High School Game Day Competition

[cheer25mom]

Anyone have experience with this? Our state is doing regionals for the first time and our regional is in our hometown. Considering taking my squad for the game day competition. We are ground bound, but so is the rest of our county so we should have some competition.

 

[LittleMissA17]

For gameday the only groundbound part of the routine would be the fight song, where you can only jump and do kicks. The rest can have stunting in it but I suppose they have a NB division.

UCA does offer an non building competitive division but I'm not sure if your county allows tumblings, which is what it mainly consists of.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

Anyone have experience with this? Our state is doing regionals for the first time and our regional is in our hometown. Considering taking my squad for the game day competition. We are ground bound, but so is the rest of our county so we should have some competition.

For gameday the only groundbound part of the routine would be the fight song, where you can only jump and do kicks. The rest can have stunting in it but I suppose they have a NB division.

UCA does offer an non building competitive division but I'm not sure if your county allows tumblings, which is what it mainly consists of.

Gameday, as offered by UCA, consists of the following segments:

A sideline Band Dance - no skills other than kicks or jumps allowed in the band dance.

A situational chant - offense or defense, you must be prepared to do both, and you will receive a verbal cue from the announcer to which your team must respond appropriately. This may have skills such as stunts and tumbling within the Gameday restrictions (see below).

A “floor” cheer or “timeout” cheer - this is where you show off your skill set as allowed within your rules. The Gameday rules themselves limit you to only 2-footed body positions and liberties, no flipping in pyramids, no running tumbling, etc. this is meant to mimic what you would actually use to lead your crowd.

Your team’s fight song - this may have up to 3 consecutive 8-counts of skills. The skills may only be performed once UNLESS the fight song repeats and then they must be performed exactly the same way if they are done again the second time through.

My kids LOVE Gameday. Let me know if you have any further questions, or need help with your choreography. We smoked it at our state competition last year.

 

[cheer25mom]

Gameday, as offered by UCA, consists of the following segments:

A sideline Band Dance - no skills other than kicks or jumps allowed in the band dance.

A situational chant - offense or defense, you must be prepared to do both, and you will receive a verbal cue from the announcer to which your team must respond appropriately. This may have skills such as stunts and tumbling within the Gameday restrictions (see below).

A “floor” cheer or “timeout” cheer - this is where you show off your skill set as allowed within your rules. The Gameday rules themselves limit you to only 2-footed body positions and liberties, no flipping in pyramids, no running tumbling, etc. this is meant to mimic what you would actually use to lead your crowd.

Your team’s fight song - this may have up to 3 consecutive 8-counts of skills. The skills may only be performed once UNLESS the fight song repeats and then they must be performed exactly the same way if they are done again the second time through.

My kids LOVE Gameday. Let me know if you have any further questions, or need help with your choreography. We smoked it at our state competition last year.

Thanks for the help! This will be the first time in the 13 years I have been at this school that the cheerleaders have been to competition. We are trying to build a program that can be competitive. We have a tumbling requirement for Varsity and as a result we have a very small Varsity team, and I have 10 on JV, none of whom have a BHS. We have hired a tumbling instructor to come to the school one day a week, and have hired a choreographer to re work some of our game day and pep rally material. Prior to this everything was done by the cheerleaders, and it was getting pretty stale. I have some pretty talented dancers and a couple of beautiful jumpers to work with, and no tumbling or stunts. I have some really pretty BWOs but I just don't think those would do much good. I thought game day would be the best place to start. My goal is to get them exposed to what is out there as far as cheer and to get them motivated to up our game.

I am a first year coach so I could use all the help I can get! I have dance background and my daughter cheered 6 years of all star so I have some idea of what I am looking at. I am beginning to get material together. It would be AWESOME to be able to bounce some ideas off you when I get there. Being ground bound means we have to be creative in other areas! I am ordering some signs once I nail down what we are going to need. (there have never been any for JV, and Varsity rarely uses them). My biggest issue is going to be music I think, with the music rules as they are. I am trying to get the band director to help me get some recordings of our band, but cheer isn't a priority to him.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

Thanks for the help! This will be the first time in the 13 years I have been at this school that the cheerleaders have been to competition. We are trying to build a program that can be competitive. We have a tumbling requirement for Varsity and as a result we have a very small Varsity team, and I have 10 on JV, none of whom have a BHS. We have hired a tumbling instructor to come to the school one day a week, and have hired a choreographer to re work some of our game day and pep rally material. Prior to this everything was done by the cheerleaders, and it was getting pretty stale. I have some pretty talented dancers and a couple of beautiful jumpers to work with, and no tumbling or stunts. I have some really pretty BWOs but I just don't think those would do much good. I thought game day would be the best place to start. My goal is to get them exposed to what is out there as far as cheer and to get them motivated to up our game.

