That you only practice in the school gym-even for highly competitive teams. At least around here, all the competitive teams practice at a dedicated cheer gym, and usually have at least one coach from that gym. And at least around here, the traditional high school rival team may well practice in the same cheer gym, with the same coaches, and often condition and tumble together, and see each other more as siblings (and one will often be in varsity, one in super varsity. Or one in coed vs the other in all girl) and their rival for cheer may well be a team that never would ever play the football team, but is a challenge on the mat-and probably has a coach who was on the same college team and is the coach’s BFF-off the mat.
That the team picks new members at tryouts, and tryouts are a popularity contest.
That people who have never cheered before can walk in and be stars (especially grating when they explain it as “oh, I did a year or two of gymnastics” or leave it unexplained. My niece went from level 7 gymnastics to failing high school tryouts-because yes, she could tumble amazingly, but Thatwasn’t enough for a team where most of the kids had been training with Brandon or Top Gun.)
