Once a year, a week before spring break, a group of aspiring cheerleaders hopes to make Bakersfield College’s cheer team for next semester.

This year, there were 28 woman trying out with eight being returning members from last year. The women get less than a week to prepare before the judges critique them.

The first day they learn the traditional BC pom routine, the second day they learn a dance, and the third day they learn three cheers.

Not only do the women need to know how to dance, but also they need to have confidence.

Heather Witcher has been on the cheer team for two years and has taught the cheers and dances to all of the women trying out.

“I keep telling them it’s about confidence, you have to smile, you have to want to be a cheerleader, not ‘I’m so good at this, I’m better than you,'” said Witcher. “You have to smile, that kind of coincides with everything because you have to be loud. In order to be loud, you have to be confident. In order to smile, you have to be confident. It’s just confidence.”

Witcher explained why the judges would be looking for confidence and smiling.

“If you do a dance and you’re like ‘I’m over it,’ when you’re on the field you just have to keep smiling, you’re out there for almost four hours, it doesn’t matter how tired you are, you just have to keep smiling.”

Returning sophomores know what the judges want. Kylie Weldin said, “I feel confident, just because I’m a returner and I know what the judges want, so I’m not like a deer in the headlights. Last year I had no idea.”

There are usually women that return from a year before, and to keep the judging fair, there are different judges every year so they don’t know any of the women.

They try to give second chances to women who they think might have potential but didn’t do as well on their first try.

“Once everybody tries out, [the judges] call people back and if there’s a girl they’re not sure about, if she messed up and they think she can do better, they’ll say, ‘I want to see 7, 12, and 15 again,'” Witcher said. “They also want to see different girls together in different groups. If there’s somebody next to you and you’re not comfortable with her, you don’t do as good. If you mix it up a little bit you could do better. It changes the dynamics a little bit.”?

Many of the girls waited to be critiqued by the judges. They practiced the dances Witcher taught them. The girls had mixed emotions of nervousness and excitement for the tryouts.

Metiqua Eng was trying out for the first time at BC but has cheered for Cal State Bakersfield.

“I’m a little nervous, but I try not to be nervous. You’ve got to be really confident,” said Eng. “You have to let your ego go through the roof because the more confident you are you’re not even going to think about it if you mess up. You just keep shaking and moving.”

Trying out for the cheer team isn’t just signing up for cheering. It requires more work.

“Being a cheerleader here is like a second job. You have practice for 15 hours a week and then you have volleyball games, basketball games, football games, volunteer work, community service. We have so much to do,” said Witcher. “You have to bring in your transcripts and you have to have a minimum 2.0 [GPA]. If you fall below a 2.0, you get dropped.”