Shining beneath the bright lights and the pulsing music, there they are – a blur of bows, blue and boundless energy. Each jump snaps with precision, each stunt performed with practiced trust and at the center of it all stands their coach: shaping the chaos into skill, sharpness and something that can’t be ignored. They aren’t just pretty faces and sparkly costumes, they are athletes: cheerleaders. 

Pressure, humility and balance – that’s the life of junior Abigail Bowlin. Slipping into navy blue isn’t just a part of her routine, it’s a reminder of the responsibility she’s carried for nearly a decade. For the past nine years, Bowlin has treated that responsibility not as a burden, but as an opportunity – one that has shaped her, challenged her and fueled her passion for cheer. 

“I’ve been doing competitive cheer ever since I was 8 years old,” Bowlin said. “In my first three years I cheered for Apex Cheer, then in sixth grade I moved to All Star Revolution, and then this year I moved to Woodlands Elite.” 

Bowlin is also the social captain of the Clements cheer team. The Clements Varsity cheer team recently competed in the State University Interscholastic League (UIL) Competition, where they placed 10th in the state – the highest ever in the history of Clements. 

“It was a great feeling being a part of that because our team has worked so hard,” Bowlin said. “It just feels like you’ve put all that work in to achieve something that hasn’t been done before.”

Bowlin is a part of both the varsity cheer team, as well as, outside of school, the G6 team for Woodlands Elite located in Katy, TX. But it is no easy feat managing the hectic life of homework, practice and friends. 

“I keep everything separate,” Bowlin said. “I don’t think about school cheer or competitive cheer when I do academics. I just keep everything separate and I don’t rush anything because that would just get my mind all scrambled.” 

Cheer is often overlooked as a sport, with many people not realizing how much athleticism and commitment it takes to succeed. 

“People just think you just do it to look cute and put on makeup, but you’re there to win something and it’s just as competitive as any other sport,” Bowlin said.

Bowlin said she has struggled with “feeling worthy” enough to be on a high level team, a doubt that has followed her through much of her cheer journey. Yet even in the moments when her confidence waivered, she pushed through the uncertainty, choosing instead to anchor herself in her purpose – the why that keeps her showing up. 

“I cheer because it really just gets my mind off of everything that’s going on in my life,” Bowlin said. “It’s such a privilege doing something that is overlooked. Knowing that you have a passion for it and others don’t see it just makes you want to work 10 times harder to show what cheer is about and why you love it.” 

Bowlin’s mom has been a constant advocate for her and her sport. Attending all of her cheer competitions for both her school and competitive team, Bowlin’s mom has been a constant in the stands. 

“My mom is a big help in everything,” Bowlin said. “She’s shaped me to become who I am. My mom has been through a lot, and she has shown me that you can push through anything, even through difficult times. Even when things get hard, there is always going to be a bright outcome.”

Bowlin aims to pursue a degree in nursing or child development at Texas Christian University. There, she plans to cheer for their school team, to take everything she has learned over the past nine years and apply it to her future. 

“I have learned that pressure is genuinely a privilege,” Bowlin said. “Pressure makes you who you are, and it’s such a privilege to have coaches who care. Don’t doubt yourself, because having doubt in yourself just makes you worried and doesn’t do good for you. Be confident in yourself, because you are so much more than you think.”

The moment she was convinced by her former coworkers to make a life-changing decision was the day her career changed. At first the idea of being a cheer coach seemed skeptical, but it turns out that the choice made was one she fell in love with. 

To many of Chemistry teacher Katherine White’s former coworkers, she was the perfect fit for an opening cheerleading coach position. Despite having no experience with coaching nor cheerleading, White decided to take on the job and didn’t come to regret it. 

“When I was graduating college and looking for teaching jobs I had several teachers at Clements who were like, ‘Oh my gosh you have to come back’ and then one of them in particular was a cheer mom and there was an opening in cheer and she was like, ‘Katie would be perfect for it,’” White said.

White got her chemistry degree from Texas A&M, so she knew what it took to become a chemistry teacher first coming to Clements. However, cheerleading was like entering a “new world” where nothing seemed familiar. To meet the requirements to become a well-fitting coach, White entered multiple programs to gain first-hand experience on what it takes to start a coaching job.

“I love chemistry but it’s not like your English or social studies class where you get to have in-depth conversations and you get to know the kids really well,” White said. “So I have to work a lot harder to get to know my kids in class, but in cheer I get to see them in a totally different way. That’s why I keep [coaching] because it’s a lot of work but it is so much fun to get to know kids and to have the same kids for four years and see them grow.” 

