Sophomore Bradley Ohmes stares into the glowing screen of his grey iPod, watching seniors Colin Saltzar and Maggie Lamons cheering. He closes his eyes, hums along to the beat, and begins replicating the movements in the cheer. 

“Cougars, let’s show your fight! Yell loud with all your might!” the video echoes. 

It was the day of tryouts, and Ohmes was more nervous than ever.

“I felt like, as the day went on, it was just slowly looming towards tryout time,” Ohmes said. His goal was a Varsity spot, and he was almost certain he would get it.

 He had been practicing since last summer, spending his days tumbling, practicing voice projection, and perfecting his jumps. He had 3:00 tryouts, and he was wearing his cheer outfit to school, a black top with black shorts and red shoes. 

  During math class, Ohmes and his friend, sophomore Bella Letham, went out into the hallway to practice the dances.

“It’s down-up-down,” Lethem says.

 “No, it’s a clap.” Ohmes counters.

The dance low v, broken t, high v, punch, broken punch.

In sixth-hour AP Euro, Ohmes was sitting at his seat. Sophomore Mary-kate Mitchell walks in and looks over at him.

“Hi Bradley, are you excited for tryouts?” Mitchell asks, smiling.

“Yes, I’m so ready,” Ohmes responds.

At the end of Freshman year, Ohmes started seeing professional cheer teams and fell in love with the sport from the moment he saw it. He knew it was something he was meant to do. He had done track and field and cross country and wanted something with more structure. His favorite cheer teams are Miami Metel and Louis university cheer. 

The closer the tryouts came, the more nervous Ohmes got.

He felt scared, the same fear he had last year when he decided to start the sport, the same fear he had last month when the doubt settled in; now it was real. There was only one boy on the cheer team, and he was graduating, and only one other boy was trying out 

“I feel like so many people have adapted to cheer being an all-girls sport, and I think that has kind of influenced how I feel about cheer.”

Ohmes’s Mom didn’t know he was trying out, and his Dad was mostly against him doing it because he was a boy. He’d rather have him do football and be a quarterback like he was. 

“He’s against a lot of things that I do, so I kind of brushed it off,” Ohmes said.

Even though he didn’t take it to heart, it didn’t help the pre-tryout nerves.

Ohmes had never done cheerleading before, but from what he’s heard, being a boy would significantly increase his chances of making varsity, and that tryouts were a formality.

The seventh-hour bell rang, and Ohmes rushed to the locker room. He was the only boy changing for cheer, a stark reminder of the “all-girls sport” stigma he was working to break. 

He had 20 minutes to kill, which he spent finalizing the details of how to enter the room, how to exit, and how to keep a steady smile even when his heart was racing.

Tryouts weren’t held in the gym but rather in transformed classrooms. Desks were pushed to corners, leaving space while two or three judges sat behind the table, their eyes watching every movement.

Ohmes has to rotate between four rooms

1. The jump room: 
2. The dance room
3. The cheer room
4. The Chant room 

The jump room was his first challenge. He performed the required toe touch and a second jump of his choice.

The cheer room was the most daunting for Ohmes.

“Getting my voice projection to where I wanted it while coordinating the movements was the hardest part,” Ohmes said

One of the judges was a well-known figure from KU, a “famous” face from the local cheer world, adding pressure. 

The Chant room the final test of rhythm and spirit for Ohmes.

When it was over, the adrenaline faded into a soft sense of relief, though the “what if’s” still lingered in Ohme’s mind. “Do I just not show up?” he had joked to himself earlier in the day, but now his work was done.

Tryout results were expected to be posted on Instagram around 10:00 pm, but a stroke of bad luck left Ohmes in the dark. His computer was broken. So while everyone else was either celebrating or crying late that night, Ohmes went to bed not knowing his fate.

Tuesday Morning was like every other morning; he put on his red hoodie and black shorts and drove to school. The anticipation finally reached breaking point during the passing period, when he was walking up the stairs, and his friend, sophomore Brynna Emler, delivered the news.

He had made the team

Though he had set his sights on Varsity, seeing his name on the JV list brought a wave of genuine happiness.

“I’ll work with JV,” Ohmes said, “It gives me more time to grow this next year, and hopefully, I can make Varsity my senior year.”