TAMPA, Fla. — The USF All-Girl cheer team decided that winning a national championship wasn't their goal. They wanted to win two, and that's exactly what they did at last week's Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA) College Nationals in Orlando.
For the Bulls, it's their second-straight national championship in the Division I-A Game Day competition and the squad’s first in the Division I-A Traditional competition.
USF became the first-ever Division I program to win national titles in both All Girl Game Day and All Girl Traditional competitions in the same year. The wins marked the fifth and sixth UCA national championships earned by the USF cheer programs in the last four years.
"Our motto all season was to 'Leave No Doubt,'" said head coach Sandy Clarke. "To be able to do back-to-back in “Game Day” and “Traditional” in the same year, it gives me chills. Still one of those things that I’m not quite grasping that it’s real."
Cheerleading is a year-round sport at the college level. The athletes said doing all the little things right is the key to finding success on the biggest stage.
"You put 120% out there. Don’t be scared of the routine. Don’t let it consume you," said USF cheerleader Dallas Cornish. "Once you get out there, you do your job. You trust that the entire team is going to do their job, too."
The team usually bonds by watching an inspirational movie together. This year, the coaching staff went outside to box with its selection of film.
"Our coach texted our committee group chat: 'We’re actually going to do ‘Trolls' this year.' At first, I was like, Oh… okay," Cornish laughed when explaining the choice of "Trolls Band Together"- a children's movie.
Regardless of genre, Cornish explained that it still has plenty of life lessons.
"You have to work for what you want. You can’t cut corners. You can’t cheat around and get first place. You have to work hard for it and really want it," she added. "It also taught us family is harmony. It’s more than just teammates. It’s a sisterhood. You’re with these girls all the time. I would do anything for these girls."
Fifty athletes competed between the two competitions, which means getting dozens of parts to move in the same direction.
"We’re trying to be on the same page at the same time," Clarke said. "So we kinda joked about the ‘perfect harmony’ being the perfect routine, and the only way to do that is for all of us to be on the same page at the same time."
"We always like to say before we go out and do a full out; we say 'I got you,'” added national champion Kayla Rivera. "That just means I’m gonna make sure I do my job, so as a whole, we can do our job and succeed."
USF Coed Cheer renewed national competition in 2016 following a 13-year hiatus and progressively climbed up the leaderboard to become a dominant program, finishing 12th (2017), 8th (2018), 4th (2019), 5th (2020), and finally No. 1 in 2021, 2022 and again in 2023.
USF Cheerleading National Titles:
- 2024 UCA Division 1A All Girl Game Day
- 2024 UCA Division 1A All Girl Traditional
- 2023 UCA Division 1A All Girl Game Day
- 2023 UCA Division 1A Large Coed
- 2022 UCA Division 1A Large Coed
- 2021 UCA Division 1A Large Coed
