The Southern Utah University spirit squads are essential to the Thunderbird gameday environment. The cheer and dance teams are there on the sidelines — rain or shine, nailbiter or blowout — leading the student section’s energy through wins and losses.
With no competitions on the cheer team’s schedule and just one on the dance team’s, nearly all of their time is devoted to Thunderbird athletics. Cheer has three practices each week, each of which is three hours long, while dance has four, all to perfect their craft for football, volleyball, basketball and gymnastics home events.
“Football focuses on football, whereas we’re everywhere,” said cheer and dance head coach Sadie Spencer. “We’re supporting each of our sports while trying to elevate ourselves.”
Their work involves more than just leading chants. Before games, they can be seen at tailgates and fan fests, preparing SUU fans for what lies ahead. During games, they work with the athletic department’s marketing team to provide throw-outs and giveaways from sponsors as well as entertainment during timeouts or other breaks in the action. Between games, they participate in community engagement, doing anything from making appearances at elementary schools to teaching at clinics.
“I take a lot of pride in us being ambassadors as people in the community and on campus,” Spencer said.
Spencer, who has been a coach at Southern Utah since 2008, has had all sorts of experience in the world of cheer.
Making her start as an athlete at Cedar High School, she worked her way up to becoming a professional cheerleader. She cheered and stunted for the WNBA’s Utah Starzz, now the Las Vegas Aces, and the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Traveling all around, she judged competitions across the United States and even in Japan.
When Spencer began coaching at SUU, she was doing it alone. It took over a decade for assistant coaches to come in, but she stuck with it nonetheless.
“I think I’m a fan. I love sports; I love athletics,” Spencer said. “I love the concept of everybody coming together for the common goal of cheering for a team. I’m a cheerleader at heart.”
For a while, she was just coaching cheer. In 2017, another opportunity came about: She became the director of the dance team as well.
Though the cheer and dance teams have the same goal of engaging the crowd and improving the event, they each take on different skill sets and team dynamics. They may guide fans in the same cheers and work together to create a fun environment, but they are their own separate teams.
Helped by assistant coaches and what they have learned in clinics, the members of the dance team frequently choreograph their own routines. The cheer team, however, gets all their moves from Spencer.
“We try to be innovative with more pyramids and stunts,” Spencer said. “We think of little things the crowd can do with us so they feel like a part of the game, too.”
Unlike most collegiate sports, cheer and dance don’t typically put a focus on recruiting. Instead, the Thunderbirds rely on tryouts. Those who attend are evaluated on their stunting, dancing, cheering and tumbling. As of now, the dance team solely consists of women, but the cheer team is made up of half women and half men.
It can be tough for them to get the word out about events like their tryouts, though. The teams have no director of operations, nor do they have much support from the athletic department’s social media managers. All social media content comes directly from the coaches themselves.
Along with Spencer, those coaches are Taycee Measom and Averi Rutherford. Measom is now the assistant coach for the cheer and stunt team, while Rutherford is the assistant coach for the dance team.
However, even if she was alone, Spencer would still be doing her thing.
“I love SUU,” she said. “I love the mission of SUU, and I love how engaged they are with the students.”
Author: Anden Garfield
Photos by: Anden Garfield and Treyson Andersen
Editor: Kale Nelson
sports@suunews.net
