The Varsity Cheer team has had to face a big change this school year after receiving new coaches back in May. Along with new coaches, a JV Cheer team has been brought back this year as a result of having so many new members.
The Varsity Head Coach this year is Kelsey Crawford. Crawford graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia, she is an RTI Specialist at Null Elementry and has been teaching for 13 years. Along with teaching, Crawford has lots of experience with coaching as this is her tenth year as a coach. Before coming to High she coached at Battle High School. Crawford grew up in St. Charles and has always wanted to return back one day.
“I love working in the St. Charles School District and I’m really enjoying learning about St. Charles High’s history and traditions,” she said.
Crawford loves cheerleading because it combines teamwork, strength, endurance and leadership and as she plans to continue coaching in the future, her favorite part about being a coach is helping athletes push themselves to achieve their goals.
The new Varsity Assistant Coach is Auburn Hughes. Hughes graduated from St. Piux X High School and started out college by cheering at Missouri S&T, but transferred to Webster University after her first year. This is where she just recently graduated from back in May. Throughout her cheering career she took on the role of being captain her junior and senior year of both high school and college. Her captain role consisted of choreographing routines, mixing music, teaching cheers and giving her teammates helpful techniques. Her favorite part about coaching is getting to share her love and passion she has for the sport and also teach others along the way.
Hughes plans to continue coaching in the future as she has always wanted to coach cheer, especially at the high school level as it’s an important time for devolpment and it’s where she believes she can make the biggest impact.
The JV Coach for this year is Brittany Noah. Noah is a St. Charles High alum and throughout high school she participated in danceline, soccer, volleyball and cheer. Although she didn’t play all these sports at once, she loved to be involved and try new things for a change. Noah has never coached cheer, but she has prior experience with coaching soccer and volleyball.
Outside of coaching she refers to herself as a “domestic engineer” as she stays home to care for her three children and also manage the household. She is also very involved with volunteering and organizing events. Noah is enjoying her first year coaching as it has brought her so much joy.
In the future she would love the opportunity to continue coaching cheer as it’s been wonderful for her to reconnect with familiar faces and build new friendships within the school community.
Senior Paisley McCadney who has cheered all four years of high school appreciates the time and effort being put into the team as a result of the new coaches.
“I like that we’ve been taking practices more seriously with stretching and conditioning,” she said.
Captain Rosaisela Cordero-Sanchez has cheered all four years of high school starting basketball season her freshman year and believes the team has made progress throughout the past few months.
“We’ve been working on more pyramids and I feel like that’s where we used to struggle a lot, I think pyramids have been getting a lot better,” she said.
