By Patrick Z McGavin- Photos by Lauren Gray
** Additional Photos are Available at— Session One https://justallsports.zenfolio.com/p59347; Session Two https://justallsports.zenfolio.com/p361441758; Session Three https://justallsports.zenfolio.com/p448766858 **
PLAINFIELD— Even before the first toe tap or aerial flight, the sound was everywhere—musical, lilting, propulsive and finally deafening.
No longer operating on the sidelines, the top cheerleaders and dancers from Chicagoland Pop Warner were front and center.
By the time the day ended, the whole atmosphere was blissed out—overjoyed, elated and ready to dance and move on their own.
“I’ve been in the coaching business for more than 10 years now, and everything has gotten bigger—more exciting, intense and competitive,” said Alyssa Gravelle, the vice president of cheer for the Plainfield Saints program.
“I think one of the reasons has gotten so big is that the parents really make an effort to stay for every team, and cheer everybody on, and not just those of their own kids.”
The scene at Plainfield East High School on October 27 was jamboree, a bacchanalie of movement, choreography, dance and timing.
The Chicagoland Tropical Showdown Cheer and Dance Competition featured 90 teams over three sessions, representing 23 different organizations in different programs.
The performers range in age from six to 13-year old girls about to enter high school.
Not a seat was to be had inside the large basketball stadium.
The scene played out like a Busby Berkeley musical—glittering, grand, and marked by flash, daring and highly synchronized dance, tumbling and throwing actions. The thong was wall to wall, the rush of bodies matching what played in the performance space.
The event became its own dance party, fun, riotous and also very competitive, with a range of performers strutting their stuff, sharply matching their moves and actions to the curated music.
The times have definitely changed, and the cheerleaders are no longer ornamental but something deeper, more important and connected to a community.
“Back in the 1980s, when I was in high school, cheerleaders were just thought to be cute,” said Sharniece Hathaway, the cheer coordinator for the Memorial Park Spartans’ program.
“Now they’re tumbling and throwing people into the air.”
Everything has gotten bigger, bolder and more provocative.
The audience was complicit in the emotions and buoyant mood, swaying and moving, and also vigorously clapping and applauding or breaking into their own chants.
Cheerleading has come a long way from chants and jumps. Intricate tumbling passes, soaring tosses and elaborate pyramids demand strength, precision and a flair for showmanship.
As the competition gets tougher, teams keep pushing the limits of their skills and imagination, finding new ways to make difficult routines look effortless.
The sport has its own rituals, language and byplay. The scene inside the Bengals’ gym was, quite frankly, a madhouse, in a good way, joyous and raucous, and ready to blast out in all directions.
The spectators, families and fans lined the opposite sides. It had the size and dimensions of a Broadway show.
Cheerleaders and performers from Plainfield East helped organize the flow, and direct the team to their proper places.
In the parlance of social media, everything is viral and connected. One girl decides to give cheer a try, and the next thing it’s a movement.
“I coach the Junior Pee-Wee Sugar Rush, and when my daughter was this age and part of the team, there were four girls,” Gravelle said “Now I have 30 kids. You just see it as the years go by. Somebody will join, bring a friend, and it just snowballs.”
The next thing you know, the sport is not just a fad; it’s a social or cultural phenomenon.
A battery of judges, about 15 in number, was grouped in an elevated position to rate each team’s performance. The judges look beyond the biggest toss or the flashiest tumbling pass. Difficulty matters, but so do technique, timing and how well the athletes move as a team.
A routine has to hold together, from the opening jump to the final pyramid. Teams compete under rules and scoring guidelines set by the Youth Cheer and Dance Alliance (YCADA).
Judges weigh everything from the originality and pace of a routine to the precision of its tumbling and dance, along with the team’s ability to get a crowd going.
One team quickly followed another, and it was efficiently and ruthlessly organized.
Against that backdrop, the pressure clearly mounted. The girls more than met the moment, and created their own compelling standards.
