East High cheerleaders to perform at halftime of Tuesday’s Cheez-It Citrus Bowl

Ten members of the Bettye Davis East Anchorage cheerleading squad will be in the national spotlight on Tuesday.

The group will perform as part of the halftime show at the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida.

The game, which features South Carolina against Illinois, starts at 11 a.m. AKST and will be televised on ABC.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for these kids,” East coach Tasarla Shaw said. “It’s definitely something they’ll remember. They worked so hard to get here. I’ve been coaching forever and have wanted to get to this bowl game and we finally got here. These kids are awesome and are a great bunch.”

The East students are among 500 cheerleaders who are in attendance for the performance. Each of the teams received an invitation by winning various contests sponsored by cheer or dance organizations and alliances.

Last summer, the East team traveled to a camp in San Diego sponsored by cheer/dance organization Varsity. The cheerleaders took first and second in a few of the categories. When the team found out they’d been invited, they were overwhelmed with excitement, Shaw said. The Citrus Bowl is one of the nation’s most enduring bowl games, established in 1947.

“I’ve been coaching for over 20 years and have always wanted to come to the Citrus Bowl, but it’s by invite only,” Shaw said. “When I got the call, I was super excited. We had practice that day and when I told the kids, they fell out.”

Unfortunately, due to the cost, only a portion of the team could make the trip. The full team includes 25 members. Shaw said there were a lot of out-of-pocket costs for the students, who also fundraised to help pay for the trip.

Shaw said the Anchorage students have been doing a lot of networking and have met teams from Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Nebraska and Utah.

The performance is the culmination of many months of work for the cheerleaders. They received the material in October and started practicing a few times a week and added in Saturday practices as well.

“As it got closer, we started practicing every day,” Shaw said. “Just to make sure we knew the routine.”

The Alaska contingent should be front and center in Tuesday’s performance, as four of them were chosen as part of the stunt team.

“That was really exciting for me as a coach,” Shaw said.

The Anchorage team members arrived Thursday, and had practices from 7 a.m. until noon each day. That translates to 3 a.m. starts Alaska time, so the team members were initially a little bleary-eyed.

“The first night it was a little hard,” she said. “They’re still dragging in the morning, but once they join the rest of the cheerleaders, they get peppy and start networking.”

On Monday, the last dress rehearsal finished and the team went to Universal Studios to have some fun before the big game on Tuesday.

“To have Anchorage (watching) and knowing what they’re doing here is really going to motivate them and other teams possibly in the future,” Shaw said.