Maryland Competitive Cheer: The Little Big Team

They are the little big team.

They have formed a dynasty comparable to Maryland’s women's lacrosse team that won six national titles in the '90s. But this team could be even better. Since their recognition as a varsity sport in 2003 they have collected four national titles.

They are the competitive cheer team.

People scoff, snort, and laugh when “cheerleading” and “sport” are put together in the same sentence, but the girls don’t seem to mind.

“We’re used to it,” said senior back spot Samantha Johnson. “We try not to argue we just try to explain the sport to them. They assume that we are just short skirts and pom poms but that’s not us. We don’t even cheer at games.”

Prior to former athletic director Debbie Yow recognizing the competitive cheer squad as a varsity sport, the team was a spirit squad that cheered at games and only had one competition per year. Head coach Jarnell Bonds, who graduated from Maryland in ’02, was a former member of the spirit squad and won a national title with them in 1999 but she coaches an entirely new team now.  

“When they go to basketball games or football games they sit in the stands like normal people,” said Bonds, who has been coaching since 2003. “All they do is compete.”

And they compete well.

In 2004 the squad won its first ever competition at the Charm City Championships.  It didn’t stop there. The girls flipped, twisted and spun their way to seven first-place finishes in their inaugural season and took home second at nationals.

Another second place finish at nationals in 2005 was erased by three straight national championship victories in ’06, ’07 and ’08.

But where were the riots on Route 1? Where was the welcome home parade for the now four-time national champions?

“It’s neat to see people’s reactions when they ask me if we are any good and I tell them that we have won this many titles,” said senior base Megan Salvatore. “Some people on campus will be like ‘oh I heard you guys are really good’ but nobody outside of our campus knows that we are this good.”

Even on campus it is a rare occurrence when somebody knows how talented and successful the competitive cheer squad has been. When Dr. Elizabeth Brown asked her Kinesiology 350 class if anyone has seen a competitive cheer competition three people raised their hands.

They are all on the competitive cheer team.

“Hopefully getting NCAA status will help get us recognized more,” said Salvatore. “I think once we get recognized by them we will get at least a little more publicity. When we won nationals last year we weren’t even on the front or the back page of the paper.”

Getting recognized by the NCAA has been a goal of coach Bonds for several years now and she expects to achieve that goal in the next 2-3 years. Unfortunately for Salvatore and Co. getting recognized as an NCAA sport is somewhat bitter-sweet.

“It’s like a catch-22,” said the 5'4" senior from New Jersey. “On one hand it’s awesome to be a part of moving the sport forward, but we won’t be on the team for it.”

Nevertheless, Bonds and the 37-member team use the possibility of NCAA recognition as their motivation to be the best.

“Everybody assumes that life is easy for us,” said Bonds. “But we work hard; we push each other to be the best.  By doing that we push other teams and other athletes to be the best so that everything we do has to be advanced and amazing and that is where the pressure is.”

Since she took over as head coach in 2005, Bonds has made significant progress towards NCAA recognition.

“We have aligned ourselves with a governing body (the NCATA) and we have restructured the form of competing to be more aligned with other NCAA sports like gymnastics or track and field,” said Bonds, a former cheerleader for the Baltimore Ravens. “Right now there are six teams recognized by their schools as a varsity sport and we need at least 10 to be recognized by the NCAA as a collegiate sport.”

Under Bonds, the Terps compete only against the six schools that have deemed competitive cheer a varsity sport, with Oregon and Baylor being their most threatening opponents.

The coach expects to have around 10 competitions this year if they make it all the way to the national championship again, something that Salvatore and Johnson fully expect to do.

“Yes we're going to win nationals!” exclaimed Johnson.

“Well,” said Salvatore, smiling at Johnson. “We hope we will win nationals.”