Lilianna Atwood and Rowan Semple are two leaders of the Saints’ Jr. Varsity Golden Elite.
They relished the challenge, and made everything flow. Each program had just over three minutes of performance time. Think about that—having just 90 to 100 seconds to get everything to go just right, without skipping a beat.
The conditions were clear. It was either sink or swim. Sure there were nerves, but the chance to do something awesome changed the internal dynamic.
“I knew it was a great opportunity to show what we could do,” Semple said. “I was really excited to be a part of it. We had as many good practices that we could get beforehand, and I think we tried our very hardest. We spent a lot of time working on everything properly.”
The girls are young, but many are natural performers.
“I felt really worried at first but when we started hitting our marks, it felt great to see all of my teammates being so happy performing,” Atwood said. “We all get along, and we’re very happy all together. We had to deal with a lot of pressure and practice time just to get to this point.”
The Saints have five programs, and each finished either first or second in their competition division.
The highest achievement is the so-called Grand Champion, or “Best of the Best“
The Saints’ Tiny Mite Glitter Force and the Jr. Varsity Golden Elite was each a grand champion.
The Glitter Force was the Limited Level 1, and the Golden Elite Level 2. The trajectory has been absolutely remarkable to witness.
It begins quietly and then mushrooms into something more expansive, and opens up the possibilities.
“These girls are their own athletes,” Gravelle said.
Two years ago the Golden Elite team had 12 girls. The prize-winning iteration doubled that number to 24.
“They started small, but they’re very close-knit and very hard working, they brought in their efforts and just worked very consistently to get to this level,” Gravelle said.
Each organization has its own narrative that underscores the skill, tenacity and daring of the individual performers.
“After the pandemic, our numbers really fell off and we only had about 25 or 30 cheerleaders in the whole program,” Hathaway said.
“The coaches did a great job of recruiting and getting the word out, and now we have five teams and more than 125 cheerleaders.”
The organization invested deeply in those new members, creating fund raisers to buy the specific mats that mirror the ones used in elite competition.
“In the past we just used fold-out mats, but we wanted to get the girls used to practicing on them,” she said. “We encourage the girls to do tumbling practices. We take them to different events, showcases and things like that, so they have a chance to perform in front of a large crowd.”
Everything came together beautifully for the Spartans’ Junior Pee Wee team that captured the Grand Championship in the hip-hop category.
“I think what really helped us was that we pushed hard, kept going and never stopped,” said Lailynn Banks, a performer on the team. “We did the same routine at our last competition, but we changed it up a bit. We spent probably two weeks working to get it just right.”
The day was filled with drama, hardships and heartbreak. What is clear is that the cheerleaders are not just supporting characters to the boys who play football.
They stand tall in their own right. In doing so, the girls show off their own expressive capabilities, grace and style.
Undoubtedly there is pressure, but the stage is theirs. The moment belonged to them.
Nothing was left to chance.
In perhaps the most fitting end to the long day, the Midwest Jr. Hawks Junior Varsity provided a spellbinding close.
Originally set to be the third to final performers of the final session, their performance was interrupted when one of their dancers suffered a frightening knee injury.
About five minutes after the Spartans finished the program, the Jr. Hawks were given a reprieve. The injured girl was brought in a wheelchair, and the rest of the team completed their performance.
“We’ve all been doing this for a while, and everybody has their own reasons,” said Emma Papadutos of the Lockport Jr. Porters Junior Varsity.
“I get so much joy and pleasure out there when I’m doing it. I feel completely myself, and I’m very free and expressive out there. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
Chicagoland Tropical Showdown grand champions
- Limited Level 1: Plainfield Saints Glitter Force
- Level 1: Swarmettes
- Level 2: Plainfield Saints Golden Elite
- Level 3: Midwest Jr. Hawks 10U
- Pom: Cary Jr. Trojans Varsity
- Hip-hop: Memorial Park Spartans Junior Pee Wee
