The North Bergen Recreation youth football season may already be completed, but that doesn’t mean that the cheering has stopped.
While the township’s football players have put away the helmets and shoulder pads until next fall, their biggest fans, namely the 350 or so young ladies who participate in the cheerleading program, continue to yell and jump to their hearts’ content.
Cheerleading is a very serious sport in North Bergen. The participants spend countless hours honing their craft, and their volunteer coaches would love to have the spirited girls practice more and more, if time would allow.
“Our coaches love it,” said Tracy Caffall, North Bergen Recreation’s cheerleading coordinator for the last four years. “They want to practice more than three times a week with the girls, but they do have other activities. They all definitely take it very seriously.”
That was quite evident recently when the town’s entire cheerleading population took a step off the football sidelines to participate in a cheerleading exhibition at North Bergen High School.
At one time, there was a cheerleading competition held, but with the fierce rivalries that materialize within the ranks, Caffall believed that the exhibition, with all of the cheerleaders performing to a big audience, would better suit the needs of the program.
All of the township’s cheerleaders, ages 4 (the Pom-Pom squad) through 14 (the team that cheered for the Red Raiders, the boys’ 14-year-old Pop Warner football team) participated in the event.
Each girl who participated received an award, but there were individual honors given to the most outstanding cheerleader and “Miss Yell” from each of the respective 10 teams, judged by the North Bergen High School Cheerleading Squad.
Caffall, who is a kindergarten teacher at McKinley School, said that the little ones are so into cheerleading that they are constantly practicing their dance routines in her classroom.
“They’re dancing all day,” Caffall said. “Their parents worry if they’re getting their school work done, but they’re able to do both. And I see the older ones practicing with each other in the schoolyard at lunch time.”
Caffall, a product of the North Bergen school system and a graduate of North Bergen High School, said that she was a cheerleader for Horace Mann School when she was a youngster and was part of the baton twirling team, the McLean’s Cleans, which won a state twirling competition in 1986. So she understands just how important cheerleading is to the participants.
“They really feel it’s important,” Caffall said. “Most of the girls choose cheerleading over playing basketball or other sports. And it’s a really great way to keep the girls active and going.”
While the majority of the participants cheer for the respective teams in the youth football program, some of the older girls are selected to participate with an All-Star competition team that does travel to approximately five competitions during the year. There are four coaches who work with the All-Star team, namely Nicole Stiller, Denise Hanford, Maria Diaz, and Christina Rupp.
“Those girls are the cream of the crop,” Caffall explained. “They do back hand springs and other gymnastic moves. We’ve really come a long way.”
Cafall acknowledges it’s an ongoing responsibility.
“It’s definitely a nightmare when it’s time for registration in August, assigning this girl to that team,” Caffall said. “But we have now made it a little easier by having practices uptown and downtown, according to where the girls live. Without the great volunteer coaches, I don’t know what I would do.”
Despite the chaos, Caffall truly enjoys it. “I love doing this for the girls,” Caffall said. “I can see how excited they get and how much this means to them. It’s a great way to be involved with the kids and a great way to help the community. The girls all love being together. They’re able to make friends that they may never get a chance to meet otherwise.”