Ever since the eighth grade, senior Sophia Kovachevich has had her eyes set on cheer and the great parts about it, and she hasn’t looked back on it since.

“The community that comes along with [cheer is my favorite part],” Sophia said. “Not only being with my team but also going to competitions or meeting other teams and watching how they do or going and meeting other cheerleaders on the sidelines and stuff. I think that’s really fun.”

Sophia loved every single second of cheer and all of the laughs, smiles, and happy memories that came out of it. She loves all of the people that she is involved with in cheer and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“[I love] stunting with everyone; it is really fun,” Sophia said. “Stunting is when we lift up the girl or you are being lifted up in the air, and then we kind of toss them around. They do some cool tricks.”

Being persistent and staying on track with a high school cheer career has always been very essential to Sophia. Staying on the cheer team (for as long as she has) has helped her create new friendships, relationships, and a great sense of community to look forward to at practice every single day.

“Junior year was really fun,” Sophia said. “When [the cheer team] went to cheer camp over the summer, we were super loud and very into it. We ended up getting one of the megaphones, and that was a huge thing. We got it because we were super loud and spirited. We haven’t been able to get a megaphone in ten-plus years, so that was a really cool accomplishment we got which was really fun.”

The thought of doing cheer outside of school never really occurred to Sophia and has always stayed in the back of her mind ever since starting cheer at school in eighth grade. Doing cheer in college as well was always a good thought Sophia would obtain every once in a while, and the thought of standing while encompassed by a huge crowd of people doing stunts truly intrigued her as well.

“I have thought about doing [cheer] in college and thinking about what colleges would cater to me,” Sophia said. “Since I started fairly late and I did not do gymnastics when I was young, a lot of college teams are looking for a lot of tumbling and a bit more of the all-star and professional cheerleaders, but that is super expensive, so I was not able to do that.”

There are a lot of risks and possible injuries in cheer, but that never frightened Sophia from starting to do it in eighth grade. Challenges and obstacles form in almost any sport, but for Sophia, they were easily obtainable.

“A lot of injuries have been happening,” Sophia said. “I know last year, we had a couple of concussions, so that’s kind of hard when one person is out [because] then you have to shift around the entire routine of things. Say if one person is out of a stunt group, then you cannot stunt, or if one person is out of a routine, we have to move everyone around. I did get injured too. I got a concussion, and I also hurt my arm last year, so that kind of prevented me from doing and learning new skills.”

Sophia’s love for cheer, the community, and the friendships she has built around it have made her stay long-term indefinitely. Her love for cheer has carried on since the eighth grade and has progressed ever since.

“Definitely do cheer because I have made some of my closest friends there,” Sophia said. “I also was on the fence about starting cheer, but start [cheer] at whatever age you feel comfortable because the community is so welcoming.”