gator bites - Pembroke Pines Elementary

By Alejandro Jose Vasquez
Gator Reporter
Anybody who speculates that
cheerleading is not a sport has
obviously never had to do the
demanding and rigorous training
required for it.
Twenty boys learned this
lesson during their training as a cheer
team for the Powderpuff Games, an
annual school event where gender roles
are reversed on the football field. The
girls played flag football grudge
matches between the grade levels and
the boys cheered them on from the
sideline.
Sergio Yep, who finished his
first and only year on the team,
defiantly proclaimed, “We were
athletes. We might not be great at it, but
we were athletes.”
Training initially focused on
learning simple sideline cheers. The
coaches, Cristina Miro and Ashley
Ygarza, seniors, who respectively had
eight and seven years of experience in
school cheer teams, taught them some
moves and chants.
The event was especially
memorable for the fliers, the five boys
who were lifted or even launched into
the air.
Daniel Quintana, senior, one
of the fliers, explained, “Being a flier
was extremely scary, as well as loads
of fun. Having to trust others to catch
you from falling and face-planting made
me very uneasy, but the rest of the fliers
and I were able to pull it off and fly high
when it really mattered.”
Besides flying, later practices
focused on the main cheer, designed as a
minute-long boast insulting the other
classes’ teams and bragging about the
superiority of the senior team. The
words and choreography, created by
Miro and Ygarza just for this year’s
games, were more difficult to master.
Also, some of the moves initially made
the boys uncomfortable.
The coaches also complained
that at times the boys “had short
attention spans and were easily
distracted.” At one practice, it got to the
point that one person actually halted
everyone to take a moment and
appreciate the beauty of a sunrise, which
served as yet another diversion.
However, the coaches also
called them a “fine group” and
“talented,” and no one was let down.
The team was still able to pull
themselves together and pull off
complex tricks, including the
“helicopter”, where the flier teams were
Real Men Cheer
F E A T U R E S
Sean Waxman, senior, flew high with his stunt group
waiting to catch him.
[PHOTO TAKEN BY KIMBERLY SANCHEZ,
SENIOR]
arranged in a circle and the fliers were
all thrown to another team at the same
time, at the fourth-period halftime show
on Monday, October 29. Previous
attempts to do the helicopter ended in
catastrophe, so the team was especially
proud of accomplishing that feat.
Miro found her first time
coaching a team stressful, but it paid off
in the end. The seniors’ Powderpuff
cheerleading team beat out the other
classes for the award, even though the
football team they rooted for lost to the
juniors.
Ygarza said it they did it
because “It sounded like fun and
something we would like to do, and we
both felt we were qualified with our
experience to do this.”
“Since it was my senior year, I
wanted to do something special,” Yep
said.
Quintana admitted, “I always
liked the idea of cheerleading with a
bunch of my guy friends. It’s hilarious.”
He also tried it out because “All my
friends were on it, and I heard it was fun
and a great thing to be part of. It’s true!”
Behind the Scenes of
Homecoming
By Jennifer Wills
Gator Editor-In-Chief
Every school year, students anticipate the
arrival of spirit week and the homecoming dance.
However, they only see the end result of these
activities, and little is known about the hard work
that goes into the planning and preparation for these
events.
The Student Government Association
(SGA) begins planning for spirit week during
summer before the school year starts. Summer
meetings involve all of the members coming up
with homecoming themes, spirit week games, and
planning for the week’s events.
In order to make them happen, each
activity during spirit week, including powder puff,
lunchtime games, the homecoming dance, and the
pep rally, all have to go through a long process of
planning, approval, and preparation.
All activities require an activity approval
form, which must be approved by Mr. Fred Azrak,
Athletic Director, and administration.
After activity approval forms are returned
to SGA members, only then can they begin planning
their event. Each event needs an itinerary, which
includes all the activities that will take place during
a specific event and how long each will take.
Along with time management, SGA
members need to create budgets, buy materials, set
up administrative meetings, and have constant
communication with every person or group involved
with their certain event.
“We started planning for the pep rally in
August,” Fatima Pina, senior and pep rally
committee chair. “The pep rally committee went
through an incredibly long process, from meetings
with administration and every person involved, to
make it all come together in the end.”
During the months prior to spirit week,
SGA members are extremely active in the
classroom, preparing for these events for all
students to enjoy and participate in.
“As Secretary of School Spirit, it was
extremely important that all of the SGA members
were constantly on top of their projects,” Adam
Villegas, senior and Secretary of School Spirit, said.
“The planning and preparation may be stressful at
times but it’s all worth it in the end.”
Throughout all the planning, stress and
excitement, year after year, SGA has been able to
produce a successful spirit week for all students to
enjoy and remember through their high school
years.
“I’m so proud of SGA and all of their hard
work for this spirit week,” Caitlyn Lanke, senior
and SGA President said. “It really is great to see all
of our hard work pay off in the end.”
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