Eighteen of Morgan Hill
’s finest are representing the community in Hawaii this weekend
for the celebration of professional football’s finest in the annual
NFL Pro Bowl.
Eighteen of Morgan Hill’s finest are representing the community in Hawaii this weekend for the celebration of professional football’s finest in the annual NFL Pro Bowl.
But these young women are not there to show off their skill with a football; they are members of the Live Oak High varsity cheer squad, and they are there because of their skills in gymnastics, dance and spirit leadership.
“It’s a great opportunity; we’re so excited,” 16-year-old Katie Peterson, a Live Oak junior and member of the squad, said the night before they left. “We’ve really worked hard, and Lana (Wright, the squad’s coach and trainer and owner of Lana’s Dance Studio) has been just great. I think we’re really well-prepared.”
The squad arrived in Hawaii on Thursday, and the Pro Bowl, where the best players in their positions from the AFC will face their counterparts from the NFC, takes place Sunday.
“We’ll just be practicing for two days,” Peterson said. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”
Peterson is no stranger to hard work. In addition to the time she spends practicing with the squad, she also is an assistant dance teacher at a studio in San Jose.
“My family has been so supportive,” she said. “They drive me around to all the practices, and they’re definitely there for me when I perform.”
Even though there won’t be much time for lounging on the beach or surfing the perfect wave, there will be some leisure time for the squad.
“There’s a luau planned for us, and we’ll get a tour of Pearl Harbor,” said Captain Maggie Trifilo, a Live Oak High senior. “I think we also have a fun day, and an opportunity to meet some of the professional cheerleaders and the players.”
Trifilo, who has been cheering for 10 years, started out as a Pop Warner cheerleader for the Morgan Hill Raiders.
“It has been good for me,” she said. “It keeps me focused on school, because I have to keep my grades up, and it is the thing I’ve grown up doing, my thing. It makes you strive for so much more.”
She plans to attend the College of the Desert in Palm Desert after she graduates from Live Oak this year. Her interests in majors are varied, including fashion merchandising, business and nursing.
The squad earned the right to perform in the Pro Bowl by their performance in the United Spirit Association’s (USA) spirit camp in August.
“There were several different performances that we were rated on,” Trifilo said. “We received a superior rating in all of them.”
Spirit leaders were judged on their performance in a prepared cheer they brought to camp with them, Trifilo said, their performance in a show cheer they were taught in camp and their performance in a game situation cheer.
In the game situation cheer, the squad was taught three offensive cheers, three defensive cheers and three general cheers and then had to select which was appropriate when presented with a game situation.
Peterson said she wasn’t sure exactly how many other groups the Acorn squad beat out, because the USA holds camps every week.
“We were at the UC-Santa Cruz camp,” she said. “We were very surprised, even though we knew how hard we worked, that we were selected.”
The Gilroy High squad was also selected to participate.
Because the camp was held in August, the young women have had to contain their excitement for several months. For some, this would be their first trip to the islands. Others have made the trip before with family.
For many, the approximately $1,200 price tag of the trip was a challenge. The families are hoping to raise money after the trip to offset some of the costs.
Morgan Hill residents can watch the Feb. 2 Pro Bowl, held in Honolulu’s 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, at 2:30 p.m. on ABC.
Peterson said she is not worried about performing in front of a national audience.
“I’m nervous before we start performing, but once we get out there, I just forget and concentrate on what we’re doing,” she said.
