Cheerleading, Dance, and Men’s Volleyball to Become Varsity Sports Next Year

Elina Kadyrmetova ‘29
kadyrmetovae@lakeforest.edu
Staff Writer

The College prepares to launch three new varsity sports next season. With new coaches in the athletic team, the scouting process for future men’s volleyball, dance, and cheerleading teams will begin soon.

Following the establishment of the volleyball club last year, its membership grew from 5 to 80 people in a couple of weeks, reflecting the surge of nationwide popularity of volleyball among male athletes, which has seen a more than 60% increase in the number of high school teams over the last decade, according to American Volleyball Coaches Association. Daniel Coates, the new coach for the team, hopes to bring this enthusiasm into the building of the inaugural varsity roster.

However, establishing a new sport on the campus athletic scene comes with its own challenges, Coates said.

“It definitely takes a pretty unique sort of athlete to try and get in on the ground floor of a program,” he said.“We’ll be competing against already established rosters, while our team’s going to be mostly freshmen. And there’s not really any sort of pre-established team culture to fall back on”

Some players on campus also look forward to the next season, like sophomore Emil Jones, the captain of the existing club.

“It’s super exciting, especially competing against other schools, being in practices, in the competition gym,” he said. “Walking into that gym, seeing all the banners, the lights, and being on the court, it’s a really awesome feeling.”

Jones also shared that the club already held regular training sessions and open gyms for students and beyond, including high school athletes from the area, which possibly contributed to the decision to create a varsity team.

Erika Navarro, the new coach for the college’s dance and cheerleading teams, is also preparing for the upcoming season. She is expecting to hold workshops for interested students this fall.

“Our first audition would hopefully be in the spring, and then we would go into summer practice and summer camps,” Navarro said.

The appearance of the new varsity sports on campus can bring the existing communities to a new level. The co-captain of the cheerleading club, junior Sadie Pimlott, said that making it competitive may increase interest in the sport, as the club faced some challenges after the COVID-19 epidemic.

”With a trained coach, we’ll be able to do a lot more and learn a lot more; it’ll definitely be more of a structured approach for cheer,” she said.

The expectations for the athletes will also increase. Coach Navarro shared that, alongside preparing to support the college’s teams at home games, the cheerleading team will have additional training for their own competitions.

“Ideally, you’re also doing weights and strength training along with at least three days a week of practice, which should be two to three hours long, so time commitment is the biggest difference,” she said.

For all three of the sports, competitions fall into the second half of the academic year, so we will be able to see the teams at the beginning of 2027, according to their coaches. Cheerleading and dance teams are going to compete in the UCA and UDA National Championships in the next January, and the volleyball team will join the NCAA in the spring of 2027.