50 anxious girls stared at the TV at the cheerleading World Championship in Orlando, Florida. The ESPN broadcast was announcing the ten finalist teams that had been chosen after preliminaries. It was the moment they had been waiting for. The room burst into noise as the girls went crazy.

Fierce Five had made it to the finals in the World Championship, and all their hard work had paid off.

Junior Savannah James has been a competitive cheerleader with KC Cheer since she was in 6th grade, and is currently on a level five team. Kansas City cheer has 11 full-year competitive teams and has competed in Worlds annually since 2006, according to their website.

Although many people do not consider cheerleading a ‘real sport,’ both James and freshman Merideth O’Donnell argue that it is. James says that since cheer is not very popular in the midwest, she understands that people will not think twice about it.

“The time commitment and amount of athleticism you need to be able to do it — that’s what makes it a sport,” James said.

O’Donnell clarifies the difference between gymnastics or dance, sports that are commonly associated with cheerleading.

“It’s definitely a team sport because you need the whole team for one practice to work. Just with stunts having two people in them, if you miss one person then that whole stunt group can’t work,” O’Donnell said.

James describes her relationship with her team, Fierce Five.

“It’s like we’re a family and we all try and get together as much as possible and go out to dinners, but it’s definitely more competitive than the team I was on last year. We all just want to win. Team first, friends second,” James said.

For O’Donnell, the time commitment of cheerleading made it hard for her to continue after starting high school.

“I was at practice two to five times a week,” O’Donnell said, “I would be at cheer competitions that were either one or two days and they were about nine hours a day. Every other weekend I was either in town or out of town [for competitions] and it was just too much.”

O’Donnell quit competitive cheerleading last year and now does cross country, a school sport that she is able to balance with her school work.

“I’ve thought about [returning to cheerleading] a lot,” O’Donnell said, “Because it was a huge part of my life for so long, but it totally depends on if I stay with cross country and if school gets easier over time.”

According to O’Donnell, competitive cheerleading does not take school into account when scheduling, unlike school-affiliated sports.

“In their minds, cheer comes first and that’s just how it is,” O’Donnell said.

Senior Gigi Mullins started with cheerleading five years ago with Kansas City Athletic Cheer, after switching from a career in gymnastics. She has managed to balance school, cheerleading and a job.

“I would say I still have time for school,” Mullins said, “But for other things it takes away most of my time. I work at KCAC, so I’m always there– I coach the younger teams.”

She notices a drop in participation after girls begin high school.

“As people get older, they start to quit because it’s taking up too much of their time,” Mullins said.

As a senior, this will likely be Mullins’ last year as a competitive cheerleader. She has been considering participating in college cheerleading, but says she most likely will not, considering her background in competitive cheerleading.

“Since I’ve never done high school cheer, it’s pretty different,” Mullins said.

She will miss cheerleading, having done it for so much of her life.

“It’s going to be weird having free time,” Mullins said.

The competition season is January through May for James, and during this season, she practices 4 days a week, plus competitions on the weekend. This results in a lot of missed school due to traveling.

“Sometimes I miss a lot [of school] during competition season,” James said, “I miss a lot of Fridays and Mondays if I’m traveling on Monday and then sometimes I’ll get home really late.”

Getting ready for competition is no small task. In addition to having to stretch and warm up, hair and makeup takes up just as much time,

“Hair and makeup takes forever- I’d say around two hours,” O’Donnell said, “And then, you meet your team about two hours before you go in to perform and you get ready, you stretch, you get everything warmed up.”

After all of this, the actual performance, which had been in the works all year, lasts two minutes and thirty seconds.

“It’s a lot of getting ready for a short period of time [of performing],”  O’Donnell laughed, “but I love it.”

James and the Fierce Five Team received a full paid bid and are going to Worlds again this year.

“A lot of people think we have a really good shot of winning which would be so exciting because no one from the Midwest has ever won before,” James said, “It would be KC Cheer’s first Worlds win and it would just be so exciting.”