Sports

UAA cheerleaders put new emphasis on athletics

It's 20 minutes before tipoff, and the team has just finished its pregame warm-ups. They've spent the past hour going over the coach's new game plan, a carefully scripted series of precise and dangerous maneuvers designed for maximum effectiveness. The 20-member squad files out of the auxiliary gymnasium and toward the main floor at the Alaska Airlines Center, most with duffel bags or backpacks slung casually over shapely shoulders. As he walks toward the playing surface, the last in line is approached by a square-jawed man in his 70s with the upright bearing of a gentleman who still knows his way around the gym.

"I really enjoy you guys," says the sturdy septuagenarian, taking the young man's hand tightly in his own for a respectful pump.

After the athlete walks away, the gray-haired man explains his admiration.

"What they do takes a lot of strength," says Anchorage's Jim Hurd, who says he's a competitive cross-country skier and World Masters Games medalist in rowing. "I enjoy watching good athletes."

Whole new game

Longtime fans of the UAA men's and women's basketball teams have noticed something different at Seawolves games this season. Along with the teams' move into the new $109 million arena has come a renewed emphasis on entertainment. During every pause in the action, the public address announcer, technical crew and cheerleaders work together to rouse the crowd into a frenzy with high-energy music, fan interaction and dance routines. For fans like Jim and Karen Hurd, who have been attending Seawolves games regularly for more than a decade, the changes have been welcome.

"It's light years different," Mrs. Hurd said as she and her husband settled into their seats before a game between the UAA women and Texas A&M Kingsville.

At the center of it all is a senior master sergeant in the Alaska Air National Guard who has built a reputation around her ability to whip cheer teams into shape.

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"I don't know if it's the mother or chief in me that comes out," said Joyce Davis, the no-nonsense coach who took over UAA cheerleading's top job this year after 10-plus years of leading the award-winning competitive cheer team at Chugiak High.

At Chugiak, Davis made a name for herself by recruiting star athletes from the school's football and wrestling teams to help build athletic, entertaining squads. She said she thought she could bring the same philosophy to UAA when she was approached about the job by the school's athletics department over the summer.

"That's what I do, I build athletic programs," Davis said after the Kingsville game.

UAA senior associate athletic director Tim McDiffitt said the university recently decided to bring the cheerleading program into the athletic department rather than recreational sports. He said athletic director Keith Hackett wanted the cheer team to feel like it was an integral part of the athletic community.

"He decided he would like something to really put some emphasis on fan experience and move the reporting line into athletics," McDiffitt explained.

McDiffitt said the team's previous coach was leaving to focus on her family, so Hackett dialed up Davis and offered her the job.

"It was good timing for her and for us," McDiffitt said.

Pregame preparations

There's five minutes left on the warm-up clock, and cheerleaders are lounging in the bleachers behind the home basket. While the UAA women run through layups, the cheerleaders drink coffee and stretch. They look relaxed, focused. At a table set up beneath the stands, two members of the team roll gray UAA T-shirts into tightly-wound bundles wrapped in rubber bands. One explains the T-shirts will be thrown into the stands whenever UAA makes a 3-pointer. The undefeated Seawolves are one of the nation's highest-scoring teams, so they make a lot of 3s.

"We just chuck 'em," says Ryan Wyckoff. "Whoever's the craziest fan, we give it to them."

New recruits

Most of this year's cheerleaders (there are eight men and 12 women) are new to the team. Davis recruited many literally in the hallways and corridors on campus. Some are former Chugiak cheerleaders she talked back into the sport, others are newcomers with backgrounds in tumbling, dance or other sports.

"We started with about five or six people in August," Davis said. "Hannah wanted to do it, and then I talked to Kimberly at a wedding and she came along and brought her friend, and then her friend brought two guys … the next thing you know we've got 20 people."

Davis held tryouts and brought in athletes any way she could. She said anyone was welcome to try out for the team, not just people with cheer experience. Some had never cheered before but were well known hip-hop dancers or former athletes who'd played other team sports.

Team captain Hannah Toohey cheered for Davis at Chugiak. She's one of the team's most visible members, tasked with the dangerous job of standing atop pyramids and performing many demanding tumbling passes throughout games. She said she enjoys the team aspect of the sport and likes the experience of working with others.

"It's dangerous, but you trust the people under you to not drop you," she said.

Kpria Wilkerson also cheered in high school but hadn't given the sport much thought until Davis came calling. She jumped at the chance to get back into the sport so fast she didn't have time to tell her family.

"The last game my mom was like, 'You cheer again?'" Wilkerson said with a laugh. "She didn't even know until she saw me on TV."

Starting lineups

As each of UAA's five starters are announced, a member of the cheer team tumbles across the floor in a series of handsprings, often capped at the end by a full flip. Her blonde ponytail a blur behind her, Toohey flies across the court in a tumbling pass, then leaps to her feet, smiling to wave at the crowd. She makes it look easy, but her red face gives away the effort it takes to perform powerful gymnastics moves on a hardwood floor. The intensity in the arena ramps up as music blasts from the public address system. UAA coach Ryan McCarthy screams instructions to his team while Davis gathers the cheerleaders around her for her own last-minute advice. It's game time.

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Mental toughness

Davis and her team rarely have time to practice during weeks when both the UAA men and women are in action. Instead, they arrive a couple hours before the game to go over the night's routine.

"She makes up our routines and we learn them about an hour before," Toohey said. "We meet and we learn it and we go out and do it."

The renewed emphasis on athleticism included a commitment from the athletic department in the form of new tumbling mats for the team.

"Safety was paramount so (Hackett) went out and he bought us a new cheer floor," Davis said. "He wanted an athletic program but he wanted it safe."

Cheerleaders show a lot of skin, and a look at the legs of some of UAA's squad shows just how physical the sport can be. Bruises from hard falls or rough catches dot the legs of the "flyers," while those on the catching end point to black and blue spots on their arms.

Wyckoff was a hockey and soccer player growing up. He was attracted to the physical side of cheer, which requires him to constantly lift teammates into the air and then catch them when they fall to earth.

"It's the hardest sport I've ever played," he said.

Wyckoff wasn't joking. He said the sport demands an incredible amount of focus.

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"It's more mental," he said.

Davis said she'd put her team up against any when it comes to toughness.

"They have bumps and bruises just like gymnastics, just like basketball, just like hockey," she said. "Because they work as hard and they have to be as athletically gifted. They have to have the tumbling of a gymnast, the stamina of a basketball player, the toughness of a hockey player."

T-shirt fever

UAA star guard Jenna Buchanan begins the game with a flourish, knocking down a 3-pointer on the Seawolves' first possession. The cheerleaders spring into action, leaping to their feet to cheer. While Leslie Martinez hangs a large yellow cardboard sign with the number 3 stenciled in green in the first row of seats, Chandler McClain races back and forth in front of the crowd. Smiling ear to ear as she holds a T-shirt aloft, McClain teases the fans into a T-shirt tsunami of cheers, finally tossing the shirt high into the seats to be caught by a kid in the 18th row.

Nobody bigger than the team

Davis said the cheerleaders are proud of their role as ambassadors for the athletic department, but they also like to have fun. She said she loves watching her team go into the stands to dance with fans during timeouts, grabbing little old ladies or schoolkids and enticing them to dance their hearts out to hip-hop music.

"They're starting to get their fans," she said. "They really like interacting with the kids."

Each timeout requires the cheerleaders to either perform a dance routine or interact with the fans. From helping hype the arena's "dance cam" to playing fake electric guitars during a Guns N' Roses song, the team is almost always working.

"They're like mini performances each time," Davis said.

The squad also performs a halftime show at each game, a nonstop three-minute show that's part gymnastics meet, part acrobatics demonstration and part dance routine.

Cheerleader Andrew Christian said he likes how the sport pushes boundaries and forces people out of their comfort zones.

"That's what's fun, learning to do something that looks scary," he said.

Davis emphasizes a team-first concept and makes each team member learn every part of a routine. That's because she wants a flexible squad that's light on its feet.

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"Nobody's bigger than the team, that's our philosophy," she said.

Life lesson

During a media timeout, the cheer team races onto the floor for a quick routine. After a dance and some tumbling passes, they form three pyramids in the middle of the floor, with four girls standing high in the air on one leg waving to the crowd. But something goes wrong with one of the pyramids, and Haley Jensen falls backward. Teammate Amable Rosa catches her, but it's a scary moment. After the team races off the court, Jensen and Rosa join Victoria Shaw and Del Juan Avila under the bleachers to discuss what went wrong. Davis joins them, alternately scolding and instructing the group as they go over the move again and again until they get it right.

"You know, in life, that's a pretty valuable lesson to have, because stuff doesn't always go your way," Davis says.

Mutual support

McDiffitt said the athletic department is "extremely pleased" with the work Davis has done with the cheer team. UAA wanted an up-tempo, athletic team to go with its new arena, and that is exactly what it has gotten.

"She's done a great job, has a great work ethic and has really worked hard at recruiting students to come be a part of our fan experience," he said.

Even players and coaches have started to notice the cheerleaders. After chasing down a loose ball during the Kingsville game, UAA guard Kiki Buchanan spun and threw the ball off an opponent. After coming out of the game, Buchanan walked to the end of the bench, where she and the cheer team shared a laugh.

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"We get a lot of support from the coaches and the players," she said. "And that's not always the case with cheerleading, but we get an enormous amount of support from the athletic community here."

Davis said the respect she's gotten from the athletic community has been gratifying, because it means her athletes are accomplishing their goals.

"Sometimes they don't know what they're capable of," she said. "That's the best part, seeing them achieve what they've been working hard at and then coming out here and showing everybody. It's pretty cool."

Gettin jiggy

It's late in the game and the Seawolves are blowing Texas A&M Kingsville out of the water. During a timeout, Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" blasts over the speakers as the announcer exhorts fans to dance wild enough to get on the big screen. Sidrick Dacquel draws oohs and ahhs by break dancing, walking on his hands and spinning on his back to the delight of the crowd. When the music stops, Dacquel gives a high-five to a gray-haired lady in a pink sweatshirt who has been taping the performance with her smart phone. She beams.

By its very nature, cheerleading is a thankless endeavor. After all, the whole point is to induce enthusiasm for the accomplishments of others. But in much the same way, giving gifts is often more gratifying than receiving them.

Dacquel says cheerleaders are happiest when they're generating the loudest cheers for the basketball team.

"It makes us feel appreciated."

Matt Tunseth

Matt Tunseth is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and former editor of the Alaska Star.

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