Penn State Cheerleading Adapts to the Pandemic

CENTRE COUNTY, Pa — One Penn State team who has faced a lot of adversity this year due to the pandemic, the spirit squad, or otherwise known as the cheerleading team.

"As a whole, it delayed the start of our season. You know, we were just obviously trying to play it safe and just make sure the health of our student athletes was put first," says Eugene Bodden, assistant coach.

Coaches received the ok from the university to return to practice, but not on Penn State grounds.

"We ended up decided to go to a colleagues gym and using it to practice," says Bodden.

Coaches say the student athletes receive weekly COVID-19 tests.

After a season with no sideline cheering, to close out the year like usual, the team was supposed to travel to Orlando, FL for its annual UCA College Nationals. But like many things this year, the pandemic put an end to that tradition.

"It's not just Penn State, it's a lot of different universities that can't travel," says Bodden. "It's not regulated like B10 is. When a B10 team travels to another B10 team you know the protocols are the same at each school but for us to travel to another state, let alone another competition that's a third-party competition, we don't know the protocols."

Instead, the team plans to compete virtually and record their game day routine to then send in to be judged.

They also plan to host another virtual tryout this year.

"In March it was our first time ever going all virtual," says Bodden. "We thought that was going to be the last of it but unfortunately were going on round two. We're keeping it pretty much the same format. Using the band group, it was just really easy to keep track of the tryout candidates. So they will join that and they will have the material and send in a tryout video and the deadline is going to be April 30th."

Also new this year, coaches are starting to offer athletes early into their program, like other sports at the university do. It's known as a signing day.

"This is the first year we started an early offer part of our tryout process. I just offered a girl from Bishop Mccort (Reagan Phillips) to sign with us for the upcoming year. So, there's only a few spots we are giving out early this year and this is the first time we've ever done that."

If you or someone you know is interested in trying out for the Penn State Cheerleading team head to their Instagram @psucheerleading and contact Coach Bodden.

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