Kyley Googins first started cheering back in second grade, and she was hooked. She moved to Scarborough in grade school, cheered for the middle school, cheered at the high school and now the University of Maine sophomore cheers for the Black Bears.
“I thought it’d be worse,” she says of the transition to a college cheerleading squad. “We don’t have as many practices (as in high school). We practice four times a week, and we have gymnastics during the week and games.”
Googins says that at Scarborough High being a cheerleader meant “a lot of structure, discipline and very hard work.” She felt that under coach Cheryl Hitchcock the Red Storm were among the best squads in the state.
Coming off a stress fracture last season, when she only cheered for football, Googins is cheering for basketball as well this year – both the men’s and women’s teams. She has recently been going to physical therapy for a knee injury.
Googins says that most of the passion in Orono is for the nationally-ranked men’s ice hockey team.
“School spirit lacks in the football department,” she says, “and at the basketball games we try to get more involved with the crowd.”
Googins and her team are preparing for the cheerleading nationals in April, and they will also perform at the Maine state high school cheering championships in Augusta in March.
A nursing major, Googins says that after college she might like to work in the Boston area.
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