College College Club Cheer Squads

[kaylaxlaylaa]

I was wondering if anyone on here knew some more about colleges that have club cheerleading squads? Me and my friend are looking into starting one at our college, Appalachian State here in North Carolina, but wanted to find more information out first about other college club squads.

 

[Kentucky Girl]

Well, the University of Kentucky doesn't have a club cheerleading squad, but I know schools like Louisville, NC State, Virginia Tech, and Maryland have club cheerleading squads. They can't compete at the UCA College Nationals but they can compete at the NCA Nationals.

 

[kaylaxlaylaa]

Thank you, ill def look into those schools and see if I can talk to the program leaders at those schools. NC State actually isnt far from where my friend Chelsea who wants to start this with me lives maybe she could go interview who ever is in charge there to help us start ours.

 

[ztaprincess]

Well, the University of Kentucky doesn't have a club cheerleading squad, but I know schools like Louisville, NC State, Virginia Tech, and Maryland have club cheerleading squads. They can't compete at the UCA College Nationals but they can compete at the NCA Nationals.

I'm not sure that Louisville considers their team a club team like NC State does their one all girl team. They still get from my understand some funding from the University like bags and warmups and are recognized more so by their university more so then most club teams are. Usually club teams get no funding at all from their university unless they are using the term "club teams" for something else now.

I believe SFA Small Coed is a club team and gets nothing from the University other then the right to compete at NCA. They pay for everything out of pocket whereas the Large Coed team gets things from the University. Does anything know if OSU Small coed is considered a club team?

 

[Kentucky Girl]

I don't think Oklahoma State's Small Coed is a club team. I believe they cheer for women's basketball as well as home football games.

 

[GDaddyLS]

Well, the University of Kentucky doesn't have a club cheerleading squad, but I know schools like Louisville, NC State, Virginia Tech, and Maryland have club cheerleading squads. They can't compete at the UCA College Nationals but they can compete at the NCA Nationals.

NONE of the Louisville cheer teams are "club" teams just to clarify... ALL 3 teams cheer and the dance team cheer for football, All girl cheers for Womens basketball, Coed & dance cheers for Mens Basketball, and small coed is mixed between the both cheer squads for cheering mens and womens basketball. Also between the 3 cheer teams and the dance team we split the volleyball games and on occasion we're asked to cheer other sports like Soccer and baseball...

 

[Ashley]

I'm not sure that Louisville considers their team a club team like NC State does their one all girl team. They still get from my understand some funding from the University like bags and warmups and are recognized more so by their university more so then most club teams are. Usually club teams get no funding at all from their university unless they are using the term "club teams" for something else now.

I believe SFA Small Coed is a club team and gets nothing from the University other then the right to compete at NCA. They pay for everything out of pocket whereas the Large Coed team gets things from the University. Does anything know if OSU Small coed is considered a club team?

At my college, part of the fees each semester were "Student Activities" fees, and were given to the Student Government group to distribute to the student groups, including club sports. We actually considered trying to move cheerleading to a club sport (we akwardly fell under marketing, but got no financial support for our competitions) but we ended up deciding that the student money we could have gotten wouldn't have been enough to cover our coach and other things we got for free, like sneakers, etc. Anyway, kind of rambling, club sports can get some money from the university, just not nearly as much.

 

[cheerforeverever]

University of Florida, NC State All Girl Intermediate, Texas A&M, University of Georgia and UNC are off the top of my head. Most go to NCA Nationals and they got a lot of us to try STUNT this season. I go to Texas A&M and this was our 2nd year as a club team (we don't have game day cheer at all, so we're it!). It's definately got some disadvantages when competing against teams that the university funds, but with hard work we've made a lot of progress from when our program started. Pretty much the only thing we are given is random practice space at the university and some funding for gas to drive to Daytona.....yes we drive 16 hours.....you make do with what you can get.

 

[kaylaxlaylaa]

University of Florida, NC State All Girl Intermediate, Texas A&M, University of Georgia and UNC are off the top of my head. Most go to NCA Nationals and they got a lot of us to try STUNT this season. I go to Texas A&M and this was our 2nd year as a club team (we don't have game day cheer at all, so we're it!). It's definately got some disadvantages when competing against teams that the university funds, but with hard work we've made a lot of progress from when our program started. Pretty much the only thing we are given is random practice space at the university and some funding for gas to drive to Daytona.....yes we drive 16 hours.....you make do with what you can get.

thats great to hear from someone that is on a club team, my question for you was how did you go about starting it? me and my friend are looking into setting up a meeting with the club sports director sometime soon, any advice?

 

[cheerforeverever]

thats great to hear from someone that is on a club team, my question for you was how did you go about starting it? me and my friend are looking into setting up a meeting with the club sports director sometime soon, any advice?