As White’s experience and tactics have evolved with her coaching style, she has learned many ways to get the girls in the team prepared to perform routines for competitions, sports games and pep rallies. Over the years, White has had a variety of cheerleaders: some have done All-Star cheerleading their entire lives, while others only did middle school cheerleading or haven’t touched the sport before, so she specially curates the daily practices. The practices include bodyweight warmup workouts, going to the weight room once a week and continuously practicing the different components of their routines. 

“We really try to break [the routine] down and make sure that they know it and make sure that they’re executing the same,” White said. “A lot of increasing your score in cheerleading is not just doing it but doing it well, and making sure that everybody looks the same and their motions are hitting in the same way from the same place and things like that. The other thing that I found that helped us set up for success is the more I can get [the cheerleaders] to perform for people the better they do later in the season.”

As for UIL season preparation, White has the cheerleaders start with choreography, at the latest, by September with competitions starting the first week of November and going—with at least one competition a month—until Nationals in February. In the meantime, White incorporates the feedback received from judges during practices so the team can enhance their performances. Since at the second competition of the year there were two cheerleaders injured, there were adjustments that needed to be made to the routine.

“The girls have fantastic attitudes, so to overcome [injuries] we push through,” White said. “I have wonderful kids in the program and they’re willing to work hard and be successful. We’re very fortunate to have freshmen who really rise to the challenge and care about being on the team.” 

Being a cheerleading coach for 11 years has made White realize many of the misconceptions about a cheerleader’s character, including not being an “official” athlete and being a “mean girl.”

“Cheerleaders stereotypically have a bad reputation for being ‘the mean girls’ at school but I think any athlete would tell you that there’s no space for that,” White said. “There is a misconception of how cheerleaders just want to look cute on the sideline and have fun, don’t get me wrong we love that part of cheerleading, but we spend the majority of our time working really hard on competition material and on skills trying to improve ourselves.”

White’s favorite part of coaching is getting to know her students beyond academics and athletics, knowing more about their personality. She has coached many students who started with little to no experience with the sport who ended up gaining a lot of talent and expertise. 

“My favorite part of coaching is to see the kids who started with nothing and by the end of the year they’re a fantastic cheerleader,” White said. “They surprise me all the time we’ll take a kid into the program and we’ll be like, ‘We’re going to have to work really hard’ and we do have to work really hard. It’s so awesome to see how hard the cheerleaders have worked and to see how much they cared to improve because as much as we can push them they have to make a decision to improve. We talk about how it’s selfish to do something halfway and not taking the easy way is the selfless option because this is a team sport not an individual sport.”

After finding out that they placed 10th in state, White ensured that the team prepares for nationals taking place in Florida by utilizing the feedback given from the judges. If a team isn’t in the top 10 during UIL the team name isn’t called, so when she heard the school name being announced, it was a surreal experience, knowing the hard work the team put in had paid off. 

“We have been tweaking [our performance] trying to increase our score just to set us up for better success,” White said. “I’m very hopeful about it all but I think every opportunity on the mat is an opportunity for feedback. I also made the mistake of promising the cheerleaders that I would get a spray tan if we were in the top 10 this year so they all turned around and were like, ‘You’re getting a spray tan.’”

The happiness White gets from coaching cheerleading and having the opportunity to connect with and see the athletes grow over their four years together pushes her to continue being a coach. Although White was hesitant about coaching cheer at the beginning, she ended up growing a passion to help young girls enhance their skills in life and in the sport. 

“There is no success for one person who is fantastic so we all have to challenge and push each other,” White said. “I really hope that they learn how to challenge and push themselves harder as well as have high expectations of themselves to be able to let and take that into their lives.”

As the bittersweet moment passes by, she sees the crowd cheering beneath the beaming lights. Being the spotlight one last time before the chapter closes, beautiful memories she made with her teammates flash before her eyes as she performed one last routine.

Every day before cheerleading practice, senior varsity co-captain Sophia Hernandez puts on her “cheer mindset,” ready to do what she loves: tumble and engage with her team.

“I feel like [cheerleading] makes me a happier, more optimistic person,” Hernandez said. “I also get to engage with more people and it’s really fun.”

Hernandez started off her cheerleading journey in gymnastics—starting when she was six up until 8th grade—then starting cheerleading at the middle school she went to. Through the ups and downs, Hernandez learned to apply the skills she was taught, moving past the occasional hesitance to execute a cheer stunt that still happens from time-to-time. 

“[Cheerleading] is mentally draining because you [not only] have to learn so much but know how to apply it,” Hernandez said. “When you’re on the mat, you have to fake it ‘til you make it because even if someone [falls] on the floor, you can’t just stop and stare at them to get back up. You have to make sure you take [everything] step by step, [a] mindset that it’s all going to be OK.”

