Beyond the Sidelines: Freshman Klein Oak HS Cheerleader, Hunter Kolon, Gives The Scoop On Her First Homecoming Game

Well, I'm Hunter Kolon and I am a freshman cheerleader at Klein Oak High. Every year, it is a tradition for the Varsity Oak Cheerleaders to allow the freshman and JV squads to cheer with them at the homecoming game. This year we were lucky enough to get to play against our biggest rival, Klein High. Before the game, we all wore our mums to dinner then caravanned over across the street to the stadium. Man, is that field big or what! Compared to our freshman field, the Varsity stadium is huge! So first quarter began and the freshmen got to start out cheering to the best section of the stands, the student section. During the first quarter we were ahead, and all of us were pumped. Being so close to the the football players and the field was so cool! You could feel the energy and the tension between the opposing rivals. Starting out with a good head start, 14-0. When we moved down to cheer in front of the parent section we started to fall behind. The crowd's energy raised sky high trying to get our players to get back in the game! All of us cheerleaders were yelling at the tops of our lungs, jumping up and down until our feet were sore.

Then halftime....smiling a smile so bright we were waiting at the edge of the field, until the announcer called for us to enter the field. Chanting our school's name loud and proud we flipped and kicked our way to the center and hit our pyramid flawlessly. The crowd ooh'ed and aah'ed at our tumbling and stunts. Afterwards, we went to go watch the rest of halftime in the student section, all of us went back down to the field to cheer on our dance team, the Strutters, and the Klein Oak Band. Screaming at the top of our lungs for every touchdown we made, we kept a smile on our faces even when we started to fall way behind. Doing tucks and spiriting to the crowd, we tried to do everything to pump our boys back up. Even though in the end we lost, the game was one of the best experiences I have had with cheerleading so far. Wearing our Klein Oak uniforms and our mums proudly after the game, we kept our heads up and said "Next year Klein, you are going down." And that was my experience cheering at my first homecoming game :)