Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Saratoga High cheerleaders Keri Klayko and Lindsay Smith teach some of the cheerleading basics to
Joanna Klayko, 11, during Pop Warner cheerleading practice.

High school cheerleaders give Pop Warner a boost

By Shari Kaplan

The 8- through 14-year-old cheerleaders of the Los Gatos Pop Warner Football Association provide enthusiastic vocal and visual support for the members of the association's four football teams.

The girls, in turn, are supported by a team of cheerleaders from Los Gatos and Saratoga high schools, who volunteer their time and talents to mentor the Pop Warner girls.

The 10 to 15 high school girls and nearly 60 Pop Warner girls have a win-win relationship, explains association business manager Bruce Broadwater. The young cheerleaders benefit from lessons on cheer/dance routines, safety tips and other aspects of cheerleading; they also have teen role models to look up to. The high school advisers help ensure the continued interest of future high school students who are skilled at cheerleading. It also looks good as a community service in their high school records.

"The key to our success is the teen advisers from the high schools. There's not a lot of cheerleading experience on our coaching staff," says Broadwater, who got involved with Los Gatos Pop Warner after moving here from Sunnyvale, where his daughter participated as a cheerleader, as she still does.

"[The advisers] are coming at it with the perfect philosophy. This is their 'farm team.' If you can train them at age 8, then by the time they're in high school they know the [high school's] style," he adds.

"I think if they get into it now, then they're going to stay with it. They can even get cheerleading scholarships for college," says Katie McGuire, a LGHS senior who has been cheerleading for three years. A former Pop Warner cheerleader as a youngster in Nevada City, McGuire and some of her spirit squad friends got involved with coaching Pop Warner girls when Broadwater broached the idea to LGHS spirit adviser Tanya Lynch.

"What I like best is I get to give back to the community. It's also self-rewarding; it's good to see people learn and have fun at the same time," explains McGuire, who feels cheerleading is popular because it offers exercise and improves leadership abilities and self-esteem.

"It builds a lot of self confidence because you're getting out in front of a crowd. The crowd may not always appreciate you, but you always have to appreciate the crowd," she says. McGuire herself was appreciated enough at this summer's United Spirit Association camp that she was offered--and accepted--a position that involves traveling to other states' spirit camps to teach.

Saratoga High School sophomore Keri Klayko says she and her fellow cheerleaders got involved in this, their first year as Pop Warner teen advisers, mainly from having younger sisters as Pop Warner cheerleaders. Her sister Joanna is one of them.

"The first time I went out there, I just fell in love with the girls. I think it'll be fun to work with them and help them," says Klayko, who won several ribbons at spirit camp and serves as co-captain of SHS's junior varsity cheerleading team. She cheered at SHS her freshman year as well.

"We teach them a lot of dances and work with them on things like stunts and cheers," she says. The teen advisers, she added, might work out a rotating schedule so that all the advisers need not be present at every Pop Warner practice, which usually entails three to four evenings per week.