High School Cheer Tryout Clinic and Evaluation

Plan for a thorough cheer tryout clinic so that athletes trying out for your cheer team will feel confident during evaluations. Cheer tryouts can be intimidating to athletes trying out, so preparing a cheer tryout clinic where athletes feel prepared will help you choose the best candidates for your cheerleading team.

High School Cheer Tryout Clinic and Evaluation

1. Create a Cheer Tryout Score Sheet
2. Choose Material for Cheer Tryouts
3. Cheer Tryout Clinic Agenda
4. Cheer Tryout Evaluation
5. Announcing the Cheer Team

Check out my guide to high school cheerleading tryouts: The Ultimate Guide to Cheer Tryouts for Coaches

Create a Cheer Tryout Score Sheet

Decide what you are looking for in your cheerleading team and what you plan to have the judges evaluate at tryouts. Build your cheer tryout score sheet according to the skills that are important to your cheer squad.

Elements to add to your tryout score sheets:

• Athlete Number
• Name/Initials of Judge
• Appearance/Confidence
  • Voice Projection
  • Spirit/Enthusiasm
  • Smiles/Facials
• Cheer
  • Voice Projection
  • Knowledge of Material
  • Sharp Motions
• Dance
  • Knowledge of Material
  • Sharp Motions
  • Showmanship
• Jumps
  • Technique
  • Execution
• Tumbling
  • Technique
  • Difficulty
  • Execution

If you are looking for an editable Cheer Tryout Score Sheet, I have one you can purchase as part of my Cheer Tryout Editable Score Sheets and Packet

Choose Material for Cheer Tryouts

Decide what material you expect athletes to perform during cheer tryouts. Ensure they have enough time to learn the material during the cheer tryout clinic. The more confident that the athletes feel while trying out, the better their scores will be. This will give you a true idea of who to choose for the cheer team.

At our high school cheer tryout clinic, we teach motions, a cheer, a dance, and jumps. You can also include a band dance or sideline dance.

Invite your graduating seniors to teach create and/or teach the material to the athletes trying out for the cheer team. This is a great leadership opportunity for graduating seniors. This also frees up the cheer coaches to supervise the cheer tryout clinic.

Cheer Tryout Clinic Agenda

Here is an example of a Cheer Tryout Clinic Agenda

5:30-7:30 Cheer Tryout Clinic Day 1

• 5:30 Warm Up & Stretch
• 5:45 Teach Motions
• 6:00 Teach Jumps
• 6:15 Teach Cheer
• 6:45 Teach Dance
• 7:20 Mock Cheer Tryout

5:30-7:30 Cheer Tryout Clinic Day 2

• 5:30 Warm Up & Stretch
• 5:45 Review Motions & Jumps
• 6:00 Review Cheer
• 6:15 Review Dance Dance
• 6:45 Open Practice
• 7:20 Draw for Cheer Tryout Number

Have the athletes pull a number from a bag to determine their tryout order. On the day of tryouts, give them a name tag with the number clearly displayed.

We allow the athletes who are trying out to take a video of the cheerleaders performing the cheer and dance so that they can go home and practice. The reason we do this is because during the season we send videos of cheers and dances to our cheerleaders anyways so that they can practice on their own.

This has also helped reduce the number of times that an athlete will completely freeze during their tryout. As a judge or coach, it is difficult to watch the athletes freeze and I know that it is 100x more defeating for the athletes when that happens. I do not want them to feel defeated, so the more prepared we can help them to feel, the better.

My belief is if all cheerleaders give their truly best performance during tryouts, then we can make a confident decision on the strongest members for the next cheerleading team.

Cheer Tryout Evaluation

We ask the athletes trying out to wear a plain black shirt, black shorts, hair up, no jewelry and athletic shoes.

Create a schedule of the athletes trying out. For example:

• 5:30 Athlete 1
• 5:35 Athlete 2
• 5:40 Athlete 3
• 5:45 Athlete 4

It is easy during the evaluation process for judges to lose track of time, but we found that providing all judges with a schedule helps the process go by quickly.

Have the judges sitting at one table with a score tabulator at the end of the table. Place a stack of cheer tryout score sheets in front of each judging station with a couple of pens. As each athlete comes into the room to tryout, have the judges score as they perform. Then, have the judges pass their score sheet down the table to the tabulator. Have the tabulator calculate the scores and place them in order from highest to lowest score.

If there will be cuts, be sure the athletes know ahead of time. There will be a natural break in scores where there is a large gap between the top cheer tryout scores to the lowest cheer tryout scores. Hold on to the score sheets after cheer tryouts.

Announcing the Cheer Team

Decide how you will announce the cheer team and tell the athletes and their families at the Mandatory Parent Meeting when the team will be announced. Some ideas include:

• Posting the list on the window of the gym
• Posting the list on the window of the office
• Sending an email to each athlete
• Posting the list on the cheer team social media account

Host a Mandatory New Cheer Team Meeting to start the new year!

To recap High School Cheer Tryout Clinic and Evaluation

1. Create a Cheer Tryout Score Sheet
2. Choose Material for Cheer Tryouts
3. Cheer Tryout Clinic Agenda
4. Cheer Tryout Evaluation
5. Announcing the Cheer Team

You got this, Coach! If you’re looking for a resource to use for cheer tryouts, check out my editable packet: