Leander ISD Cheer Program CPHS: Coach Nadira King
204 W. South Street GHS: Coach Jordan Sturdivant
Leander, Texas 78646 LHS: Coach Alicia Carlisle
(512) 570-0054 RHS: Coach Courtney Hargis
Assistant Athletic Director: VHS: Coach Brianna Roughton
Jonathan Lamb VRHS: Coach Keri Burns
“Leading to a Bright Future”
Each year in LISD hundreds of hopeful cheer candidates rigorously attend a cheer tryout clinic week and a final tryout day in front of nonpartisan judges in hopes of making a team. For many years, this system has been used and accepted not only in Leander but across the state of Texas as the best practice for choosing the placement of cheerleaders on teams. However, as the athletic side of cheerleading has come to the forefront, this system has seemingly become more and more antiquated. We are seeing more districts shift the focus away from hiring outside professionals to give their three minute opinions about each candidate in exchange for hiring quality cheerleading “coaches” who can account for the entirety of an athlete’s abilities over a period of time.
This year, athletic directors and coaches met with a school district in Dallas to discuss the positives and negatives of what they encountered when they moved from an outside judges tryout to one where the coaches conducted, ran and scored their own tryouts. The outcome for this district was overwhelmingly positive. The coaches themselves are the experts in the field of cheer and trusting them to determine what was best for their teams was the most positive take away message from this district. Each of the four schools in this district conducted several community meetings to outline the very specific parameters to be considered for a team. There were standards set in the categories of tumbling, jumps, cheers, chants and stunting. Cheerleading candidates were only allowed to be considered for placement of a team based on a minimum standard. Then a more formal tryout occurred and coaches used a scoring rubric to decide where each athlete was a best fit. This type of tryout is in line with almost every other UIL sport, activity, band, theatre arts and academia program. It is our belief that cheer candidates will have an opportunity to be more successful given the opportunity to prove their abilities throughout the entirety of the tryout process as opposed to placing all the emphasis on just the one three minute performance the tryout day. What our Dallas colleagues found was that more cheerleaders bought in, followed the rules, respected their coaches and had pride for their programs when the tryout was essentially two part; your progress throughout the year and the final tryout in the spring.
With change there is always a degree of fear and uncertainty. Will a negative coaches’ opinion of a cheerleader prohibit the success of the athlete? Will a coach accurately assess the skills needed? These are well intentioned concerns but the view of this district is the promise of well trained and well educated coaches chosen because of their skills and cheer knowledge to make the professional decisions for that team. We as a district will support their continued education just as we would a professional in the classroom and in the extra-curricular activities that Leander has become so well known for.