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Spirit Squad
Panther Spirit
Jan. 29, 2009 You've seen them at nearly every University of Northern Iowa home athletic event running to the court during time-outs and halftime in an attempt to raise Panther spirit. But not only is the UNI dance team spending time spreading spirit to Panther fans - they appeared on a national stage earlier this month at the 2009 Universal Dance Association (UDA) National Championships in Orlando, Fla. The Panther dance team finished sixth at this year's UDA competition, its second-highest finish ever. In order to be selected for the national competition you must send a tape to the UDA of a dance routine. The UDA committee then reviews all the tapes and selects qualifiers for the national competition. After selecting the 27 qualifiers, they are then ranked in order of how the committee believes they will perform at the UDA National Championships. "We work so hard," dance team member Emily Hauser said. "We don't have an actual coach and a lot of other luxuries some schools have. We put our heart and soul into this dance team and it's great to see our hard work pay off and we can pride ourselves on that." At the National Championships, the Panthers competed in the Division I level. There are three levels including Division I, IA and Open. IA is comprised of the larger Division I schools such as Iowa and Minnesota. UNI will compete against such schools as Missouri State, North Dakota State, Idaho State, Cal State-Fullerton and Long Beach State. "We compete against a lot of California schools," team member Jessica Fuller said. "They do have a slight advantage over us because they are big performing arts schools. Most of their team is majoring in dance, while most of our team is majoring in something else and just dancing on the side." Despite not having the same advantages of some of the California colleges they compete against, the dance team has been able to hold their own at the national level. In 2008, the team finished eighth overall and in 2007 they had their highest finish ever, coming in fifth place. The Panther dancers are without an actual coach, but have a staff member from the athletic department that oversees the program. Thus, a choreography committee was established within the dance team to choreograph their routines. Fuller, along with Sierra VanderHelm, Amanda Miller and Trista Powers serve as the captains, scheduling and running practice, and choreographing routines. Besides working on choreographing routines and preparing for the UDA Championships, the twelve dancers that make up the team must split up their time between dance practices, workouts and performing at games. "We stay pretty busy," Fuller said. "Between workouts, games and practice it's a lot." The team practices three times a week for about three hours and then has two workouts in between practice. Combine that with dancing at men's and women's basketball games and some wrestling meets and the Panther dance team has a very busy schedule. Despite putting in countless hours of dancing, there are no scholarships available to any members on the dance team. "We know coming in we're not going to get a scholarship," Fuller said. "I guess for that reason you know people are on the team because of their passion for dancing and not because they are getting school paid for to do it." Because the Panthers have limited funding also, the team comes together to put on a Kid's Clinic to raise money for their trip to Florida. The Panthers hosted their Kid's Clinic on Jan. 3, which was open for area children in grades kindergarten through sixth grade. The kids learned dance routines and cheers and had the opportunity to perform at the basketball game that evening. The clinic not only provided a great opportunity for area children to learn new dances, but also gave the dance team a little extra spending money for Florida. |
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