University of Delaware Athletics
Celebration of Champions: 2001 Cheerleading Team Wins National Championship
2/4/2021 12:00:00 PM | Delaware Athletics
The 2001 University of Delaware cheerleading team captured the Division I title at the 2001 UCA College Nationals.
The Blue Hens claimed their first title by ending Morehead State's 10-year winning streak.
"We didn't go in thinking that we were going to win a National Championship," said head coach Joe Mackley. "We simply wanted to have an incredibly difficult routine and hit it. Hitting it was the most important part because we hadn't done that in the past."
More than 100 family members, friends and university faculty took the trip down to Florida to root for their Blue Hen mascot, cheer and dance teams as they competed for their respective titles. Their fans' loyal support was difficult to miss the evening of the partner stunt competition, where the teams competed at the BET SoundStage Club in Disney's Pleasure Island.
"It was amazing," recalled senior co-captain Veronica Carr. "It felt great to have such a presence there and to hear everyone chant 'We are – UD!'"
UD's ability to continually map out innovative routines had helped land them a spot in the Top 10 at Nationals during the previous three years.
"This year's pyramids and transitions actually came to me while I was sleeping," said Mackley. UD's opening sequence was modeled after a difficult lift performed near the end of the popular 1992 ice skating flick, The Cutting Edge.
The UD program was made up of two teams: the 16-member coed blue squad, which cheered for home and away football and men's basketball games, and the gold squad, which cheered for home football and women's basketball games, and was predominantly all-girl. Blue team males and females are required to have major tossing stunts, as well as standing and running tumbling.
portions of this article taken from American Cheerleading Magazine
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The Blue Hens claimed their first title by ending Morehead State's 10-year winning streak.
"We didn't go in thinking that we were going to win a National Championship," said head coach Joe Mackley. "We simply wanted to have an incredibly difficult routine and hit it. Hitting it was the most important part because we hadn't done that in the past."
More than 100 family members, friends and university faculty took the trip down to Florida to root for their Blue Hen mascot, cheer and dance teams as they competed for their respective titles. Their fans' loyal support was difficult to miss the evening of the partner stunt competition, where the teams competed at the BET SoundStage Club in Disney's Pleasure Island.
"It was amazing," recalled senior co-captain Veronica Carr. "It felt great to have such a presence there and to hear everyone chant 'We are – UD!'"
UD's ability to continually map out innovative routines had helped land them a spot in the Top 10 at Nationals during the previous three years.
"This year's pyramids and transitions actually came to me while I was sleeping," said Mackley. UD's opening sequence was modeled after a difficult lift performed near the end of the popular 1992 ice skating flick, The Cutting Edge.
The UD program was made up of two teams: the 16-member coed blue squad, which cheered for home and away football and men's basketball games, and the gold squad, which cheered for home football and women's basketball games, and was predominantly all-girl. Blue team males and females are required to have major tossing stunts, as well as standing and running tumbling.
portions of this article taken from American Cheerleading Magazine
Â
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