Co- Captains Celia Carey and Abigail VanDoorne have begun to spearhead the new Calvin Knights Cheer program under Calvin Athletics. Calvin Knights Cheer is a new co-ed club sport that does not require previous cheer experience. 

VanDoorne and Carey were both Dance Guild poms choreographers. They realized that they enjoyed different aspects of dance that Dance Guild did not offer. “The part we really liked about [it] was the stunting and jumps … more of the cheerleading than the dance and we were [thinking] ‘we could just do that,’” said VanDoorne. 

With the launch of Calvin’s football program, Carey and VanDoorne knew that the timing was perfect to start Calvin Knights Cheer. “We knew that football was happening here next fall, and we figured that this was the perfect time to start working toward a cheerleading program here at Calvin,” Carey said.

The next step after coming up with the idea was figuring out whether Calvin Knights Cheer was a club sport or just another student organization. “We reached out to athletics and student [life] to figure out which one we fit into,” Carey said. “Then we found out that club sports were moving over to athletics and that was perfect.” 

  Right now Calvin Knights Cheer practices weekly in the Spoelhof Fieldhouse and is still in its preliminary stages, but VanDoorne and Carey are already planning for the future. “We’re still kind of in limbo at this point. We did create a preliminary budget as well as a code of conduct and things like that,” said VanDoorne. “As of right now we’re still waiting for next year.”  VanDoorne and Carey are also using this time to teach themselves proper cheer skills and techniques so that they can teach others that join the club. 

Calvin Knights Cheer has plans to be an official club sport by the fall of 2023. “Because football won’t be playing [regulation] games [this] fall … we will be training and attending other events on campus,” said VanDoorne. Calvin Knights Cheer plans to attend admissions days and other school events to let the community know about the cheer program. “In the [winter] we will hit the ground running with basketball,” said VanDoorne. 

Being a club sport under Calvin Athletics is different than being a program under student life. “We can be a little more serious about things,” said Van Doorne, “We can require practices and we can hold longer practices.”

Being a club sport under Calvin Athletics also gives Calvin Knights Cheer a bigger budget. “We get a little more money too. We don’t need a lot of money, but starting up we need uniforms and all those things,” said VanDoorne. “Being [under athletics] gives us better access to those resources.”

The co-captains have already started to recruit members for the club sport. “We were at the [basketball] tailgate [on Wednesday] doing stunts and little dances … we have little flyers [and] there should be posters going up soon,” said Carey. “Right now we have a QR code and a Google Form if people are interested at all,” said Van Doorne.