Special Report

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

George Washington High’s cheer squad is the first Philly public school to make it to nationals — even without the resources many competitors have. Now they need to figure out how to get there.

• By Kristen A. Graham
• Published Sep 24, 2022

Other cheerleading teams arrive at competitions wearing matching designer gear, jackets with their names professionally stitched, accompanied by coaches in suits and heels, and dozens of parents hanging on their children’s every move.

The relatively new George Washington cheer team shows up in T-shirts, with no professional choreographer, no entourage. The team barely has a budget.

But somehow, the members of this improbable squad earned a spot in the largest all-star cheerleading competition in the world — and they are the first Philadelphia School District cheer team to win berths in state and national competitions.

Like the rest of the team, senior Irsida Kola badly wants to raise the $30,000 it would take to send 20 young women and men to the January nationals in Dallas. She’s working day and night, selling lollipops, talking to potential donors, planning more fund-raisers.

But even if the team’s quest to earn enough money falls short, its success already means much to George Washington, a diverse neighborhood school of 1,700 where most students come from low-income families and one in four is an English-language learner.

“At our school, we don’t have many wins,” said Kola, 17, who was born in Albania. “For us to be cheerleading and give the school all these wins, it’s history.”

‘We’re just a school from Philadelphia’

Inside George Washington’s cavernous gym, coaches Michele Sorkin-Socki and Veronica Hayes stood facing the team on a hot September Tuesday. Sweat poured down nearly everyone’s face — the gym, like many city school spaces, is not air-conditioned — and team members dusted their hands with chalk to make sure they didn’t slip during lifts.

“Five, six, seven, eight, up,” Hayes called out to a stunt group training a new flyer — that’s the cheerleader who gets lifted into the air. The flyer wobbled a little but stuck the landing. Hayes nodded, not satisfied, but getting there.

“Again,” she said.

Sorkin-Socki used to be the dance teacher at George Washington; her program eventually fell victim to budget cuts, and now she teaches special education. For years, she ran an after-school dance program, and the team would cheer and perform routines at football games.

Then six years ago, Hayes, a health and physical education teacher, floated the idea of starting a team that did not just sideline cheerleading but competitive cheer as well — a combination of dance, tumbling, stunts, and more, with precise rules and a point system.

The first year Sorkin-Socki and Hayes worked together, 2016-17, George Washington won third place in its PIAA District XII Public League division. People took notice.

“They’d say to us, ‘Who are you?’” Hayes said. The team quickly established itself as a force.

They continued during the pandemic, a lifeline for the team while the school district was virtual for an entire year. The coaches managed to find a local community center that allowed them to drag their mats in, with masks, just to keep sharp. (The Washington gym was not adequately ventilated.)

These days, the team is the three-time reigning Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association District XII Public League champion in the coed division. It was named a state semifinalist, a coup for a Philadelphia team competing against suburban and private-school teams with considerably more resources — parent booster clubs, trips to professional cheer clinics, five or more coaches who concentrate on cheerleading.

“We teach five classes each,” said Sorkin-Socki. “I run graduation. We are class sponsors. We do a million other things here within the school.”

Some teams they compete against have been cheering since they were in elementary school. Virtually every member of the George Washington squad had never cheered or tried gymnastics before they walked in the gym for tryouts. The team can’t afford to send its members to cheerleading camps.

On the day Washington was named semifinalists in Hershey, Pa., before the largest crowd some of the team members had ever seen, some spectators were stunned that the Philadelphia public school had done so well.

“We went to collect our score sheets, and they said: ‘Do you have a place to stay tonight? Do you need anything to eat?’”

Adamaris Lopez, a senior and cocaptain with Kola, tried out for the team as a freshman because her friend asked her to. It was a lark — she was scared of heights and crowds, and thought that if you couldn’t do a split you were automatically disqualified.

But the team has transformed her. And hearing that roaring crowd at states, getting a taste of what nationals might be like if the team can raise enough money to get there, was a highlight of her high school career.

“Some of us said, ‘We’re not going to do anything big, we’re just a school from Philadelphia, we don’t have the money,’” Lopez said. “But we did.”

‘We’re learning as we go’

Making it to nationals has vaulted the team to a new level. While Sorkin-Socki and Hayes have PIAA regulations down, the National Cheerleaders Association rules are different.

“We’re learning as we go, every single day,” said Hayes, who just booked hotel rooms for the team.

There’s a long list of things to consider: getting school district approval for the trip, keeping social media current to fuel interest in the team, checking student grades to make sure everyone is academically eligible, and the ever-present pressure to find funds. (So far, they’re up to $11,000 through the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, the district’s fund-raising arm, and a few other fund-raisers. A local business will hold an event to raise money for the team in October in Center City.)

Team members practice five days a week, two to three hours a day. But they’re also getting an object lesson in marketing their cause.

“The girls have to constantly be on. There’s a lot of pressure on them right now,” Hayes said of the team, which has 28 total members.

“In suburban schools, this is a nonissue; their parents just pay the bill,” Sorkin-Socki said. The team established its own nonprofit, but the board members include Hayes and Sorkin-Socki’s mother and aunt.

The hustle is worth it, said Lopez.

“Before this, I just wanted to get high school over with,” said Lopez. “This has given me confidence, the ability to perform, get over my fears.”

‘It’s hard work, right?’

It was Roland Williams’ first-ever day as a cheerleader. As a captain of the football team, he’s usually too busy to attend cheer practice, but Sorkin-Socki and Hayes needed a few young men to balance out the coed team and sold Williams hard on the merits of the sport, and the potential perks, including a trip to Dallas.

“We fight the stigma that this isn’t a sport,” said Antonios Pitsakis, a George Washington assistant principal. “For anyone who says that, I say, ‘You try it.’”

Williams may have arrived with some skepticism, but it quickly dissipated when he realized both the intricacies of the choreography and the sheer effort of the work.

“I need water!” Williams shouted after 30 minutes of lifts, trying to figure out where to put his hands, how to keep them steady.

“It’s hard work, right?” Hayes asked. Williams just nodded.

As the team’s first sideline cheering experience of the school year approached, the team spent more time perfecting cheers. (The football team has played other games, and Sorkin-Socki and Hayes wanted to take them, but the school district’s meager transportation budget meant there was no way to get cheerleaders to those games, and with the city’s gun violence, the coaches didn’t want to risk putting the team on public transportation.)

That day, Sorkin-Socki dumped a box of pompoms on the gym floor. There weren’t enough for everyone, but they would improvise.

“EAGLES! Shine bright! Steal the win, let’s go, let’s fight!” the squad shouted.

“If you don’t know the words, you’d better learn them,” Sorkin-Socki said. “If you go to a football game and you don’t know the words, it will be the last football game you ever cheer.”

When Kola first started, the 5-foot-11 novice wasn’t able to lift other cheerleaders, but now she’s much stronger. And with the team in the spotlight, her father is proud, even though he still doesn’t understand cheerleading.

“His English isn’t good, and he doesn’t know what we do,” said Kola. “But he’s excited.”

But most of all, she loves the idea that with hard work and a little luck, her team could put Philly public school cheerleaders on the map.

“We like proving people wrong,” she said.