‘I’m so happy we have it back’: Over a decade later, cheer returns to ORR
The Old Rochester Regional High School’s new cheer team performs their first half-time routine on Sept. 11. Photos by Tanvi Kulkarni
Cheerleaders welcome the football team onto the field before the game.
Freshman Sophia Crippin has been cheering since sixth grade. “I’ve always loved coming to the football games and supporting, and I’ve always loved being a cheerleader,” she said.
The team stands on the sidelines behind the football players.
Libby Achilles cheers with pom poms held high.
Sophomore Nassira Delgado interacts with the crowd. She said she feels different stepping onto the field with her uniform, and it allows her to be more performative. “You can hear the crowd cheering you on. It’s a great experience,” she said.
The Old Rochester Regional High School’s new cheer team performs their first half-time routine on Sept. 11. Photos by Tanvi Kulkarni
Cheerleaders welcome the football team onto the field before the game.
Freshman Sophia Crippin has been cheering since sixth grade. “I’ve always loved coming to the football games and supporting, and I’ve always loved being a cheerleader,” she said.
The team stands on the sidelines behind the football players.
Libby Achilles cheers with pom poms held high.
Sophomore Nassira Delgado interacts with the crowd. She said she feels different stepping onto the field with her uniform, and it allows her to be more performative. “You can hear the crowd cheering you on. It’s a great experience,” she said.
MATTAPOISETT — A group of 17 girls step out onto the football field, hair carefully pulled back with an ORR bow. The crowd is roaring behind them.
For the first time in 13 years, cheerleaders are back on the sidelines at Old Rochester Regional High School.
Coach Jessica Stephens is leading the new team, having already spearheaded the district’s youth cheer program. After coordinating a similar comeback for Pop Warner youth cheer, when she grew the program from inactive to approximately 75 cheerleaders, she is bringing the same energy to the high school.
“I feel an overwhelming amount of support from the community, and that is what we hoped,” Stephens said. “One of my goals for these girls was to be able to walk through the halls proud that they were a cheerleader.”
While some girls have cheer, gymnastics or dance experience, most have never competed. However, Stephens said the team has already exceeded every expectation she had for them. She said the team is already performing at a competitive level, and it plans to compete next year as a bonafide varsity sport.
“They are working their butts off,” she said. “We’re not competing, but I feel like we could have. That is how much my expectations have been exceeded.”
Senior Stephanie Spearin, of Rochester, said it’s amazing how far the team has come in such little time. She, like many others on the team, always wanted to do sideline cheer. After aging out of the Pop Warner youth team, the district’s cheerleaders didn’t have a high school team to join — until now. The team is open to both boys and girls.
“I’m so happy that we have it back,” freshman Sophia Crippin, of Marion, said during the first football game. “We have such a crazy, excited crowd wanting to cheer on the Bulldogs. Being able to be in the front and help get our crowd involved really is great and what I love about doing it.”
The coaches and cheerleaders were proud of their first halftime routine, which they had only been practicing for one month. Stephens makes the routine a little harder each week, building in new goals and stunts.
Sophomore Nassira Delgado, of Wareham, did dance and gymnastics before joining the cheer team.
“I’m passionate about the sport because I truly do love it with my whole heart,” Delgado said. “Coach Jess is very strong in her beliefs with cheerleading and how good she wants us to do, and I feel it carries through all of us and how good we want to be as well.”
Delgado has been working on a stunt for the halftime routine, which involves doing two types of jumps in the same eight count. The coaches have led warmups and stretches to help the girls jump higher, and Delgado said their method of teaching was easy for a lot of the girls to follow.
While her dance or gymnastics teachers took a tough love approach in the past, Stephens and assistant coach Nicole Reedy emphasize that mistakes are okay.
“I’ve actually been able to take it all in and use it when I practice,” Delgado said. “If something bad happens, if we drop our stunt, if our jumps go bad, they say, ‘You’re fine. You can try again. Mistakes are okay.’”
As the school nurse, Reedy usually handles emotions and injuries. She sees kids at tougher moments during the school day, she said, both physically and emotionally.
“Bridging that and being able to see them outside of the health office, when they’re well, smiling and enjoying themselves, brings me immense joy,” she said.
Reedy was a cheerleader in high school herself and is raising two cheerleading daughters.
She likes to tell the cheer team, “We’re building muscle. We’re building character.”
“Being able to see these girls from different backgrounds…be cohesive and be able to work together and understand each other is rewarding,” she said. “Working with young adolescents, girls in general, can bring a lot to the table personality-wise, but to be able to see them drop it all and be together on a mat is super rewarding.”
