Ella Slater is a freshman at Manitou Springs High School. She tried out for the cheer team at the beginning of the school year, and made varsity. According to Slater, she was very excited and astonished that she made varsity, because she hadn’t been practicing over the summer aside from attending the camp that the whole team attended.

“When I tell people I’m on the cheer team, it doesn’t really phase them, but when I tell them I’m on varsity they think it’s a big accomplishment,” said Slater.

As any sport, cheer is very dangerous. Cheerleading and gymnastics have the leading concussion rate in any sport. Slater knows the danger of cheer, but loves it too much to give it up for something that happens with any physical activity.

Slater hopes to be cheerleading captain during either her junior or senior year of high school. She said that her other goals for her future in cheer are, “To always be positive, work harder than everyone else, be there before practice even starts, be a role model to girls on JV, and just always be passionate about cheer.”

Salter said that it didn’t matter if she made varsity or not, because she would have worked just as hard as she does now on junior varsity.