Photo by Dom Brown
Sophmores Sam Cole and Emily Kuhn nail a stunt. They competed in Kentucky for a bid on Saturday, Feb. 18.
Dominic Brown
Lantern Staff
An easily overlooked sport in the collegiate world is cheerleading. Most commonly at the sidelines of the main event it is easily swept aside. However, there are not a lot of athletes that can single handedly toss a partner in the sky, catch and balance them on one hand.
Sophomores Sam Cole and Emily Kuhn have been in the sport for a long time. Cole started when he was seven years old and competed in co-ed cheer throughout high school, and Kuhn started when she was a sophomore in high school and was a gymnast as well. Transferring from the high school level to the Junior College level was a smooth transition, but the duo has been preparing to make the jump to division one cheer at the University of Kentucky for the last few months.
“For D-1 you gotta put in work,” Cole said. “We’re smashing skills like breakfast, lunch and dinner!”
And they do put in work, Butler’s cheer squad meets three times a week to go over stunts, routines and prep for games since it is basketball season. On top of this, Kuhn and Cole take their training a step further traveling all the way to Wichita to the Y.M.C.A. to get in three more practice, a week at the Wichita Eclipse facilities.
“It’s basically learning extra skills and stunts outside of Butler,” Kuhn said. “For Butler, we practice three days a week for about two hours and we practice on our own.”
Overall, Kuhn and Cole practice 12 hours a week on top of being full time students.
Learning to do advanced stunts and learning skills is no easy task. It is a ton of hard work and the hardest thing is staying motivated, according to the duo.
Their training has been nothing short of brutal. Cole has put on over 20 pounds of muscle since he is started at Butler, and Kuhn has lost 20 pounds to get better at stunting.
“Since were constantly training we lose out on a lot of the college life,” Kuhn said. “We can’t really go out, we need all the sleep and rest to recover from our workouts.”
Despite how prepared Cole and Kuhn might be, the first step to moving up is acquiring a bid. Unlike WSU where someone can walk on to the team, at Kentucky it is invite only. So, on Saturday, Feb. 18 they performed from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.
“We will basically be going all out for seven hours,” Cole said. “It’s basically proving our worth before we even get to officially try out.”
Despite huge financial barriers, a huge distance to travel and some very tough competition the pair remains optimistic.
