Last year the WSVC team made history by making states once again, after placing in the top four of regionals the year before. This year, the team placed second in their most recent competition, losing only to Robinson who placed second in the states last year. However, despite their recent successes, there is a clear lack of awareness and support from the student body.

It is unclear whether or not the problem lies in students refusal to come out and support their fellow students, or a lack of awareness that cheer has separate competitions apart from performing at football games.

“I think most of us love doing the football games and getting to interact with the student body,” said senior Meg Burrows. “[But] it would be nice to [have more support from the school at competitions,] and I wish that people didn’t see cheer as just sideline cheer.”

Burrows has been on WSVC since sophomore year and recognizes the fact that a majority of their supporters are parents, even at the state level.

“[Students] don’t come to the competitions, and they only care about the [football] games,” said junior Brandon Tran who is in his second year of varsity. “[We] get some recognition, but not enough.”

Even freshmen such as Nora Hennessy quickly noticed that cheer has significantly less support than most sports. Cheerleading requires just as much, if not more teamwork and trust in each other than many sports. If a part of the routine messes up or fails, then the team as a whole loses points. Each athlete has to be proficient in their role, but most important is consistency.

“Most of the people from WS say cheer is not a sport and think we do cheers at football games when [in reality,] we do a lot more than that,” said Hennessy. “People think we are not a sport because of us cheering and that makes sense, but they don’t know what we really do. We practice every day doing really hard jumps, tumbling, stunts, and more.”

However, this isn’t a problem only at WS. All schools in the Patriot district seem to suffer from a similar problem. The main cause is difficult to pinpoint, but the lack of school support is clearly a problem cheer athletes in the district suffer from.

“In general, most students don’t go to the competitions unless its the home school,” said Tran.

Even though the WS cheer is consistently a top four team in the region and reached new heights by making states last year, they only desire to get the recognition they deserve.

“I don’t think we deserve more support [than other sports],” said Burrows. “But I think we deserve just as much as [other sports].