Janie O’neill is the 2024-2025 varsity cheer captain for Athens Academy. She was on the Junior Varsity team freshman and sophomore year and did Varsity Junior and senior year. She is the base for stunts. Practices can be intense with practices on Monday and Wednesdays and game days on Fridays. On homecoming week they practice every day, preparing for the pep rally and the parade and all of the big stuff.
Their cheer coach is new this year. They call her coach KK, but she is a fourth grade teacher and her name is Mrs.Hill. Mrs. Hill’s husband is also one of the football coaches.
Janie’s favorite part about cheer is being with her best friends because all of her best friends are on the cheer team. Janie has been interested in cheerleading for a while now, and she has been doing it since seventh grade. One of her favorite cheers is victory. She likes this cheer because of the victory of all of the Spartan’s wins. At pep rallies, her favorite part is all of the dances. This year, her and Reid are the captains and they both got to make the dances and once that was done they would both have to teach it. Janie said that it felt really good for everyone to see all the hard work that they put in.
One bonding thing that the cheer team does is, in the summer the first week that they start practicing that Friday they have a “cheer over” which is a cheer sleepover. Everybody on the cheer team has a big sleepover, and the seniors get to go visit every house of the people that are hosting and surprise them and bring them all cookies and little treats.
Her least favorite part about cheer is whenever they are in a stunt and somebody falls and hits the ground because they have to run a bunch. Janie says that when they have to run, it just gives them more motivation to work even harder and to just not drop people.
