory from this year] was during the last [football] game because even though we lost we still did the same thing and had a lot of fun. It was not my last game but for the girls who were a senior it was their last game so we bounded over that, so it was bittersweet because it was their last,” Hickman said.

On another note, many of the upperclassmen on the cheer team feel they have a responsibility over their younger teammates and that they have a responsibility to promote a positive environment. 

“I would want everybody to know that everybody is irreplaceable and can bring something to the team that someone else can’t. So I think I would want to set the tone that everyone is unique and lovable,” Grant said. 

There are many misconceptions about cheer; a lot of the assumptions coming from high school movies. Some look at cheer and do not see it as a real sport. Yet not just anyone has the ability to do cheer, cheerleaders are just as strong and work just as hard as any other athlete. 

“People mistake [cheer] for something super easy and more of an activity than something considered more a sport. There’s a ton if work that goes into every little thing whether it’s hand painting every single sign you see in the school, decorating the gym for pep rallies, or spending months on a pep rally routine,” Grant said. 

Overall there are many things people get wrong about the cheer team. They are a sport just like football is and they also make the school a better place just like the student council. Also the LT cheer team has had a successful 2022-2023 school year despite running into a few bumps in the road.