Categories: Education

How to Get a College Cheerleading Scholarship

Many guys and girls would like to continue their cheerleading career into college. On top of that a scholarship would be nice, but how does one go about it? Here are some tips on how to find, locate, and get a college cheerleading scholarship.

The very first thing that you need to do is ask your self, “What type of cheerleading team do I want to be apart of?”. Do you want to be on an all-girl team, small coed team, and/or large coed team? If you are a girl and a base, then you would be interested in more of an all-girl team or small coed. If you are a guy then you want to be part of a coed team, and fliers would be interested in all 3.

Once you have determined what type of team, then look for those type of college teams in your area of choice or nearby. Make sure you contact the coach of each team and ask if there are any scholarship opportunities. Also ask for tryout requirements and what you need to do to obtain the scholarship.

Now that you have found your university that you are interested, then you need to work on your skills. Here are a list of tips to help with your cheerleading skills:

Jumps – Make sure you point your toes and keep your legs locked. This is a skill you can practice at home in a mirror so take advantage of it. Also work on your jump and increasing it. This can be done by working plyometrics, by jumping on and off a box. Recommended jumps (depending on the schoo): high toe touch, double toe touch, and/or and a toe touch into a tumbling skill.
Motions – Watch yourself in a mirror when practicing. Work on keeping your arms straight, wrists straight, motion slightly forward, and hit the skill quick, strong, and sharp.
Entusiasm – Just make sure you work on you vocal in your off time. Just make sure you can be heard at tryouts without actually screaming. Hitting the crowd between skills also will help.
Tumbling – Take tumbling lessons. For those tumbling skills that you already have, just make sure they are clean. Recommended tumbling: any kind of full would be highly recommended, but a backtuck or backhandspring backtuck would work for most colleges.
Stunting – If you are a flier, then make sure you are flexible, tight, in shape, and confident. You should be able to hit any skill in the air that is asked from you. For bases make sure you are strong, and are capable of handling any skilled stunts that are asked of you. You want to stand out. Recommended stunts: (Fliers) bow n arrow, chin chin, and scorpions will get you high scores. Also throwing rewinds and full ups will help as well. (Bases) Being able to throw a skilled stunt like a rewind or fullup would get you a high score.
Basket – If thrown, then fliers need to show that they can hold their own weight on the load, that they can ride the basket toss, they are capable of staying tight, and are capable of throwing a skill (a full woule be nice, then layout, on down to a backtuck and toe touch).

Make sure you set your goals high. You never know what kind of talent the other cheerleaders will have. If the coach tells you that you need a backhandspring, then you should aim for something higher and get your backtuck. Always communicate with the coach as this shows devotion to the team, and it shows that you are determined. Coaches like this, and in if you get into a situation that’s close, then a coach might favor you over someone else who doesn’t care as much.

Good luck!