AUC’s Cheerleading Team Faces Hurdles

By: Reem Elmaghraby

@Reemelmaghrabyy 

A number of AUC cheerleaders have told The Caravan that they are struggling to make their squad meet the standards of an AUC sports team.

Cheerleading captain and founder Dina Bashir says that throughout the semester girls kept dropping out from the team or wouldn’t show up to practice.

This has taken its toll on the team and she says they haven’t made much progress so far.

“Throughout the semester we were just stretching for two hours and warming up for two hours. I didn’t see any progress and I kept complaining to the department,” said Bashir.

She added that coaches were very difficult to find and that the Athletics Department had only two coaches, neither of whom were versed in cheerleading, on hand to help the team.

It’s been an uphill battle since Bashir, an Integrated Marketing Communications sophomore, established the squad last year after nearly 18 months of working to get the team approved by the office of athletics.

Once the team was announced, Bashir worked on recruiting girls for the team. Almost 100 students applied and only 20 got accepted.

Cheerleader Nadeen Abdelkader, a freshman majoring in psychology, said that even though practice has been demanding, she loved it because she’s passionate about cheerleading and that she agrees with Bashir on the coaches issue.

“From what I experienced so far this semester the coach doesn’t really know anything about cheerleading, nor has she even come to the practices,” said Abdelkader.

She went on to mention that they had a performance in the Plaza last week and the coaches had nothing to do with their practice; they did everything on their own. 

Bashir said that the coaches had backgrounds in either gymnastics or judo, but not cheerleading, and therefore did not go through different practice routines needed for the squad.

The squad feels the Athletics Office doesn’t take them seriously as an actual sport.

Bashir said that she almost quit but decided to stay because as a captain she didn’t want to let any of her cheerleaders down.

“They [Athletics Office] were like if you want to quit, quit. We could just cancel this whole thing. It’s not that serious to us, we have other stuff that we should be concerned about,” said Bashir.

However, Amira Farag, the recreational and fitness manager at the Athletics Office, said that the team was never really at risk and that they do regard them as a serious sport.

“It’s a very tough sport. They practice everyday for hours a day; they put too much effort into this,” said Farag.

She added that she has always wanted to see a cheerleading team at AUC but “We didn’t have time for it and we still don’t. But we decided, why not?” 

Farag also said that she felt the coaches offered to the squad had a lot to offer the girls.

“They [coaches] want to make sure that [the cheerleaders] do a lot of fitness, stretches, and flexibility exercises…they…worry about injuries, and I agree with that. But the girls don’t understand that – they think it’s as easy as, ‘we’re going to do this move and that’s it’, but safety concerns are important,” said Farag.

She added that having a gymnastics coach helped the team become better and that most of the girls who joined couldn’t do certain moves, such as the cartwheel.

She also added that AUC’s cheerleading team is the only one of its kind in Egypt, which automatically sets a challenge for the team. 

“We don’t have a cheer coach in Egypt…I couldn’t find anyone because no one knows what cheerleading is about, so the closest thing to it is gymnastics because it’s all about flips and stunts and all that,” said Farag.

Farag said that despite these hurdles she’s excited for the future of the squad, and hopes that they will be able to join international competitions with the other AUC sports teams in the coming year.