Week 13 - Posting 13

One of the observations that I made about the All-Girl Ball State cheerleaders was at one of the girl's basketball games. The cheerleaders had to arrive at the game approximately an hour before game time and they met in the southeast corner of Worthern Arena. All of the enthusiastic cheerleaders sat on the cold, wooden basketball court, dressed in white uniforms with red and black stripes along the bottom of the skirt and the neck line of their shell tops, patiently stretching before warming up their skills for the upcoming game. When the coach arrived, all of the Ball State cheerleaders, all with their hair pulled back in pony tails tied with matching red bows, got up and went straight to their stunt groups. Each individual stunt group put up all of the various stunts that were needed to be practiced before the start of the game. When they were all finished warming up with the partner stunts, all of the 27 cheerleaders got together and began to warm up the large pyramids that were going to be preformed during the different time outs of the basketball game. The first few attempts at most of the pyramids fell, and the girls were forced to put the pyramid up again. After all of the stunts and pyramids were successfully put up, the talented cheerleaders all went to various spaces on the hard, gym floor, and warmed up the gymnastics that they needed to do during the game. Backhand springs, back tucks, standing backhand spring tucks, round off tucks, and round off backhand spring tucks were the most popular gymnastics tricks that this group of cheerleaders chose to warm up. 

After everything was warmed up, all of the cheerleaders headed straight to the  locker room that they shared with the Code Red dance team, located at the other end of the arena. In the locker room, I was not surprised at all at what I found. There were girls everywhere fighting to get towards the mirror to get their finishing touches before finally heading out for game time. Red lipstick was being passed around from girl to girl as hair spray fumes filled the crowded locker room. Girls everywhere were gossiping about the weekend and about how stressed out they were with classes and homework. As time went on, girls began to leave the locker room and head out into the arena to cheer on the Ball State Cardinals. 

The band was playing music as the girls jumped up and down yelling cheers to get the crowd into the spirit of the game! At tip off, the cheerleaders began to do what they were there for. They began cheering for their team in hopes for a win. All different kinds of chants were yelled form the girls.

At the end of the game, the Ball State cheerleaders ran out in the middle of the court for the final time of the night to lead the crowd in the fight song.