University of Kansas Cheerleading

KU Cheerleading Tryouts

Tryouts for the 2010-2011 season were Saturday May 8th, 2010. The 2011-2012 tryouts will probably be the first or second Saturday in May, 2011. For help improving your skills for tryouts, see the Clinics page. To receive email updates on our tryouts and clinics, see the Email Updates section of the Recruits page.

Our Squads

Spring tryouts fill all the spots on our squads (ie, we don't have a Fall tryout). We'll take approximately 14 coed couples and a few extra guys. Each squad member cheers:

  • all home football games
  • about 1/2 of the home men's basketball games
  • about 1/3 of the women's basketball games
  • a few women's volleyball games

Travel to away football games and post-season basketball tournaments is usually limited to 3 to 6 couples per trip. In the fall, we select 9 guys and 7 ladies (plus 2 alternates) to compete at UCA nationals in Disneyworld in mid-January if we win a paid bid to compete.

Selection Criteria

Candidates will be selected based on who will create the best squad by the time our season starts. That means we'll consider more factors than just skill level; we'll consider potential, squad partnering, physical fitness, work ethic, and attitude. For specific skills, it's hard to estimate what is needed to make the squad since we take the best 14 couples that show up, but listed below is what we look for. Because we partner everyone at games and we do lots of all-squad stunts, coed stunting ability or potential is very important—we can hide weak tumbling fairly easily, but not weak stunting. Also note that all returning squad members must try out every year.

Ladies should have good stunting fundamentals and be easy to stunt with or show good potential. It helps (but isn't required) to have experience with elite stunts like full-ups, rewinds, and double-twisting cradles but make sure you only work on those if you're ready for them. For standing tumbling, we like to see at least a solid standing back handspring and back tuck. For pass tumbling, we hope to see fulls, but back handspring series, tuck or layout is often enough to make the squad if your stunt scores are high.

Guys' skill levels at tryouts vary more than the ladies. In general, we really like to see guys who can both stunt (ie, at least toss stunts) and tumble (standing tuck and pass fulls), but we take many guys who are stronger in one area and weaker in the other. We may also take guys who have little to no cheer experience if they show potential by being strong and athletic. In 3 out of the last 5 years, we took every guy who tried out, so if you're worried about not making it you should just go ahead and try out!

The 2010 Tryout Format

Prelims: Saturday 10am - 1pm

Everyone will be asked to perform the tumbling skills listed below and you'll be judged on how well you perform each. I don't expect people to have ALL of these skills so don't let the list scare you, but it will show me exactly what tumbling you can and can't do and how well you do each. All tumbling will be performed on non-spring mats.

  • standing back handspring
  • standing back tuck
  • standing back handspring back tuck
  • standing bhs full
  • standing full
  • roundoff bhs series
  • ro bhs tuck, layout, or full
  • ro bhs whip bhs
  • ro bhs full bhs full
  • ro arabian stepout ro bhs
  • ro bhs 1.5xfull stepout ro bhs
  • punch front stepout ro bhs

You'll have two attempts at a fairly basic stunt and a more advanced stunt with one of several partners provided at tryouts. The stunts will not be announced until tryouts, but the stunts I'll choose from are listed below. Ladies' stunts will be judged on technique, toss height, and on how easy the guy stunter felt it was for them to hit the stunt. Guys will be judged on solidness and technique. Once everyone is finished with their tumbling and stunt, we'll break and announce the finalists around 1pm.

  • Toss chair
  • Toss shoulders
  • Toss hands while the girl holds a sign in her hands
  • Toss hands to extension, liberty, heel-stretch, arabesque, cupie, or left cupie.
  • Walk-up to hands, extension, liberty, heel-stretch, arabesque, cupie, or left cupie.
  • Toss extension, liberty, heel-stretch, arabesque, cupie, or left cupie.
  • Full-up to extension, liberty, heel-stretch, arabesque, cupie, or left cupie.
  • Single or double-twisting cradle from heel-stretch or arabesque.

Finals prep: Saturday 2pm - 4:30pm

Finalists will perform a stunt series with multiple partners, then interview, practice fight song, take photos, and prepare an optional stunt for finals.

Finals: Saturday 6:30pm - 9pm

Finalists check in and warm up at 6:30pm, then at 7pm will perform the following:

  1. Tumbling pass
  2. Fight Song with standing bhs, tuck, or full at the end
  3. Optional stunt (no transitions)
  4. Chant

Posting of results

Results will be posted at KU Athletics' site no sooner than the following Tuesday at 5:00pm. All decisions are final.

Tryout Advice

Here are some random thoughts and tips on preparing for tryouts:

  • Tryouts aren't a safe environment for learning new skills, so I only provide enough time at tryouts for people to warm up their current skills. At the tryout, throw what you know!
  • Be in the best shape of your life!
  • My advice to most guys, especially high school guys, is to lift weights and eat like a horse to gain as much strength as you can. It will make stunting easier and make you more valuable in pyramids and baskets.
  • For girls who are flyers on all-girl squads but want to cheer on a college coed squad, I recommend you coed stunt as much as possible either through private lessons or at a cheer open gym in your area. There's no substitute for air time.
  • If at all possible, stunt with a variety of partners: good, bad, big, and small. This will improve your overall technique. Girls especially need to be careful not to stunt with only one guy, and also make sure to really learn proper technique and not unknowingly let the guy do all the work. Don't try to skip ahead to the elite stunts even if a guy is able to throw you through them — make sure you first learn how to hold yourself tight and centered without balancing; learn a powerful toss, walkups, twisting cradles, etc. Our tryout format tests girls' overall stunt technique and experience, so prepare accordingly. (Check our Clinics page for a list of open gyms in the eastern Kansas area.)

What to Wear at Tryouts

Example of proper tryout attire. At both days of tryouts, ladies should wear a sports bra, athletic shorts or spandex, athletic shoes, no jewelry, and your hair should be pulled back out of your face. Men should wear a plain T-shirt, athletic shorts, and athletic shoes. Note that these requirements are for safety reasons, and also note that a small part of your score in finals is "Overall Image," so it's in your best interest to look game-ready.

Summer Obligations

Squad members will need to be in Lawrence several times over the summer for practices, to teach our camps, and attend to UCA camp in Milwaukee. It's helpful if squad members live in Lawrence over the summer so they can work on their skills together, but it's not required. Here are our probable summer obligations:

  • June 21-28 (practices and our high school camp)
  • July 17-18 (only some of the squad will be needed to teach youth camp)
  • July 21-July 25 (practices then our middle school camp)
  • Aug 2-8 (practices then attend UCA college camp in Milwaukee, WI)

Questions?

If you have any questions about tryouts or KU Cheerleading, check the Recruits page. If you can't find the answer there, email me at Corey@KUcheer.com. Thanks!