It is a new school year, and it is time to cheer on new teams, players and coaches. The Taylorsville cheer team has been preparing all summer for this fall.

“It feels good inside to get the reaction from the crowd,” Taylorsville junior Brooklyn Storms said. “I like encouraging the team as they play and I get to help serve the community. Being a cheerleader is great.” 

The Warrior cheerleaders stood behind the football team's bench and encouraged the crowd to have fun on a rainy opening Friday night game against Murray. The team began the game by returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown to the excitement of the student section. That moment made all the hard work this summer worth it for the cheer team.

“It is hard to get up and have the energy every single day. After a while it becomes uplifting. I really like being with my friends and my team,” Storms said.

Sophomore Keely Koch has been a cheerleader since her seventh-grade year at Eisenhower Junior High School.

“The time we have put in is definitely worth it,” she said. “ I like learning to be kind and it is great to get to know my team and friends better.”

Taylorsville has a new cheer coach this season, Ulbby Dyson. She has plenty of experience training and coaching cheer teams. She coached at Copper Hills High School and owns her own cheer studio in West Jordan, Forever Athletics Cheer and Tumbling.

Her husband Reggie helps at the cheer academy. They offer cheer classes for game day cheer and tumbling. They also offer a unified team for athletes with disabilities.

“I am excited about this season. It is my first year coaching at Taylorsville,” Dyson said. “I am looking forward to teaching them things on and off the mat and making this a successful year.”

This year's team has four boys and 32 girls. They will compete in the first year of cheerleading as a sanctioned sport by the UHSAA. This year there will be region and state championships awarded.

“Being sanctioned is a great thing, this should be recognized as a competitive sport,” Dyson said. 

At a typical cheerleading competition, teams perform routines with music that include stunts, jumps and tumbling. The teams are judged by a panel of experts on difficulty and execution.

“Being a cheerleader is hard. It takes school spirit, leadership and pride in the school. They become leaders on the mat and at the grocery store. It takes that kind of leadership. The time commitment never stops, they are representatives of the school and attend all events from cross country to football games. They even support clubs,” Dyson said. 

Competitive cheer sanctioning with the UHSAA was years in the making, but was not entirely supported by the cheer community. The opposition to sanctioning has participants worried that schools will have a competitive team and a separate sideline team for games, and that is not what they want.

“Our team will rotate as they learn stunting and get routines together,” Dyson said.

The coed team at Taylorsville is excited to begin the school year. Dyson said she hopes they have a great year.

The date for the state cheer championships has not been set. Typically it is held in March. λ