Morgan Clary
Bellville Cheerleading Coordinator
Room Number: 303
Email: mclary@bellvillebrahmas.org
Meeting dates, times, and location still need to be confirmed with Mrs. Clary.
The Bellville High School Cheerleading program represents Bellville through school spirit, leadership, athleticism, and performance. Cheerleaders support Brahma and Brahmanette teams at athletic events, participate in pep rallies and other school activities, and prepare throughout the year through practices, routines, stunts, and other performances. Coverage should look beyond the sidelines to the students, preparation, teamwork, traditions, and work behind Bellville Cheerleading.
- Game-day cheerleading and sideline performances
- Pep rallies and school-spirit events
- Practices and preparation for upcoming events
- New cheers, routines, stunts, and performances
- Tryouts and selection of new team members
- Captains and student leadership
- Cheer camps, clinics, and training
- Competition preparation and results, if applicable
- Individual and team awards or recognition
- Senior cheerleaders and final performances
- Bellville cheer traditions
- Uniforms, signs, props, and other spirit elements
- Community appearances and special events
- Behind-the-scenes preparation before games and pep rallies
- Students learning or perfecting difficult skills or stunts
- Challenges the team works together to overcome
- Team-building activities
- First-time performances and important milestones
- Preparation for rivalry games, playoffs, and other major events
- Memorable moments involving the cheer team
- How cheerleaders help build school spirit and encourage the crowd
- What happens before, during, and after an event that spectators normally don’t see
Covering the Bellville Cheerleading Beat
Start Here
- Introduce yourself to Mrs. Clary and explain that you are covering Bellville Cheerleading for the BVP Newsroom.
- Ask when and where the cheer team regularly practices.
- Ask how she prefers to be contacted and how far in advance interviews, photography, or video coverage should be arranged.
- Request the team’s current schedule of games, pep rallies, practices, special events, competitions, and other appearances.
- Ask when tryouts take place and how new cheerleaders are selected.
- Ask for the names, grade levels, and positions of captains or other student leaders.
- Find out how cheers, routines, stunts, and other performances are selected, taught, and practiced.
- Ask about team traditions, annual events, rivalry games, playoff activities, and other important dates.
- Ask whether the team attends camps, clinics, or competitions during the year.
- Ask whether there are restrictions on photographing or filming practices, tryouts, stunts, or performances.
- Check with Mrs. Clary and student leaders regularly for updates and possible stories.
- When you discover a possible story, submit it as a pitch before beginning full coverage unless your teacher tells you otherwise.
Your Responsibilities
- Check for Cheerleading updates at least once each news cycle.
- Maintain contact with Mrs. Clary and student leaders.
- Keep track of games, pep rallies, practices, tryouts, special appearances, competitions, and other important dates.
- Watch for stories developing before game day during practices, preparation, stunt work, and routine development.
- Look for cheerleaders learning difficult skills, assuming leadership roles, overcoming challenges, or reaching important milestones.
- Pay attention to the teamwork required to perform stunts and routines safely and successfully.
- Watch for tryouts, new members, captain selections, senior recognition, awards, and other important team developments.
- Look beyond football. Cheerleaders may support Brahma and Brahmanette teams and participate in other school and community events.
- Look for the students behind the school spirit—the preparation, leadership, athleticism, traditions, and work spectators may never see.
- Pitch promising stories to the newsroom.
- Arrange interviews, photography, and video coverage in advance.
- Confirm names, positions, dates, competition results, awards, and other details before publication.
- Follow up after major events to collect photographs, reactions, results, and information about what comes next.
Important
Cheerleading is more than what happens on the sideline. A few cheers or a halftime routine may be what the crowd sees, but those moments can represent hours of practice, conditioning, stunt work, repetition, coordination, and preparation.
Look for what the crowd doesn’t see. How long did it take to master a stunt? What happens when a routine isn’t working? How do teammates build enough trust to perform it? What goes into preparing for a rivalry game, pep rally, playoff appearance, or competition? What is going through a cheerleader’s mind immediately before a difficult performance?
And remember: the game is not your story just because the cheerleaders are there. Other reporters may be covering what happened on the field or court. Your job is to find the people, preparation, teamwork, traditions, athleticism, and experiences behind Bellville Cheerleading.
Reporting Your Cheerleading Stories
Possible Story Ideas
- Cheerleading tryouts and selection of the new team
- New captains or student leaders
- Preparing for the first game or pep rally of the year
- Learning a new cheer, routine, stunt, or performance
- Preparation for rivalry games, playoffs, or major school events
- A cheerleader mastering a difficult new skill
- The work involved in developing and perfecting a stunt
- Cheer camps, clinics, or special training
- Competition preparation and results, if applicable
- Senior cheerleaders approaching their final season or performance
- A new tradition introduced by the cheer team
- Long-standing Bellville cheer traditions and their history
- Behind-the-scenes preparation for game day
- Cheerleaders supporting teams and activities beyond football
- Community appearances or special events
- Individual or team awards and recognition
- A cheerleader overcoming an injury, setback, fear, or difficult skill
- How the team builds trust and teamwork
- What it takes to become a Bellville cheerleader
- A day in the life of a cheerleader during football season
Signs There May Be A Story
Pay attention when:
- Tryouts or team selections are approaching.
