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Friday
March 29th, 2024

reckless cheer groupThe Reckless cheer team gathers outside the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla., for a photo prior to the Summit Division II Championship earlier this month. Courtesy photoROBERT PIERCE • Leader & Times

 

A cheerleading group made up of youth from a wide region, including Liberal, was formed about a year ago.

The group’s name is Reckless, and Coach Talon Harper said practices for the team began in June 2021 and continued through July 2021. In the final two weeks of July, choreography was part of practice.

Fellow Coach Kory Kosegi then started putting team routines together and cleaning up each section. The latter was done in August and October, and in the first week of November, Reckless had a showcase.

The next week, the team went to its first competition, a National Cheerleaders Association contest in Denver, at which Reckless got an at-large bid.

The group would go on to compete in the America’s Best competition and Jam Fest Super Nationals in Indianapolis, which Harper said is the largest  jam fest in America.

“There’s roughly about 600 teams that competed at that event,” he said.

Out of those 600 teams, Reckless won the competition by eight points, which Harper said is unheard of in the cheerleading world.

“Usually, it’s by .01 to .03 is what the difference is between first and fifth place,” he said. 

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Reckless then competed at an NCA competition in Dallas with 26,000 athletes competing there, making the three-day event the largest cheer competition in the world.

“Every team competes two days,” Harper said. “We wound up competing Saturday and Sunday.”

Reckless would again take home the top prize in Dallas. Harper said the talented team is a traveling group made up of all-stars in their sport.

“Our kids come anywhere from Scott City,” he said. “We have kids who drive from Buffalo, Okla. We have kids from Dighton, Holcomb, Liberal, Meade, Greensburg, Holly, Colo., Woodward, Okla. We’ve got some kids within a huge range of distance who drive to us for cheer just because Fusion Athletics has their gym to go to.”

The Fusion Athletics gym is based in Garden City, and Harper said every kid who tries out for the team makes the team.

“We put them where they’re going to be successful within a team,” he said. “That’s done by age first, and then it’s done by skill level after that.”

Earlier in May, Reckless took home another first place in a competition even bigger than NCA. The team won the Summit Division II Championship in Orlando, Fla. Harper said teams for that competition have to receive a bid to participate.

“With bids, they have at-large, wild card and paid bids,” he said. “Friday’s event was a wild card event. The top usually three teams advance to finals from that round. On Saturday, that was the paid bid/at-large event. An at-large and wild card is basically you’ve been invited to go this competition. There’s no extra work with that.”

Harper said a paid bid, which Reckless received, comes with paid housing and athletes’ competition fees, which runs about $600 to $700.

Reckless had to make it out of the Saturday round to compete on Sunday, and in the end, the area team was 1.01 points ahead of the second place team.

Liberal resident Mirella Buchman, mother of one of the Reckless cheerleaders, said with no cheer background of her own, competitive cheerleading is completely new to her.

“I’m learning as I go,” she said.

When she heard Reckless had won Summit, Buchman reacted in a way many parents would in the same situation.

“It definitely brought tears just to see all the hard work the coaches put in and the athletes put in and to see on their faces how happy and proud they were of themselves,” she said. “We couldn’t stop crying. I recorded it, sent it to my husband. He’s like, ‘I can’t even hear what they’re saying. You’re moving too much.’”

As a coach, Harper said winning NCA is the top goal for cheer, but because of the invite-only process, winning Summit was a completely different experience for him.

“There’s a lot more gyms that have NCA titles versus gyms that have Summit titles,” he said.

Still in its beginning stages, Harper said Reckless team members have pulled together quite well, making the best of their inaugural season.

“They also went undefeated this season,” he said. “They didn’t lose a single competition they went to, which is very unheard of as well.”

Taking pride in their team’s performances, Harper said there were also tears in the eyes of the coaches after Summit.

“There’s a lot that can go on in two minutes and 30 seconds,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that can go wrong. From my perspective, they did amazing at Summit. I think the kids enjoyed the entire season. I don’t think any of them would take back having the success they’ve had this entire season.”

To achieve success such as Reckless did at Summit takes many qualities, one of which Harper said is dedication.

“They definitely have to all get along,” she said. “They have to do their part. Competitive cheerleading is not a one-person sport. Everybody has to be on the same page. It’s putting in a lot of hard work.”

Members of the Reckless team practice five hours a week, and with competitions like NCA and Summit, Harper said that time was even larger.

“We practiced an extra four hours two weeks before,” he said. “They were in the gym 10 hours before two weeks before Summit and two weeks before NCA. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of dedication.”

Team members and parents both give up many things to make a group like Reckless possible.

