MIT Cheer travels to Florida to perform at national meet
Team members say cheerleading is athletic, not just pom-poms, and seeks to increase campus presence
Jill Kratish
The MIT cheerleading team had their best performance in program history at the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) Collegiate Cheer and Dance Competition held in Daytona, Florida. “Considering we didn’t have a coaching staff three years ago, I would say we have improved leaps and bounds,” said Elizabeth Mule ’17, who has been a cheerleader since seventh grade. MIT Cheer, as they are popularly known, performed a regular cheer along with a two-and-a-half-minute routine that included stunts, dancing, and tumbling.
“MIT Cheer is not just yelling and shaking pom poms; it’s athletic, competitive, and in my opinion, a lot of fun,” Mule chipped in, and it is not just the pros like Mule who share that opinion.
Azaria Zornberg ’18 said: “The thing that drew me to the MIT Cheerleading team was that it was so different from anything I had ever done before, so I wanted to try it. I’d seen some of the Bring It On movies, but I’d never done anything like that, so I figured why not try it in college and see if it’s fun!” Zornberg recalled how thrilled he was “the first time that we hit everything in our completed routine perfectly.”
Buoyed by their success in the national meet, MIT Cheer is looking to increase both their presence on campus as well their overall skillset. Apart from cheering at football and basketball games at MIT, MIT Cheer have also been invited to perform outside MIT at events such as the New England Clean Energy Council’s Green Tie Gala. “But we are looking to increase our practices to four times a week and would like to compete in local competitions in addition to the nationals,” Mule said. MIT Cheer clearly have their sights on bigger things.