Ooltewah Youth Cheerleading

"Advanced Squad"

Coach: Heidi McKissick

Parents & Cheerleaders,

Welcome to Ooltewah Youth Cheerleading! We are looking forward to meeting you all and coaching your daughters to become great cheerleaders. This year we added an advanced squad and all the other squads are junior squads. Amy and I would like to designate our time toward implementing the proper skills and fundementals of cheer by coaching the advanced squad to get all the girls ready for the level that is needed for middle school cheer. This gives older girls a place and purpose in our program and gives the younger girls a goal to work toward. There is a sign up sheet for the advanced squad. All that are interested in the advanced squad will tryout for their spot on the team. Those that are not ready for that level will be placed on a junior squad. Please read below for some important information about this Basketball cheer season advanced squad.

Uniforms

The advanced squad will have a uniform different from the junior squads. The junior squads will wear the same uniform as last year. If you are trying out for the advanced squad but already have a junior squad uniform... we will hold your check or cash until after tryouts. Once making the advanced squad, we will process your check and you can get fitted for the new uniform. Everyone should get fitted for their uniforms before the deadline date. The uniforms should be back in plenty of time before the first game.  Once the order is placed there will be a fee for additional orders past this date and the possibility of their uniform not here before the first game. "We've Got Spirit" will call the parents when the uniforms/packages will be ready for pick up.

Practices

The Advanced squad will practice twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6-7pm in the cafeteria at Ooltewah Elementary School. Tuesdays we will work on learning cheers, motions, and jumps. Thursdays we will work on pyramids, halftime routine, and tumbling. It is very important that you attend both practices weekly. Please ARRIVE ON TIME to practice. Since practices are only an hour, we will not be waiting on you to arrive. We will start on time. Once again, Parents must always accompany your child to her designated location and stay at the practices. We need the parents present for liability reasons.

Behavior

We as coaches are here to teach the girls the fundamentals of cheer. Although we are going to have lots of fun this season, we are also here to learn. We do not consider this hour play time. We take coaching your girls very seriously. With that said, we expect certain behavior from our cheerleaders. There will be no running around, goofing off, or disrespect tolerated. We expect the girls to come in ready to LEARN to cheer. If needing correction, the advanced squad will do conditioning as a team. We want to make the most of their time with us and help the girls grow and develop into great cheerleaders.

Attendance

It is totally understandable if you need to miss practice from time to time. We understand things come up and children get sick. If you miss 2 or more back to back practices then your daughter will not be able to cheer at the following game until she comes back to practice. Practice is very important and we are learning lots at each practice and learning to work together as a team. In order to build pyramids and put together a half time routine we must have all girls present as much as possible. We appreciate your efforts in the commitment we are expecting out of our cheerleaders on our advanced squad.

Games

Games will start the beginning of January. Games will be played at Redemption Point Church and East Hamilton School on Saturdays. The games last 1 hour. We will have a game schedule for you before the first game. Please arrive 15 minutes early to every game. In this time, the girls will stretch and get ready to start when the game starts. Parents must always accompany your child to her designated location and stay at the games. We need the parents present for liability reasons.

Spirit Stick

At each game the girls will have the opportunity to earn the spirit stick. The spirit stick is a way to encourage the girls to try their very best and give it their all at every game. The girl that grabs our attention and we feel stands out with the most spirit will earn the spirit stick at that game. She will keep the spirit stick until the follow game where someone else will have the opportunity to earn it. But guess what, not everyone will get the spirit stick. We would like to recongnize those that are truly trying their best at each game. This is also a great way to teach the girls to give it their all at EVERY game and not stop trying once they have earned the spirit stick. This will motivate the girls to stay focused, continue to try their best and improve at each game knowing they can earn the spirit stick as many times as they deserve it. This will also teach the girls to have sportsmanship and be happy for their teammate as they would want their team to be happy for them once they earned the spirit stick. We want to encourage the girls to be the best they can be at all times.

Fundraising

We will do fundraising. Most of the registration fees go straight to insurance. We are not given any money by OYA to contribute to an end of season party. We feel the parents or coaches shouldn't have to pay for this. There is so much we can do with fundraising. We would like to honor our cheerleaders for all their hardwork by providing them with an end of season party from the money we raise with fundraising. We feel it is very important to have everyone contribute in some way. The Advanced squad is required to do mandatory fundraising.  This football cheerleading season we fundraised by selling Breast Cancer Awareness cheer bows, Cheer Mom/Cheer Dad OYA T-shirts, & had four spirit days with Pizza Hut which Pizza Hut gave us back 20% of all sells for people with OYA Cheerleading. We raised over $600 dollars. That's amazing. Fundraising options this season are but are not limited to: Collecting donations at Walmart/Sam's Club, selling candy bars, selling donuts, selling Chick-fil-a calendars, OYA spirit wear etc. If you have any fundraising ideas, please let us know.

We are looking forward to a great cheer season! If you have any questions please call, text or email one of the OYA Cheer Directors.