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Hey y’all, my name’s Caitlin Cofield, and I’m a senior at the University of South Carolina! Today our football team played at home against the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The city of Columbia has been packed with cars, tents, and RVs covered with garnet and black Gamecock gear since last night! All of the USC cheerleaders woke up early to curl our hair and put our Gamecock stickers on our faces, and then we made our way to the stadium.
Gameday officially started 4 hours before kickoff though! As soon as we stretched, we began to warm up all of our stunts, tumbling, and pyramids.
Some of us got to meet the UAB cheerleaders! All of them were very nice, and excited to cheer at Williams-Brice Stadium. (Also, check out our brand new Jumbotron in the background! This is the first season we’ve had it, and it looks incredible.) Our stadium is right in the center of our city, and tonight you could have seen the bright lights and hear the 80,000 fans for miles around!
After our co-ed and all-girl teams stretched and warmed up our skills, we all had different pep-rallies, parades, and appearances we were assigned to! Some cheerleaders got to lead our football team into the stadium, while some of us went to go lead a huge parade called Gamecock March. At the end of the parade, we started a huge pep rally performing our fight song and a bunch of traditional cheers to get the crowd ready for the game with the Carolina band and dance team.
At 6:00 all of the cheerleaders met back up with our coach and organized our signs and flags to lead the team out. Our pre-game experience was loud, exciting, and by far my favorite part of the game. We started out with our national anthem, prayer, and fight song, and then it was time for our famous cheer! As some of our girls tumbled across the field, my team held up signs where one side of the stadium yelled “GAME” and the other side yelled “COCKS.” After this cheer got extremely loud, we heard Steve Spurrier, (the head football coach at USC) announce, it’s time for Carolina football, and the crowd went wild! The song 2001 Space Odyssey came on, and the football team ran out at the end! We all ran across the field, while our strong male cheerleaders ran out with the football team holding huge flags spelling out CAROLINA.
From that point, the game was starting for us and we ran to the sidelines. For kick-off, our stadium played “Sandstorm” by DaRude, which pumped up our huge student section. When the ball was kicked, the fans yelled “GOOO COCKS-FIGHT-WIN-KICK!” We had a lot of fun leading the crowd in cheers, and we got to perform our fight song a lot because our team played so well. In our fight song, we throw two stunts and a back-tuck so the more our team scored, the more opportunities we got to show off our skills. I enjoyed getting to perform our dances to our traditional “Go Carolina” anthem and a lot of fun, popular songs our band performed like the ever-so popular “Call Me Maybe.”
My stunt partner, Hunter, and I had a blast stunting and cheering with the crowd. Another fun tradition we’ve made is our epic Fourth Quarter Cupie Contest where all the stunt partners compete to see who can hold a cupie the longest! My partner and I won tonight, so we were thrilled!
We won the game against the UAB Blazers scoring 49 to 6, and sang our alma mater, which ended with us singing, “Here’s a health, Carolina, forever to thee!” I had such a fun time at this game, and I was so glad my Gamecocks won. U-S-C! GOOO COCKS!
-Caitlin
Hey y’all, my name’s Caitlin Cofield, and I’m a senior at the University of South Carolina! Today our football team played at home against the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The city of Columbia has been packed with cars, tents, and RVs covered with garnet and black Gamecock gear since last night! All of the USC cheerleaders woke up early to curl our hair and put our Gamecock stickers on our faces, and then we made our way to the stadium.Gameday officially started 4 hours before kickoff though! As soon as we stretched, we began to warm up all of our stunts, tumbling, and pyramids.
Some of us got to meet the UAB cheerleaders! All of them were very nice, and excited to cheer at Williams-Brice Stadium. (Also, check out our brand new Jumbotron in the background! This is the first season we’ve had it, and it looks incredible.) Our stadium is right in the center of our city, and tonight you could have seen the bright lights and hear the 80,000 fans for miles around!
At 6:00 all of the cheerleaders met back up with our coach and organized our signs and flags to lead the team out. Our pre-game experience was loud, exciting, and by far my favorite part of the game. We started out with our national anthem, prayer, and fight song, and then it was time for our famous cheer! As some of our girls tumbled across the field, my team held up signs where one side of the stadium yelled “GAME” and the other side yelled “COCKS.” After this cheer got extremely loud, we heard Steve Spurrier, (the head football coach at USC) announce, it’s time for Carolina football, and the crowd went wild! The song 2001 Space Odyssey came on, and the football team ran out at the end! We all ran across the field, while our strong male cheerleaders ran out with the football team holding huge flags spelling out CAROLINA.
From that point, the game was starting for us and we ran to the sidelines. For kick-off, our stadium played “Sandstorm” by DaRude, which pumped up our huge student section. When the ball was kicked, the fans yelled “GOOO COCKS-FIGHT-WIN-KICK!” We had a lot of fun leading the crowd in cheers, and we got to perform our fight song a lot because our team played so well. In our fight song, we throw two stunts and a back-tuck so the more our team scored, the more opportunities we got to show off our skills. I enjoyed getting to perform our dances to our traditional “Go Carolina” anthem and a lot of fun, popular songs our band performed like the ever-so popular “Call Me Maybe.”
-Caitlin
