Meet the Terraset Tiger Cheer Coaches

photo courtesy of Isabele Labare

photo courtesy of Isabele Labare

Sophomores Isabele Labare and Valerie McLaughlin have been working with the Terraset Tiger Cheer Team. The Cheer Team performed at halftime on April 12th for the basketball tournament that the elementary schools had at South Lakes. Labare and McLaughlin have been cheering for the South Lakes Cheer team since their freshman year. When they were asked by the teacher who ran the cheer program, they eagerly said yes.

The team is a total of thirty kids, comprised mainly girls (although about four boys participated as well). The practices took place at Terraset Elementary school every Wednesday and during the last two weeks leading up to the performance, they practiced on Monday’s as well. The performance consisted of a cheer, a dance, and a few tumbling tricks from certain students.

“It took them about two practices to learn the entire routine – so they were pretty fast learners, which was a good thing,” said Isabele Labare. Since the team was so big there was a huge diversity of personalities within the group of kids  With a group of that many kids, there were definitely a bunch of personalities with all of the kids who were on the team. “Although we loved every minute of working with the team, one of the biggest challenges for us was getting the kids to pay attention and to focus on the things that we would be teaching them that day,” Labare stated.

When the night of the performance came along, both McLaughlin and Labare were sad to have to leave the cheerleaders, but the cheerleaders were super excited to be able to perform in front of their friends and family. “We really enjoyed the time we worked with them, and we learned how to appreciate working with others. We gained a better understanding of the way people learn and express themselves,” said Labare and McLaughlin.