Wisconsin Life

cheering, music

My name is Julie Peterson and I'm one of the co-owners at Fury Athletics of Madison. I started cheerleading when I was in 4th grade with an All-Star program in Iowa, and cheered throughout high school and I've been coaching for 11 seasons now. My name is Sarah Jo Moen. I am a co-owner of Fury Athletics of Madison. I started cheering in high school and then after that took a couple years off and then started coaching and have been coaching ever since. There are very, very few moments in sports that are truly about supporting other people. Sports in general are all about being competitive. And about being better than somebody else. And today wasn't about anything but athleticism and the sport itself. So the showcase that we do for our cheer teams is a way for our athletes to get out on the cheer floor and perform their routines in front of friends and family and have the support to be better prepared when they actually do start competing.

applause

I always tell my athletes, there's nobody that understands what you do, and how much you put into this, than another athlete on another team who works just has hard. They're the people who understand you and what you do, so it's fun to be here in a supportive environment showing that off. There are a lot of different varieties within cheerleading. So you've got sideline cheerleading like you see at a lot of your rec programs in high schools. Competitive All-Star Cheerleading which is what we do. And then you've even got like a NFL cheerleader who's really like a dance team type person. So I think a big part of why this sport isn't considered a sport is because there's not exactly a consistent understanding of what we do. I coach because I love the sport but I also love seeing the joy the sport brings to other people. And I know what this sport means to me so I can see the benefit and the value of how it could enrich their lives. The hardest thing for a coach is when your athletes take the floor. You're at a point where you've just hoped that you have trained them well enough. It's the only time that you don't have control. When you're in the gym you can turn the music off. You can stop them. You can do another skill or another drill to work on it. But once you are on the floor and the music plays, that's that. It's hard to sometimes let go and trust that you've done enough. It's a great moment. It's also a nerve-racking moment but it is one of the best moments of coaching.

cheering, applause