Jenks Pom Takes State

By: Sadie Howell

Jenks varsity pom squad shows school spirit by spelling out Jenks with their signs.

For the past 4 years, Jenks Varsity Pom has competed at the OSSAA State gameday competition. OSSAA stands for Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association, and most Jenks sports attend and compete at OSSAA competitions.  With a gold in 2023 and 2024. 

The competition is hosted at Moore High School, and Jenks competes in the large pom and the 6a categories, with around 10 competitors in both categories. The style of dance the girls are doing, referring to “Gameday”, which was added as a category 4 years ago. It consists of a Band chant, Band dance, and sideline. This type of dance is one where you’d see on the sidelines at football games, or halftime shows. Some things that come into play when competing in gameday are crowd involvement, school spirit, and to display that the girls are having fun.

The Varsity pom squad has been practicing hard for this competition. For around 4 weeks now, they’ve put in all the hours they could for the OSSAA state competition. The girls have support from family and friends coming to watch them, and the other pom squads coming, like JV, middle school, and junior high.

The girls compete in three parts: Prelims, Semifinals, and finals. When the girls run down on the floor all 3 times, the crowd screams its loudest cheers, and chants along with the girls as loud as they can. Crowd involvement helps the girls when dancing, and helps the judges know that the School spirit is showing.

When watching the girls dance, you can really see how much work and time the girls put into this, and leaves you wondering, “How hard is this?” or “This seems so intense, I wonder what their other competitions are like!”

“Prepping for OSSAA rather than any other competition is very time-consuming, and it occurs in the middle of our regular competition season, plus football season. That coupled with the fact that we must master, change, and adapt skills that we normally do not do, certainly provides its challenges.” said Kristin Phibbs, the varsity head coach.

 Jenks varsity pom squad hits their dance.

The OSSAA competition is very unique. “This competition has its own set of rules and requirements that you don’t see in most other competitions. It is also the only competition for pom that occurs on a cheer mat. All gameday material must be choreographed and changed for this particular competition.” Phibbs said.

For the pom program, the competition has introduced the use of flags, megaphones, signs, tumbling, stunts, and situational chants. (Like, offense Trojans offense!) These were all elements that the girls had to adapt into their skill set. Once OSSAA is completed, the girls have to switch everything back to meet the rules for their regular competition season.

Phibbs said her favorite thing about the OSSAA state competition is witnessing the growth and success of her team. It pushes them to adapt better.

Margaret Zimmerman, a Jenks pom senior who has been on the team for 4 years. She helped explain why OSSAA is so different. It’s because it’s all gameday, so the team isn’t practicing turning skills or jumps that would be in a typical pom routine. “We don’t yell half as much as we do in our gameday routine in our pom routine. It takes a while to get used to yelling so loud but seeing the crowd's involvement and seeing them shout back is always what we aim for.”

“This year or last year has been the hardest because last year we really changed the dynamic of how hard we worked. During our first two years we didn’t really know what the other teams would show up with and how hard it was going to be, so these past two years we really changed our package and our drive to meet what we needed to win a state championship, and we did, twice.” Zimmerman said.

The girls show off their skills with a beautiful kick line.

Zimmerman explains that stamina-wise, gameday is so much harder than a pom routine because you really have to stay engaged and yell the whole time. You also have to stay energized throughout the whole routine and not show the crowd that you’re tired, even though you’re competing three dances and yelling between and within each dance.

The girls love competing in this competition, and the crowd loves cheering them on. We are very proud of the Jenks varsity pom squad for earning our school’s 201st OSSAA title, and the 100th OSSAA girl’s title. The girls will continue to work harder and harder each year for their school, and hopefully, they’ll beat Yukon every year.