By Chris Cox
Verdigris cheer coach Gina Osburn has a young squad this year.
“We have a lot of young girls,” she says. “We have 16 girls on the squad this year and 11 of the 16 are ninth and tenth graders. So, we are pretty young. We also have three juniors and two seniors.”
With a young squad, Osburn is expecting to see a lot of growth. Growth from both her team and herself.
“This is my first year as the head coach,” she says. “So, not only are we a young team but we are trying to get a feel for each other. The girls are learning my expectations for them and their expectations of me. It’s a building year and learning and growing year for all of us, myself included. We are trying to create a new culture and climate that is our own.”
When it comes to a culture, Osburn says she is trying to build one of high expectations and consistency.
“From how run practice and when we start practice every day, we are teaching them the expectation is the same every day,” she says. “The expectation is we get in here and get done what we need to get done and then go home. We want to establish a routine. Myself and the assistant coach are big on positivity so we try to keep things positive. We laid out the expectations at the beginning of the season and then we expect the girls to fall in line with that. They’ve done a really good job with that.”
With a young squad, Osburn says she’s excited to see how her cheerleaders improve as the year progresses and how they come together over the next couple of years.
“We have a strong sophomore group,” she says. “Then most of the new freshmen that are on the squad have cheered since youth cheer, so it’s been fun to watch their personalities come out on Friday nights. Our juniors, there is only three of them, but they’ve been great at helping the two seniors with some leadership and setting the expectations for this squad.”
Osburn says the goal for the year is making sure the culture around Miami cheer starts shift. She is confident that shift will happen because the girls on her squad are good kids that like to work hard.