For the team’s UIL competition in Fort Worth, Texas, Hernandez ensured that she mentally checked in with herself and had a positive mindset so she could perform well, considering the length of the competition. When Hernandez felt slightly burnt out, her choreographer came to lift the team up by boosting their energy levels with positive affirmations. 

“That helped us to ultimately do the best because we knew how to perform, which made it great,” Hernandez said. “It’s also the positive atmosphere and positive outlook on things that change everything as a whole.”

At 6:30 a.m.,Hernandez woke up  to eat a nutritional breakfast consisting of eggs and a bagel and to buy a matcha latte from Starbucks. From there, practice—to review the different components of the cheerleading routine—started outside in the cool air. Afterwards, the team packed into the bus to travel to the convention center, performing another mock-competition before starting the actual competition well-prepared. After hearing the final results—happier than ever—the team went to the awards ceremony to continue celebrating, breaking the school record and getting 10th in state.

“We jumped from where we were all sitting down and stood up, jumping up and down,” Hernandez said. “We were so happy because we’ve never hit such a big peak in UIL [since] UIL is usually 19th [or] 20th. [Hearing] our names getting called out loud was such an awesome feeling because we’ve never had that happen. Some coaches were like, ‘You girls are so happy and thankful.’ We didn’t just look like it, we felt it. We’re a thankful team and proud of what we’ve done.”

Being a memorable moment for Sophia, it was even more special having her best friend on the team, making memories to cherish throughout the competition and feeling all of the hard work put in pay off together. 

“That three-minute routine on the mat that day, it’s a great memory too because this is my last season,” Hernandez said. “Just looking up on my mat and [thinking], Wow, this is my last time. Feeling the spotlight and seeing everyone in the crowd felt so heartwarming, like I have finally done it.”

The state competition helped prepare the team for nationals, which took place Feb. 6. Many of the freshmen didn’t have experience with UIL up until the state competition. 

“I think it’s great for newcomers who haven’t experienced that, or if they’ve never competed before,” Hernandez said. “It’s great for them to experience and they can feel the highs of doing well. Even if [complications were to] happen, they know how to recover.”

Throughout the four years of being a cheerleader, Hernandez has made many core memories performing in pep rallies, being the shining star seeing the cheering crowd beyond the lights. Her core memories even consisted of obstacles faced because those situations shaped how determined she is to accomplish a task and learning how to progress at a faster rate. 

“Keep going no matter how hard it gets because it will get really hard,” Hernandez said. “Don’t pressure yourself too much, and take it piece by piece, making sure you have a whole heart.”

From coaching the future generation to performing herself, junior Lauren Grant is always up for a challenge. For the past three years Grant has been on the Clements cheer team, taking tumbling, stunt and jump classes almost every day of the week while putting hours of hard work into the gym. 

It all paid off during the cheer UIL competition, where Clements placed 10th. 

“I practiced a lot with my team,” Grant said. “I often took home some of the props that I can practice at home in front of a mirror and I got a lot of reps.” 

Getting top 10 at UIL wasn’t just smooth sailing though. “It was tiring,” Grant said, “especially having to compete back to back, with only an hour of preparation.”

“We had to apply all the corrections that we were given from prelims,” Grant said. “The way we got through that was just working hard with the time that we were given and having a mindset of: I’m not tired, mind over matter, and working so that we could get a high place.” 

Cheer isn’t just looking pretty and presentable, it’s about being able to adapt to changes quickly and flawlessly.

 “One thing people don’t know about cheer is it’s basically a bunch of sports combined into one,” Grant said “It’s gymnastics, dance and acrobatics. And then a misconception is we don’t just dance, we’re not just going out there and just shaking our poms, like we’re actually doing hard skills and it takes a lot of endurance.”

Although the competition was stressful, Grant and the rest of her team made some unforgettable memories. 

“[I enjoyed] being in the hotel with my friends, laughing before going to bed, watching TV and us going to dinner and stuff as a team,” Grant said. 

Between school cheering, coaching and extra classes, Grant has had to learn how to balance work. 

“I have good time management, and when I’m at school I try to get all my work done so that after school I can just focus on cheer and not have to worry as much about my homework or studying for exams,” Grant said. 

Grant said that cheer has shaped who she is today. It has given her a lot of discipline. One piece of advice she would give to other cheerleaders starting their journey is to start looking at colleges and planning for their future.

“Cheer has shaped who I am today and what I want for my future,” Grant said.

With so many great memories like winning jump queen at United Cheerleading Association, or Friday Night Lights at football games, Grant hopes to continue her cheer and academic journey at Texas Tech University. 

“I always tell myself there’s nothing to it but to do it,” Grant said.