High School The Struggle Is Real.

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Apr 30, 2019
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I am struggling with what style to use. Our section is very all star style. When I go to our coaches/judges meetings and listen I hear them saying they want to see more UCA college style cheering. With use of signs/poms/megaphones.
The problem is NO ONE is doing it. I mean they add a quick sign here and there but that is it.
I want to try to go the more UCA style but I don’t want to be the reason my athletes don’t score well.
What would you do?
 
Sounds like you should do what others in your state are doing - dipping a toe in the UCA style. Don't go full blown and commit, especially if your kids will score low. Instead, start integrating a few more UCA type changes each year (talk to other coaches in your area and see if they'd be willing to do the same). Keep in mind, signs aren't the only thing that makes a routine "UCA styled". Pretty consistently (stunts, dance, etc.) UCA favors clean and sharp motions over the sassy, body wiggling motions that allstar prefers, so that could be an easy way to subtly put it in your routine. I'm not a UCA expert though, so you'll probably want advice from the east coast coaches over me.
 
You have to know what your scoresheet looks like and what your judges are looking for. If the judges are telling you they want to see a collegiate/UCA look, if you give that to them, you are going to score higher than those that don't.

And on a UCA scoresheet, the cheer section has 15 points for Crowd Leading PLUS an additional 5 points on using proper skills to lead a crowd. If your cheer does that better than a "story" cheer than you are going to score better ON THIS SCORESHEET.

But if you stick to competitions where the judges aren't looking for that clean look and favor the all star look or use a different scoresheet that doesn't favor crowd leading, you aren't going to score as well.
 
I got curious and googled NY's state scoresheet. It looks surprising similar to PIAA's scoresheet, which is what Pa uses for our state comp. Our state competition is supposed to equally score UCA style versus other styles.. I haven't really sat down to compare whether I really think it manages to do this or not. We aren't good enough that I'm trying to win a state title, so we just take our UCA routine and compete it and usually make it out of preliminaries at state, so win.

Ultimately, as a coach I prefer UCA style because I feel that best represents what we do as HS cheerleaders. Most of our time is in front of a sports crowd trying to lead them and a UCA style tends to lend itself to that better. So I follow that with UCA comps, and only stray from competitions without a UCA scoresheet for our district and state competitions.

I also feel I'm better preparing my kids for college cheering.

Ultimately you need to look at what you're trying to do with your team and make the decision from there.
 
We are NYS
It is UCA style because UCA High School Nationals is the big comp most of the schools go to (especially now that there are very few other OOS comps that have been sanctioned since cheer became a sport). The schools also have to attend or have an on-site UCA camp in order to be eligible for a bid comp. To subscribe to any other style in NYS doesn't do your team any favors if you are trying to be competitive. Are you upstate or down?
 
It is UCA style because UCA High School Nationals is the big comp most of the schools go to (especially now that there are very few other OOS comps that have been sanctioned since cheer became a sport). The schools also have to attend or have an on-site UCA camp in order to be eligible for a bid comp. To subscribe to any other style in NYS doesn't do your team any favors if you are trying to be competitive. Are you upstate or down?
We are upstate.
 
We are upstate.

Yeah upstate tends to have more of an all star style to it (as someone who cheered HS downstate.) I feel like it might shift as more teams from upstate seem to be going to NHSCC and such. I have seen teams have routines for both but it appears that a bit of an NCA cheer with just a short use of signs midway seems to do the trick.
 
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