PAL cheer earns trip to National Championship

Marie Hopkins
Posted 11/19/15

Pop Warner. It’s the name most associated with youth football.  But Pop Warner is more than that. It is the largest football, dance, and cheer nonprofit youth …

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PAL cheer earns trip to National Championship

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Pop Warner. It’s the name most associated with youth football.  But Pop Warner is more than that. It is the largest football, dance, and cheer nonprofit youth organization in the world, with over 325,000 children, aged 5-16, participating. But Pop Warner is not just sports – the program has set core academic standards and both requires and rewards academic excellence from the athletes.

Right now, however, the Pop Warner focus is on sports, and sports competition. After the regular season, the organization holds football playoffs, then regional championships. Following those, all team players on a championship team are verified as academically eligible, and if so, they go on to compete in the National Championships at Walt Disney World/ESPN Wide World of Sports in December. Those championships are approaching fast. And with the fast approach of youth football championships come the national titles in cheer and dance too. Also held at Disney/ESPN, also in December of each year, and also with the same rigorous standards of football.

Cheerleaders. They rile up the crowd, they support the ball players. They are fun, and energetic, and entertaining. But behind that facade of “cute” is the strength of serious athletes.  Kids who work-out hard at practice, jogging, doing push-ups, calisthenics; and doing this four days a week to ensure safety.  In fact, these kids have practice more often than the ball players do. And practice pays off. For some Warwick girls, it paid off especially well this year.

The Warwick Police Athletic League has for many years sponsored several groups of Pop Warner Cheerleaders. And this time, one of the Warwick PAL cheer teams (Junior Midgets) has made it all the way to the National Cheer Championship. All the way to Disney.

Cheer Coordinator Kelly Gibb has a long history with the sport.  A former Pop Warner cheerleader herself, she went to Nationals with her team, the Coventry Rams, back in 1996. Gibb has been Cheer Coordinator with the PAL Jr. Midgets since 2011, following a one-year stint at head coach in 2010. The team’s current head coach is Adriana Hennemann. Hennemann also has had a life-long involvement with cheer. With the help of assistant coaches Christina Beth Ventura, Stephanie Dillon, Christine Ruggeri, Lisa Kennedy and team “mom,” Tina Bianchi, Gibb and Henneman have brought this year’s team straight up the ladder to success.

The team is a large one with 30 girls, ranging from age 11 to 13. The first competition was local, held at the Providence Career and Technical Academy near Central High School.  Beginning at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning, in a 60,000-square foot gymnasium, cheerleaders from all over the state came together to shout, tumble and stunt in front of a panel of judges.  At the end of the event, titles were awarded and successful teams were informed they were moving on in the competition. That was Oct. 25. Warwick PAL Junior Midgets were moving on.  

On Nov. 7, Regional Championships were held at Mass Mutual. Not even the last-minute cancellation of the team bus could not lessen the team tenacity. Moms and dads scrambled together to form carpools of enthusiastic, spirited girls. Determination prevailed. The team took the Regional Championship and were offered a competition spot at Disney, and it had little time to prepare.

The Junior Midgets are set to arrive in Orlando on Dec. 6. Pop Warner rules mandate study hall/class time as well as practice time on the mat on Monday. The team is scheduled to compete on Tuesday. Some families with be leaving Wednesday, while a few will be staying over one additional day. It’s a short trip on short notice, and flight costs are entirely the responsibility of the girls’ parents, a big sacrifice for many families, especially over the holiday season. Many girls are selling Sweenor’s chocolate bars to offset their airfare.   The League does a lot of fundraising over a season, already having done the typical sales (Yankee Candle), concessions and raffles. They had just $5,000 in the coffers at the time they were invited to Disney. Gibb has determined they need to raise $18,000 to attend the competition, an average cost of $600 per girl. Through the sale of local business sponsorships, the girls have managed to shore up a portion of the money.

Pop Warner, more than football, a nonprofit organization truly helping to build our youth through scholastics and sports and the recognition of hard work, will in the spring honor many of these young ladies with the chance to attend an academic scholarship dinner and award ceremony. Whether they get a national cheer title next month, or not, the achievement of this year’s PAL Junior Midgets Cheer team is notable and each member of the team deserves recognition. It is a win for the city Warwick, and a win for these kids. They are reaching out to ask for community support.

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