how many cheers on your 'list'

[coachkimmy]

I recently took over a program and their 'cheer list' has close to 70 cheers and chants.  We have started weeding through the list and updating some of the much older chants, and it got me thinking how many cheers and chants others schools have on their lists.  Any thoughts?

[CheerHounds]

We have about 40 sidelines and cheers. We don't have simple chants like "defense xx defense'' etc. on the list because those are so easy that they don't need them written down. We have about 10 of each - general, offense, defense and longer "show" cheers they use for timeouts/quarters with stunts, etc.

[LCSD1 coach]

If you add up football offense and defense, general chants, cheers, volleyball chants, basketball offense and defense, crowd involvment and wrestling chants we have well over 250.  Granted some are repeats.  We just change it from football to make it work for basketball.

Then we also have around 15 band dances.

A lot to learn.

[coolcoach]

We have about 50 cheers and chants total (for both FB & BB) . The girls have about 10 band dances also.

[alumnicoach]

We have about 67 (give or take a few sport specific ones).
The question is, out of 67......how many do they actually perform? Ummm, probably the same 10-15 

[Kong]

we have well over 250.

Great gobs of goose goo!  It may be time to start weeding through some of those!

Kong

[candcrew]

We have 84 All Purpose Sidelines, 47 FB and 42 BB sidelines on our lists BUT we don't learn all of them.  For FB we had maybe 40 that included all our crowd response & timeout stuff + everything we did this year was super-simple and easy for the crowd to follow.  For BB we have learned 40 so far and have maybe 10 or so left to learn . . . again, we've cut it down to to really simple, crowd-oriented stuff. (Many of the BB sidelines are just "recycled" FB sidelines so the crowd still know them.)

I mainly keep this many on our lists because some years we delete some sidelines that the crowd isn't responsive to and replace it with another one.  There are sidelines from 10+ years ago that we weeded out a while back but have brought back because they "work" again.

[Diptera]

Does anyone have a list of cheers that they would like to send me? Living in the UK school cheerleading is a new thing and there is no-one to 'borrow' off so we have to make up our own - which tend to be very unimaginative as culturally we are not used to it. Any or all suggestions gratefully recieved.

[cobwebbedroses]

The words aren't really so much of what is "imaginative" as the motions.  Really once you start looking for chants and cheers, they all start to sound the same! At least to me...

Having nice clean motions with visually interesting combos (especially for longer half time cheers) will make the cheers more personal to your school. 

And sometimes it takes a few seasons and tries to find what works!

[Diptera]

I know it's just that not having a chant history in this country it's hard to get beyond the:

Lets XX
Go XX
Lets Go XX
SJP

and the:

K-I-CK XX
Kick it high
S-H-OOT XX
Shoot it now
S-C-ORE XX
Score! Score! Score!

[CoachErin]

My cheer list is about 160 strong. Combined of chants and cheers for football and basketball. Like others some do repeat, just change the wording a bit. But for the most part they are all different. We always get compliments for not repeating cheers over and over again.

[alumnicoach]

*blowing the dust off this topic*
As we approach a new season, I've decided to cut our chant list in half.
I'm okay with them doing the same cheer repeatedly, hopefully the crowd will eventually learn the few they're doing and actually start cheering with them.

I couldn't image teaching 90+ chants and expecting my crowd to know them too 

[LCSD1 coach]

I am feeling the same way but when we don't do certain ones the crowd starts asking for them.  I have over 250 this consists of general chants football offense and defense, volleyball, basketball offense and defense, wrestling, crowd involvment and  cheers.  Whew We just finished learning all of the general chants and are ready to learn cheers and football stuff.  But we spend a lot of time on this so cutting back will be good for us too.

[RPCmme]

Sideline cheers/chants should be minimal, in my opinion.  The chants are there to lead the crowd, and the student body is not going to remember a lot of chants.  We have a lot of sideline chants, but truthfully we use about 20 a game.  We repeat a lot of them thoughout a game, but our crowd participation has increased greatly. 

We have students who actually know the chants by name and request them at key points.  One student even made a pictoral poster of our sideline "Roll it, now shake it, victory let's take it" with a picture of a roll of toilet paper and a salt shaker!  Our fans know what to yell at first downs and interceptions due to our consistent sideline cycle.

Isn't that what cheerleading is all about?

[ucaCHEERalum]

*blowing the dust off this topic*
As we approach a new season, I've decided to cut our chant list in half.
I'm okay with them doing the same cheer repeatedly, hopefully the crowd will eventually learn the few they're doing and actually start cheering with them.

Great Idea alumnicoach.  Ever wonder why your crowd won't yell with you?  It may be that you just have to gosh darn many cheers...but another reason could be that your chants may be too wordy.

Seriously, your crowd is only going to yell the chants that they like (these are also almost always the easy ones...go figure).  Having a few offense, defense, and neutral chants is really all you need. 

Think of it this way...we are asking the crowd to do two things at once...watch a game that they are really into and yell.  Seems simple, right?  Until your girls chime in with their favorite... 

"Cheerleaders Shake it Shake it
Fans bake it bake it
Now let's take it take it
to the other team!"

"Rockets let's score let's score
push it through (pause) for 6 more"

or even a gem like this'n...

"We want noise, We want Noise, Let's here it for the BOYs!"

I couldn't image teaching 90+ chants and expecting my crowd to know them too 

If you want your crowd to yell with don't overwhelm them with a ton of different cheers.  Also remember to keep your chant simple, easy, and make it something that your average fan would feel comfortable yelling.  "Defense XX, Defense XX", "B H S X, B H S X", or "G O, G O, Lets Go Bears X" 

[alumnicoach]

Sideline cheers/chants should be minimal, in my opinion.  The chants are there to lead the crowd,
Isn't that what cheerleading is all about?

Absolutely! Quality over quantity right?!?!
We're about at 35 from original 75 on my initial chant list.  Heck, I don't even miss the 40 I cut.  They were probably, as UCA stated, too wordy or just downright silly.  The motions, the words...what was I thinking?

[Miss April]

AWESOME suggestions here!  Some are so obvious, like why didn't I think of that 

[CoachKgoMeanGreen]

We have tons of cheers and chants on our list. Plus adding the ones we learned at camp, we are looking at around 10-12 pages of cheers and chants. The problem I am having is traditions, you know, the small chants that the squad yells before they perform, or during a time out?? We have 3 I believe, I'm just looking for more. This is my first year as a coach, but I know and remember what it's like being on the other side. If anyone has any ideas.....GO EAGLES!!

[Ash5432]

So i really need help. Tryouts are in 10 days and i can't think of anything for a tryout cheer. has to be kinda long but kinda short with some kind of moves which i can do.. but i am really desperate right now.. if you can helppp pleaseee please do i would appreicate it alott.  Our teams name is Warriors and our colors of course lol are black orange & white thank you sooo much

[RPCmme]

You can use this.  It's a good way to see how they would hit the crowd with fillers, such as "yell with us" and so on.

1 2 3 4
Warrior fans it's time to shout
Yell our colors -- Yell them out
Black Orange White -- BLACK ORANGE WHITE
Warrior fans it's time to shout
Fight to win without a doubt
Fight Warriors Fight -- FIGHT WARRIORS FIGHT
Warrior fans it's time to shout
Yell together -- Yell it out
Black Orange White -- Fight Warriors Fight
BLACK ORANGE WHITE -- FIGHT WARRIORS FIGHT

Note--we use the same motions for the lines "Warrior fans it's time to shout" and the next line "Yell our colors/Fight to win/Yell together".  Longer cheer, but can simplify the motions to repeat.