I am a first year coach so I could use all the help I can get! I have dance background and my daughter cheered 6 years of all star so I have some idea of what I am looking at. I am beginning to get material together. It would be AWESOME to be able to bounce some ideas off you when I get there. Being ground bound means we have to be creative in other areas! I am ordering some signs once I nail down what we are going to need. (there have never been any for JV, and Varsity rarely uses them). My biggest issue is going to be music I think, with the music rules as they are. I am trying to get the band director to help me get some recordings of our band, but cheer isn't a priority to him.

The music rules do not prohibit you from using recordings, even of popular songs. You just can’t have them mixed up. You can push the play button and start the song from the beginning, then stop it when you are done with that section, as long as you do not change it...even so much as speeding it up or slowing it down is a no no.

There are a world of albums in iTunes with college bands playing various pep band songs/college fight songs. Our school uses the same fight song as Notre Dame, so it was easy to find on one of these albums. Then I found a recording of the band dance song we wanted for last year on a pep bands album.

Easy peasy, and a total of $3.98 out of pocket for me. Well....ultimately, closer to $25 because when you’ve got 1.65gb of music in your phone what’s two more albums full gonna change?

 

[cheer25mom]

The music rules do not prohibit you from using recordings, even of popular songs. You just can’t have them mixed up. You can push the play button and start the song from the beginning, then stop it when you are done with that section, as long as you do not change it...even so much as speeding it up or slowing it down is a no no.

There are a world of albums in iTunes with college bands playing various pep band songs/college fight songs. Our school uses the same fight song as Notre Dame, so it was easy to find on one of these albums. Then I found a recording of the band dance song we wanted for last year on a pep bands album.

Easy peasy, and a total of $3.98 out of pocket for me. Well....ultimately, closer to $25 because when you’ve got 1.65gb of music in your phone what’s two more albums full gonna change?

OMG, that is great news. Our fight song is a popular one and I have a good recording. We may just find a good stands tunes. i was told differently by my regional rep. She said we had to own the rights to anything we played and have documentation.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

OMG, that is great news. Our fight song is a popular one and I have a good recording. We may just find a good stands tunes. i was told differently by my regional rep. She said we had to own the rights to anything we played and have documentation.

If you’re still concerned, you can probably find a file with a good band dance from Varsity. They sell some on their website. I believe the link is located in the game day portion of their competition site. I personally like WKU’s version of our band dance better. I bought the recording, played it at our qualifier, state comp, and nationals last year with no issues. Our band refuses to learn it, so I play it over the loudspeakers at Games because it tickles me.

FWIW, there are several local schools who do not compete that I have pushed to try Gameday for the exact reason you are doing so. Let me know how I can help. Every kid needs SOMETHING of which they can be proud.

 

[coacha]

The music rules do not prohibit you from using recordings, even of popular songs. You just can’t have them mixed up. You can push the play button and start the song from the beginning, then stop it when you are done with that section, as long as you do not change it...even so much as speeding it up or slowing it down is a no no.

https://www.usacheer.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/USACheerFAQ.pdf
You can make edits for time, i.e. remove a bridge or a long intro.

For a quick music FAQ see https://www.usacheer.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/USACheerFAQ.pdf

 

[cheer25mom]

Thanks to both of you! Our comp is Nov 7th so I have some time to get it together. I will likely be back with more questions!

 

[DonnaM]

Also, if you can’t find a good recording, check with community bands. Many of the community band members probably played your fight song in high school, and even those who didn’t likely were playing for the cheerleaders at their schools. Such groups are usually really good at sight reading and pulling pieces together quickly. And depending on where they practice, may be better off for audio recording than the high school band is.