SAVANNAH, Ga. - Some of the best athletes at Savannah State University are cheerleaders.
 
“If (people) lived a week in a cheerleader's life, they would be exhausted,” said Kellie Fletcher, who is in her fourth year as the Tigers' coach and oversees 30 cheerleaders.
 
SSU's cheerleaders practice their routines four days each week for 2 ½ hours per practice. They have weight training twice a week from 6-7 a.m., and they practice tumbling on Fridays for two hours.
 
And that's all before showing off the finished product by performing at all football, men's basketball and women's basketball home games, as well as select road games.
 
“We basically are having some sort of practice or training or strength conditioning every day of the week just like every other sport,” Fletcher said. “But our season is from August to March.”
 
According to the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches & Administrators, “Cheerleading has evolved over the past 20 years from being an activity where members were selected based on their popularity to one that now claims some of the more talented athletes at school. Today, cheerleading involves skills which require the strength of football, the grace of dance, and the agility of gymnastics, which includes jumps, partner stunts, pyramids and tumbling.”
 
SSU's cheerleaders are divided into two teams, the Orange squad and the Blue. The Orange squad is the more experienced cheerleaders, although freshmen have earned roster spots based on their skill level. The Orange is the traveling squad for football away games. At home football games, both the Orange and Blue cheer. In basketball, the Orange cheers at men's games and the Blue cheers at women's games. The Orange will cheer men's and women's basketball games if SSU needs them at road games. Members of both squads also make appearances at volleyball matches.
 
Cheer competitions
In addition to cheering at games, SSU's cheerleaders have three events in which they will compete this season: Jamfest (Feb. 2 in Nashville), Cheersport (Feb. 15-17 in Atlanta) and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Cheerleading Championship (March 10 in Norfolk, Va.)
 
“We're preparing for our first competition so it's been pretty hard practices, but good, because people aren't getting hurt,” Fletcher said.
 
 
“Everyone has to have a jump sequence, a partner stunt, a pyramid, basket tosses and tumbling,” said Fletcher, a 2007 graduate of North Carolina A&T and a three-time MEAC cheerleading champion. “Those are the basics that are in everybody's routine. In those categories, you either are at a Level 1 or a Level 10 depending on how hard you do it. Everyone does the same thing but if you do an easy version you don't score as high. But if you do a hard version you can get more points.”
 
Overall, Fletcher said SSU is competing at a Level 5 but she raises the level of expectations for her cheerleaders each year.
 
Ultimately, SSU will use its performances at Jamfest and Cheersport to prepare for its third year of competition in the MEAC Cheerleading Championship.
 
“That's a huge goal for me,” said Fletcher, who reminds her cheerleaders that they will get MEAC championship rings if SSU wins the title. “I want them to win the MEAC but I also want them to go out and do their best and do well. Every year, I've gotten cheerleaders with more skill. Even if they don't realize it by not winning a trophy or something tangible, they are getting better every year. And that's what I expect. Points-wise, we have improved every year.”
 
Physically demanding
Skeptics who do not believe cheerleading requires athleticism and a competitive nature need only talk with SSU cheerleader Whittney Conley. The sophomore from Lithonia, Georgia who is majoring in sociology, spent eight months enduring grueling rehabilitation exercises after having surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament and torn meniscus in her right knee. She suffered the injury during a tumbling practice in Savannah last year as the Tigers were preparing for the MEAC Cheerleading Championship in Winston-Salem, N.C.
 
“I was doing a round off back handspring tuck and I partially tore my ACL,” Conley said. “I kept continuing doing tumbling to help out because our competition was coming up and I didn't want to let the team down. The day before the competition, I tore it all the way through, and I still competed the next day.
 
“It was very, very painful. Once I felt the pop in my knee, I knew had had torn it all the way through. It hurt to walk on it. I didn't have crutches at the time because I had partially torn it. I had to walk on it back to my room and it got really, really swollen. It was just throbbing pain from the swelling, and it hurt so bad. I didn't want to tell Coach Kellie at first because I didn't want her to be mad or disappointed. I told my teammates first and then they went and got her.”
 
Said Fletcher, “They had pillow cases full of ice all around her leg. She said, 'Coach, I think it's torn. Something's wrong with it.' I said, 'Well, if you can't compete, if you can't walk, then I'm not going to make you do that.' She woke up in the morning and she's one of those go-getters who, even if she is hurt, is like 'I'll try to do it.' She still competed on it.”
 
After surgery, Conley spent eight months that felt like an eternity rehabilitating to get back to full strength.
 
“I never gave up,” she said. “I had a 90-degree angle in three days after my surgery. I went every day. I had to stay in the gym. In rehab you go every day. Even over the summer when I went back home, I found a trainer and I trained at home so that when I came back I would be strong enough to do the things that I need to do for my team.”
 
Conley said it is not uncommon to find as many cheerleaders as football players in the training room receiving treatment for various injuries because of the physical demands.
 
“We go in there to get taped, to get our wrists and ankles taped. You have to tumble with your full body weight. I know a lot of cheerleaders, we don't look like we weigh a lot but we're grown women, so for us to throw our bodies over and tumble and things like that, it's hard on the joints.”
 
Fletcher requires her cheerleaders to be able to run a mile in 8 minutes or less. She also frequently reminds them about the importance of nutrition and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
 
“Coach Kellie really sets the bar high for us,” Conley said. “Over the breaks, like Christmas break, she'll send us home with a workout packet.”
 
Equal opportunity
Fletcher does not have height and weight requirements for SSU's cheerleaders.
 
“A lot of major cheerleading programs do,” she said. “These days, there are a lot of different body shapes and sizes so, for me, as long as you're able to do all of the things that I require of you, physically, then I'm not going to not take you because of your weight or your height. I'm 4-11. At a lot of these big schools, if you're taller than 4-11 then you can't fly in the air. They have these very strict requirements.”
One of the biggest misperceptions that cheerleaders battle is the belief by many that their only role is to stand on the sideline and look pretty.
 
“Some people say when we come to games we're just there. We don't help out. We're just there to look pretty,” Conley said. “Or they'll say cheerleading isn't a sport. I've been cheering since I was 5 years old, so for someone to say cheerleading isn't a sport, I just feel like they don't really know. If they were to take a walk in my shoes, our shoes, they would actually see how much (work) we have to put in. We're not just a pretty face. We're just as important as any other sport and as dedicated as any other sport.”