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Stephanie Pratto, new Bulldog cheerleading coach, plans to maintain Bulldog traditions

The Chelsea Cheer leading squad works on a stunt at a recent practice.
The Chelsea Cheerleading squad works on a stunt at a recent practice.

When new varsity and middle school cheerleading coach Stephanie Pratto watched the about 30 members of this year’s two squads practice, it brought back wonderful memories of her days in cheer at Grass Lake High School.

“It’s so much fun for me,” the new coach said of coaching the cheer squad.

When asked why she decided to get involved in cheerleading Pratto said, “Cheer is being part of a team and I still have lifelong friends that developed because of it.”

In her first season as the head coach for both teams, she says the program is growing.
During the second week of three-day-a-week, pre-season practices, there are 18 varsity and eight middle school girls at the two hour-practices, which take place inside the gym at the Washington Street Education Center.

And, after taking over the program from Marti Williams, who coached the team for 12 years, Pratto plans to have 18 high school girls on the sidelines for this fall’s football season.

Plus, she has the luxury of six experienced senior athletes and an assistant coach,  Pratto’s sister, Tracie Elkins, who was a cheerleader and graduated from Chelsea High School in 2013.

This year’s squad will be led by seniors Alyssa Gray, Amber Barth, Holly McKenna, Marieke de Meijer, Olivia Perry and Tobin Vaughan.

During the first practices there were six sophomores and four freshmen practicing on the varsity squad as well.

The team plans about 20 different cheers – 10 for offensive, 10 for defense, five neutral and 5 crowd chants. Plus, between quarters and during timeouts, they plan to perform stunts. After touchdowns, they sometimes will do stunts and some end zone tumbling as well.

In fact, there are about 50 cheers in the team’s bag of tricks.

The cheer squad travels with the football team, they make special posters for the player’s lockers on Thursdays before the games, and they have a pre-game meal with the football team. In short, they support the team in many ways.

“I’ll be keeping true to Chelsea traditions,” Pratto said of this year’s plans.

As a club sport, cheerleading does not receive funding from the school district or the Chelsea Athletic Boosters, rather they must do their own fundraising and are planning a big can drive to kick off those efforts on July 11 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Pratto is hoping that everyone will keep their returnable bottles and cans following their July 4 celebrations and donate them to the cheerleading team.

If you would like to participate, please put them in garbage bags and leave them on your front porch. In addition to going door to door, folks can also drop off their bottles and cans at the Beach Middle School staff parking lot from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

The funds raised will help to offset the costs of uniforms, warm-ups, hair bows, pom-poms and shoes.

“They have to pay for everything from head to toe,” Pratto says.

Cheerleading has a board, which oversees the sport led by Christal McKenna, president, Jill de Meijer, vice president and Angie Merrill, treasurer. Fundraising coordinator is Lauren Hughes.

CHS-Varsity-Cheer---Bottle-&-Can-Drive-(2015)

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