By Gary Curreri
Alicia Solon is in her fourth year as a cheerleader for the Pompano Eagles team that cheers in the American Youth Football League.
Solon, 13, of Pompano Beach, was one of an estimated 800 cheerleaders who competed in the recent American Youth Football League Cheerleading Championships (AYFLC) at the Watsco Center at the University of Miami. The two Pompano Eagles teams – 9U and the Junior Prep teams, each scored participation awards.
“You have fun while you do it,” said Solon, a member of the Junior Prep squad. “Competitions like this help me improve. You have to have a lot of trust in each other and we build that through practice every day.
“I love cheerleading because I get to show what I can do,” Solon added. “It gives me a lot of energy.”
Solon, who said she’d like to cheer in high school and maybe in college too, also said she’d like to prove the doubters wrong who say cheerleading is not a sport.
“It is a sport because we work hard, just as hard as the football players,” said Solon, an 8th grader at William Dandy Middle School in Ft. Lauderdale. “We have to lift each other up and that is a weight.”
Pompano Eagles cheerleading coach Sharique McDonald brought two squads to the competition.
“The girls keep me on my toes every day,” McDonald said. “Every day, I learn something new from their little generation. I have to try and keep up just to stay in tune with them, but they keep me on my toes all of the time.”
She appreciates the daily improvement and dedication with the squads.
“That is like the best feeling ever,” McDonald said. “One of my girls has been cheering with me since she was 9 and couldn’t speak English when she first started. That was her first time cheering and, each year, she has excelled and pushes herself. They listen to my directions, and you can see they want it. The girls are what matters to me.”
McDonald also said there is a lot of focus that goes into the sport.
“You have to have a lot of discipline, and you can’t give up on yourself because you are going to take it to a whole new level with the stunting and tumbling, and your body is literally breaking down,” she noted. “You get bruised at practice and girls hit the ground hard and they get right back up and say, ‘I am going to do this.’ You can’t top that. The football players can’t top that and they have equipment.”
Pompano Beach’s Selena Sanchez, 6, who is a 1st grader at Pompano Beach Elementary School, received the prestigious Lisa Gager Spirit Award from the AYFLC. Gager was with the Sunrise program and passed away a little more than a decade ago, and the award was started in her memory for what she did in the cheerleading community.
“It is my first year as a cheerleader,” Sanchez said. “I like when we jump so high. And when we cheer at a football game, I like when people say we are good.”