- A new cheerleader joins the team.
- Captains or other student leaders are selected.
- The team begins learning a new routine, stunt, or skill.
- Cheerleaders are struggling with—and eventually mastering—a difficult stunt.
- Practices intensify before a major game, pep rally, playoff, or competition.
- Something significant changes in a routine or performance.
- A cheerleader reaches an important personal milestone.
- The team attends a camp, clinic, or competition.
- A new tradition, uniform, activity, or performance is introduced.
- A long-standing Bellville cheer tradition has an interesting history.
- Seniors are approaching their final game or performance.
- Cheerleaders receive awards or recognition.
- The team participates in an unusual community or school event.
- Something happens behind the scenes that spectators normally never see.
Questions to Ask: The 5 W's and 1 H
You will not necessarily ask every question below. Select the questions that fit your story and ask follow-up questions whenever an answer is unclear or incomplete.
Who was involved?
- Which cheerleaders participated?
- Who organized or led the activity?
- Which captains or student leaders were involved?
- Who taught or developed the routine, cheer, or stunt?
- Who helped solve problems during preparation?
- Who should be recognized for making it successful?
What happened?
- What were the cheerleaders preparing for?
- What did they have to learn or accomplish?
- What was particularly difficult?
- What changed between the first practice and the final performance?
- What went wrong during preparation, and how was it corrected?
- What made this event, routine, or achievement important?
When did it happen?
- When did preparation begin?
- How long did it take to learn or perfect?
- When did the performance, game, pep rally, tryout, or competition occur?
- How often did the team practice?
- What comes next?
Where did it happen?
- Where did the team practice?
- Where was the performance or event held?
- Did preparation take place somewhere different from the actual event?
- Where will the team perform next?
Why does it matter?
- Why was this event or performance important?
- Why did the team choose this routine, cheer, stunt, or tradition?
- Why was accomplishing this difficult?
- Why does the tradition matter to Bellville students?
- Why should someone who wasn’t at the game or event care about this story?
How did it happen?
- How did the team prepare?
- How was the routine or stunt taught?
- How were responsibilities divided?
- How did teammates build the trust needed to perform safely?
- How did they overcome problems?
- How many practices or attempts did it take?
- How did the final performance compare with where they started?
People You May Need to Interview
Depending on the story, consider interviewing:
- Cheerleading coordinator Morgan Clary
- Cheer captains or other student leaders
- Cheerleaders directly involved in the story
- New or first-year cheerleaders
- Senior cheerleaders
- A cheerleader who mastered a particularly difficult skill
- Teammates who can explain how a routine or stunt developed
- Students involved in organizing a pep rally or spirit activity
- Coaches, teachers, or administrators involved in a particular event
- Athletes or students who can describe the effect the cheerleaders have on game-day atmosphere
Whenever possible, talk to the students doing the work. Mrs. Clary can provide official information and context, but the cheerleaders themselves can tell you what preparing, performing, struggling, succeeding, and being part of the team actually feels like.
What You Need to Collect
Before writing or producing the story, collect:
- Complete and correctly spelled names
- Grade levels
- Team positions or leadership roles, when applicable
- Official name and date of the event
- Time and location
- What the cheerleaders were preparing for
- How long they prepared
- Details about the routine, stunt, cheer, or activity
- What was difficult or challenging
- Problems encountered during preparation
- How those problems were solved
- Results, awards, scores, or placements when applicable
- What happened that spectators didn’t see
- At least one useful quote from a cheerleader
- A useful quote from Mrs. Clary or another appropriate source
- Photographs or video of the activity
- Whenever possible, photographs or video of preparation as well as the finished performance
- Correct identification of everyone visible in photographs
- What happens next for the team
Before You Leave
Ask yourself:
- Do I have the correct spelling of every name?
- Do I know each student’s grade level and role?
- Do I understand what happened?
- Do I know when and where it happened?
- Do I understand why this is a story?
- Did I talk to the cheerleaders involved rather than relying only on the coordinator?
- Do I know what preparation went into what the audience eventually saw?
- Did I find out what was difficult?
- Did I ask what went wrong and how the team fixed it?
- Do I have details that someone watching from the stands wouldn’t know?
- Do I have a strong quote—not merely “It was fun” or “I’m excited”?
- Do I have usable photographs or video?
- Did I identify everyone shown in my photographs?
- Have any results, awards, or selections been officially confirmed?
- Do I know what happens next?