Seminole cheerleaders have three teams: varsity, junior varsity, and freshman, with a total of 50 cheerleaders. They do many things including cheering at pep rallies, freshman, junior varsity, and varsity football games, and boys’ basketball games, however, they do not cheer for teams that are made up of mixed or girl teams.

Ever since the girls’ basketball team began, it has not had cheerleaders. The boys’ basketball team, however, has had cheerleaders attending their home games since the ’90s, when the cheer coach had been a Seminole cheerleader.

The cheerleaders attend the boys’ home games, which occur 5 nights a week and are in the new gym. After these games the cheerleaders will leave just as the girl’s game is beginning, which is at 7pm, also in the new gym, rather than stay and cheer for the girls’ team too.

Junior varsity basketball player Lizzie Williams said, “I feel like [cheerleaders] would help keep us pumped during the game. I don’t know how the other girls feel, but it would be nice. I know during the Lake Mary game, varsity was losing and we got a student section together and started cheering like crazy and ended up going into 2 overtimes because the cheering gave them energy.”

Cheerleading Coach Ms. Tammie Gordon claimed they do not go to the games because “[they] would need another team because the cheerleaders will become stressed with all the work and it would be very time consuming to the teacher sponsor.”

The boys’ team, who are cheered for and represented, feel that it is unfair they are the only ones being offered support.

Senior varsity basketball player Anthony Catotti said, “It’s unfortunate that they don’t especially because of how good the girls’ basketball team is at our school. They definitely deserve to have cheerleaders if they want them, we certainly appreciate them with having them at the boys’ basketball games, but they definitely deserve some and should have [them] if they [want] them.”

The cheerleaders are considering adding a few girls’ games to their schedule to try to fix the problem, but for the time being neither the girls’ junior varsity basketball players nor their varsity players will have cheerleaders at their games.