“It’s definitely something where you’re either committed or not committed, and all these kids were committed the entire season,” Harper said. “On the top of the cheer portion, they’re all required to take tumbling, and a lot of these kids are taking two hours a week. During a general week, they’re in the gym for six hours.”

Buchman said with a traveling team such as Reckless, the commitment does not come from just the athletes, but also from parents and the rest of the family.

“Not only is the athlete spending that time at the gym, but the parent is also spending that time away from the family and from the kids,” she said. “We had a family meeting, and we voted ‘Yes we’re going to pursue this.’ Two of my kids are cheerleading. One of my boys is taking tumbling classes from here.”

Buchman said she and her husband were athletes growing up, but she said cheerleading is more about the atmosphere of the sport.

“How is this going to help my child become a successful adult?” she said. “Seeing the changes in my kid, you can ask the coaches. My daughters wouldn’t talk to them. It was borderline rude from my standpoint, but the coaches were like, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get there. They’ll open up.’”

After some work with coaches, Buchman said her children are now more comfortable talking to people.

“Just seeing the personality change and the confidence they gained from being on the team, that for me was enough,” she said. “Yes they’re becoming great athletes. Yes they might have a chance of getting scholarships, but as a parent, I’m looking more at how is this going to affect my child as an overall person. So far, we’ve had great results.” 

Buchman is employed at Liberal’s Southwest Medical Center, and she recommends Reckless to all of her coworkers.

“I tell them, ‘Come, we can carpool,’” she said. “Not only are they growing as athletes, but they’re growing as a person as well.”

So how does one become a part of the Reckless team? Harper said that is done mostly through word of mouth.

“We do a lot of advertising,” he said. “It does work a little bit. A lot of towns don’t have the luxury of having a gymnastics facility in their town, let alone one of the top three gyms in the country.”

Harper said becoming a part of the team is as simple as having the athlete and parent fill out a contract.

“The athletes go through an evaluation,” he said. “From there, they’re placed on a team. We don’t call a parent and say, ‘Sorry, we don’t have room for you.’ We want all these kids to enjoy the sport of cheerleading. We want everyone to experience that.”

With a mother who coached cheerleading for 13 years, Harper grew up in All-Star and high school cheer.

“All-Star is what got me my scholarship for college,” he said. “Colleges know if it’s an all-star athlete trying out and they maintain their grades in school, the dedication and time commitment for an All-Star athlete versus a high school athlete is night and day difference.”

Harper said All-Star athletes are more likely to get scholarships simply because of their level of experience.

“They’re not going to have to teach things because they getting generally taught correctly in the gym, whereas a high school coach could be a sponsor or they could be a coach,” he said. “It could just be a parent who’s filling in because they don’t have anybody qualified. All-star gym, every coach in the gym is qualified to be coaching the sport of cheerleading.”

Buchman said the athletic aspect of cheerleading is great, but so too is seeing young people learn time management.

“They’re still going to school,” she said. “Some of these athletes are still participating in their school sports. They’re still doing volleyball. They’re still doing track. They’re still doing choir, drama, all that stuff, and they have to manage their time. How much time do I have to do my homework and to make it to practice?”

Reckless is currently made up of 14 athletes, and Buchman said even one team member missing practice can let down the rest of the group who has made a commitment.

“For you to not come through, that’s a big responsibility,” she said. “These are life skills they’re learning as well, and what parent wouldn’t want that for their kid?”

Harper said adults try to help youth with schedules as much as possible, bu t they also tell them to limit their sports to one to two per season.

“Otherwise, you’re going to be missing too much practice, and if someone’s missing practice, practice doesn’t get run like it needs to,” he said. “Having boys on our team, it helps with a lot of things. Generally, boys are taller. Boys are stronger than girls, but there’s a lot of times, girls are stronger than boys. We definitely enjoy having boys on our team.”

Harper said mobile tumbling was done in Liberal in the past, and plans call for it to be started up again in the near future.

“We’re hoping we can start in June,” he said. “We’re getting our contract out for a building we could use. When we came to Liberal last time, we had more than 100 kids who enrolled for that first month. Liberal definitely needs another gymnastics place, competitive cheerleading program there.”

Harper said the bonding process for Reckless is helped through a process that is unlike any other sport in which he has participated.

“They’re friends,” he said. We do team bonding events outside of the gym. Our team moms who help us for each team, they set up bonding events so kids can be around each other more.”

Harper said in this way, cheerleaders not only have the aspect of practice, but also that of extra activities.

“These kids are having to pick,” he said. “Do I want to play football? Do I want to play basketball? Do I want to do track? Do I want to do cross country? Do I want to play golf, softball? They’re having to limit their school sports because they love the sport of cheerleading.”