Friday night rolls around and the stands are being filled. The cheerleaders are down practicing their stunts, the football players are doing drills, and the dancers are stretching. All eyes are placed on the field, and the game begins.

Beyond these games are very tough practices. According to Dajour Lester, a senior football player, “Our practices are very intense. We practice four times a week and the conditioning and competitive team play are the toughest parts of these practices.” Even though the practices are long and exhausting, the boys push through and fight for the win.

The cheerleaders practice two days a week for about two hours. They train extremely hard with their stunts and choreography. Claire Park, senior, stated, “It’s very scary when the stunt doesn’t go up and when it falls. You never know if the person falling has gotten injured or not until you look down and pick them up.” With their hard training and intense practices, the cheerleaders make what they do look easy and fun.

Pleasant Valley Platinum, the dance team, practices two days a week for about an hour and a half. They are constantly working on half-time performances, their two state routines, and sidelines performed during the football games. They learn a new dance either every week or every other week depending on the game schedule.

According to Hannah Leaderman, freshman, “Platinum is something that I am extremely proud to be apart of. I’ve made so many friends through it, but one of the downsides is how often we learn new dances. It gets hard to remember every dance.” Lederman then went on to talk about how often she has to work on the dances outside of practice in order to perfect them.
Between football, cheer, and the dance team, much more goes into sports than people believe. They all train so hard to be the best competitors and performers for their teams.