Making a career out of cheer

Cheerleading is a guy’s sport in Bigfork.

There are several girls on the high school squad, but this year, they were outnumbered by the boys. Two of those young men, Colson McCoard and Jerry Rose, will continue their cheer careers in college: McCoard landed a spot on the University of Great Falls team and Rose will be part of the squad at Kansas State University.

While boys might get teased at other schools for being members of the cheer squad, the stigma doesn’t exist at Bigfork High School, they said.

“When I started, there wasn’t any stigma going on,” McCoard said, adding that other students would say, “You’re a cheerleader? That’s cool.”

Rose said that acceptance wasn’t the case when he was a freshman. He was astonished when he discovered the reason one of his friends was cutting out early from weightlifting was to get to cheerleading practice.

But when Rose checked out a practice, he saw how much skill and effort went into cheerleading. He was impressed by the strength and talent it required.

“It was fun to watch. That’s how I ended up being a cheerleader,” he said.

Rose was a member of the squad for three years; he was sidelined by a shoulder injury his junior year. McCoard tried cheerleading for a few days as a sophomore but decided it wasn’t for him. He changed his mind his senior year.

“I did it because all my friends were doing it,” he said.

The boys were on the squad during basketball season; other activities kept them busy during the rest of the year. McCoard threw shot put, discus and javelin on the track and field team, and he and Rose both played on Bigfork’s state champion football team.

But it’s the cheer squad members whom both boys consider their closest friends.

“The family it creates within, everyone feels really close together,” Rose said.

Coach Heather Epperly said it’s the nature of the sport to create that close feeling.

“They have to rely on each other so much. They have to be focused and to be in it 100 percent. You mess up and it could be life-altering,” she said.

“They know that they have to trust each other. That trust went beyond the team and practice and games; they’re great friends and a great family.”

Although he was only on the team for one year, McCoard had so many friends on the squad already that he fit right into the family.

He worked hard for his teammates and always was one of the last kids to leave practice, Epperly said.

“He begged somebody to stay so he could throw them,” she said.

His hard work led to his rapid improvement, and McCoard caught the eye of coaches at the University of Great Falls.

“The coach called and talked to me on a regular basis about the school,” he said.

“It was definitely surprising” that a college was interested in his abilities when he was only on the squad for a season, McCoard added.

“I didn’t think I was that good at it. A lot of guys said if I had stuck with it sophomore year, I probably would be exceptional,” he said.

McCoard hadn’t planned to attend a four-year college; his original goal was to study diesel mechanics at Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix. But the school was “out of my price range,” he said. Great Falls is “giving me a way better deal than me having to go all the way to Phoenix.”

Nearly all his schooling is paid for, he added.

McCoard will pursue a degree in business, but he hasn’t given up on diesel mechanics. He wants to open his own mechanic shop one day.

Rose, who wants to become a police officer, plans to study criminology at Kansas State.

He landed a spot on the Division I cheer squad after impressing the coach, Dannielle Ruoff, at tryouts in April. But it wasn’t the first time Ruoff had seen Rose in action; Kansas State has put on a cheer camp at Bigfork High School for six years, three of which Rose attended.

“I got to know the cheer program and the cheer coach, and I wanted to be part of the program itself at the school,” he said.

Epperly said the feeling was mutual.

Ruoff “has seen Jerry for three summers. She knows exactly what Jerry’s about,” Epperly said.

“I asked her, ‘What do you think his chances are?’ before he even tried out. She said, ‘The only way he wouldn’t be on my team is if he chose not to come here.’”

Rose said he was a little nervous about cheering at a Big 12 school.

“They’re cheering in front of 60,000 people. It will be a new experience,” he said.

Cheer practice — “boot camp” at Kansas State and two-a-days at Great Falls — begins in August. While they are excited for their future in cheer, the boys said they would miss their high school family.

“I’ll miss all my friends, guys and girls, on the team,” Rose said.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.