It was a lot of hard work...... our school is big on tradition, and unfortunately we had a tradition of not having cheerleaders....... needless to say people were not pleased the first time the idea of competitive cheer was brought up here on campus. In fact if you google texas a&m cheer 2001 you will probably find the lovely things local newspapers wrote about the idea, as most people, especially alumni, did not understand the difference between game day and competitive cheer. Some of them were pretty nasty and mean. We actually had to start out as a non-affiliated student group back in 2001 and the girls weren't allowed to have anything related to Texas A&M on the uniform or program logo. The girls didn't give up though and created "Ag Elite" which competed at the All-Star level 6 division for several years. It took a lot of negotiating and proving to the administration that we just wanted to compete, nothing more or less, and they finally agreed to give us a spot as a club sport on campus in 2009 for which we are very thankful.

As far as advice, I would say be respectful of the director of club sports and anyone else you encounter, even if they don't necessarily see cheerleading the same way you do. If you give respect and dedication, genuinely listening to what they have to say, you can take that info and work hard to make something happen. Also, don't give up! It takes a long time to build a program but everyone has to start somewhere! It's worth all the hard work!

I'll write more when i get back from class and think of things Good luck!

 

[hiyoe6]

Club teams are extremely hard to get started and to maintain. Usually club team have President's (actual students and cheerleaders that are elected to the role by the cheerleaders on the team) instead of coaches. I don't know of many coaches who are paid for being a coach of the club. If they do have a coach its usually a volunteer thing. And clubs don't get as much money as you think. Sure they might get some incentives like competition money, but they don't get like shoes or uniforms, or coaches or regular practice space. Club cheer sounds great when you think its everything the sidelines team gets except no cheering at games and paid competitions but its usually not like that at all. I think the worst and mose difficult part is that its students leading students. And we all know cheerleaders can be dramatic and so the concept of your peer as your "president" doesn't work that great in cheer.

 

[GDaddyLS]

Well, the University of Kentucky doesn't have a club cheerleading squad, but I know schools like Louisville, NC State, Virginia Tech, and Maryland have club cheerleading squads. They can't compete at the UCA College Nationals but they can compete at the NCA Nationals.

Also one other quick note... I do know NCA allows club teams to compete and UCA does not but regardless if you compete at one you do not compete at the other. Its a rule both event producers have, its not solely based on if you're a club team or not... The only competition that is allowed between both NCA and UCA is partner or group stunts...

 

[cheerforeverever]

As far as the students leading students thing, not all are like that. Granted that is how our program started out and how many still are, but some do have adult coaches. They don't get paid to do the position however. I believe that some schools are fortunate enough to have the game day coaches assist with club programs, but not all are like that. This year we actually have a former high school coach who runs her own business now in our area volunteer as our coach and we love her.

For the finances portion, as stated above we don't get anything really paid for us aside from gas money. We fundraise a lot and most comes out of our own pocket, which is why we try to minimize costs for everything. Instead of $10 hair bows, we do $1 ribbons. We pay for our own uniforms, which we keep, and the style of uniform is planned to stay for a long time. Shoes are up to the girl to buy if she needs them, as long as they are plain white cheer shoes. We don't have practice clothes aside from 3 t-shirts that are bought throughout the semester ($10-$15 each). Warm ups are totally optional, bags are optional, etc. though most people buy them.

Just something to think about would be to have a set plan for what the costs would be (the less the better for administration and the more likely they'll consider your idea), and a plan for how you would get people on the team, who would coach/run the team, where you would compete, etc. Also, does your university already have a traditional cheer team? You don't want to step on any toes there if they do, so make sure the competition team would be something different than what is already offered for the school (whether that be an intermediate team, STUNT team, team that competes vs game day)

 

[Kentucky Girl]

Definitely. Only cheerleading squads recognized by the college as the official cheerleading squad (squads that support their colleges' athletic events as opposed to squads who exist solely to compete.

 

[kaylaxlaylaa]

As far as the students leading students thing, not all are like that. Granted that is how our program started out and how many still are, but some do have adult coaches. They don't get paid to do the position however. I believe that some schools are fortunate enough to have the game day coaches assist with club programs, but not all are like that. This year we actually have a former high school coach who runs her own business now in our area volunteer as our coach and we love her.

For the finances portion, as stated above we don't get anything really paid for us aside from gas money. We fundraise a lot and most comes out of our own pocket, which is why we try to minimize costs for everything. Instead of $10 hair bows, we do $1 ribbons. We pay for our own uniforms, which we keep, and the style of uniform is planned to stay for a long time. Shoes are up to the girl to buy if she needs them, as long as they are plain white cheer shoes. We don't have practice clothes aside from 3 t-shirts that are bought throughout the semester ($10-$15 each). Warm ups are totally optional, bags are optional, etc. though most people buy them.

Just something to think about would be to have a set plan for what the costs would be (the less the better for administration and the more likely they'll consider your idea), and a plan for how you would get people on the team, who would coach/run the team, where you would compete, etc. Also, does your university already have a traditional cheer team? You don't want to step on any toes there if they do, so make sure the competition team would be something different than what is already offered for the school (whether that be an intermediate team, STUNT team, team that competes vs game day)

thank you for all this information, it really is helpful for us. We do have a a cheerleading program already sponsored through athletics, for game day appearances but they have made it clear that they will not compete this year, and dont plan to compete in the coming years. So that is one reason we want to start the club team to offer a place for girls to cheer that are more about competition then they are about game day.