Monday, December 2, 2024
Felissa Light grew up in Long Beach, went to the city’s schools, and showed her school spirit as a cheerleader.
There have always been youth sports in the city — football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, swimming. But outside of the Long Beach schools, there has never been cheerleading.
“There was no youth cheer here as of two years ago,” Light said.
So, she had an idea: create a youth cheer program for the Long Beach Bulldogs, which are part of the Nassau County Youth Football League.
“I’m a former Long Beach High School cheerleader — that’s my claim to fame,” Light said. “I had approached the head of the league, and he said people have always tried to bring cheerleaders to the league, but no one has been successful. They didn’t think I’d be successful, but I was overwhelmingly successful.”
Light, an advertising sales executive by day, is now in her second school-year “season” of showing young cheerleaders the ropes of sideline cheering. She has 150 of them, kindergartners through seventh-graders, divided into six squads of similar ages.
Sideline cheer takes place on the sidelines of sporting events — like football — to get the crowd more involved and keep energy high. Compare that with competitive cheer, in which cheer teams compete against one another with more elaborate routines in an event where they are the focus.
Light recruited the participants for the youth program on social media by posting on all of the districts’ elementary and middle school pages. She got great responses.
“It just kind of took off,” she said. “It really had a mind of its own. Some squads are bigger than others, but in a community like this, like, how could there not be cheer?”
Light has some help leading the next generation of cheerleaders, with the high school’s varsity cheer coach, Lindsay Pichichero, by her side. Some of the high school cheerleaders help out as well.
“For many years, people in the town were tossing around an idea of starting a cheer program along with the Bulldogs football team,” Pichichero said. “Felissa took the initiative to do that. I just jumped on with her, and I brought in my high school girls as volunteers. I coordinate the cheer end of everything, while she coordinates the logistics end of everything.”
Light plans to take her younger cheerleaders to the “next level” in the coming years, by expanding beyond sideline cheer to the competitive realm of the sport.
“Competition cheer is a combination of cheerleading and dance,” Light said. “It’s a routine, it’s stunting, and you have to come to a different practice. It’s really the next step for the girls that have been doing sideline football to take it to the next level, and I expect this to grow.”
Pichichero has worked in the school district for 19 years, and has been the varsity cheer coach for seven years, after working with middle school and junior varsity cheerleaders.
The youth program is important, she said, because it gives young cheerleaders the chance to learn more advanced skills at an earlier age. When they try out for the school district’s cheer programs, they bring those skills to the middle school, JV and varsity programs, Pichichero explained, taking Long Beach cheer to another level when it comes to the complexity of routines they can perfect for competitive events.
“We go up against towns that have had youth cheer programs for decades,” Pichichero said, referring again to the youth program. “It really gives the kids another thing to do, another opportunity to get started in something young, so they can start to build their skills and confidence.”
Light wants to bring more cheerleaders with her and Pichichero to compete in the Nassau-Suffolk Competition Association, another youth league in which cheerleaders learn and compete beyond sideline cheer. Other towns such as Oceanside and Wantagh compete in NCSA events.
Light took some cheerleaders from her sideline cheer squad to compete for the first time last weekend at Wantagh High School. She also runs a clinic for beginners that are interested in learning to cheer. It’s a small, six-week program.
Those who are interested in cheering for the Bulldogs can email LBBulldogsCheer@gmail.com. For more on the various cheer groups and teams, contact Light at (347) 707-0633.
