Cheer team sets high goals for Florida

NW SilverStars want to make ESPN appearance

MICHELLE NOLAN

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Christina Archer hopes to see her Bellingham-based competitive cheer team, the NW SilverStars, achieve their highest score in the national championships next month in Florida.

For the coach’s senior division girls, though, their dream is also to see themselves selected to appear on ESPN. If that occurs, it will be a year unlike anything Archer, 29, might have foreseen when she was a traditional high school and college cheerleader in North Carolina.

She and her husband, Derek Archer, are the parents of 7- week-old daughter Devyn and 3-year-old Chloe, plus the guardians of 14-year-old Courtney Dill. Derek is a pastor at the Bellingham Christ the King Church.

| JASMINE BEEDEX COURTESY PHOTO

FOR DETAILS For details on the NW SilverStars competitive cheerleading squad, see www.nwstars.com or contact Christina Archer at 676-0995 or info@nwstars.com.

Christina, who doubles as cheerleading coach at Squalicum High School, founded the NW SilverStars in 2000 as Whatcom County’s first competitive club cheerleading team. The organization has grown to about 80 girls, 4 to 18 years old, on four levels, with coaches for each team plus two floating assistants.

Question: ESPN is such a big deal for kids. How can you qualify?

Answer: This is the best team we’ve had, with the most advanced tumbling and stunting. Our senior team of 27 high school girls has qualified to compete in the Universal Cheerleading Association’s National All-Star Cheerleading Championships. It’s at Disneyworld March 8-9. We’ll need to finish in the top three or four to be on TV.

Our senior team and two of our other teams will compete in the Sea to Sky International Championships March 1-2 in Vancouver, B.C. All four of our teams — Seniors, Juniors, Starlets and Twinkles — will compete in the Washington State Championships April 12 in Kirkland.

Q: Are you surprised you’ve come so far so fast?

A: What we have now is what I hoped for when we started. It was the picture in my head. I coached cheerleaders at Meridian and Sehome high schools in 1999-2000. I founded the Silver- Stars because some girls indicated they wanted a competitive club team. Competitive cheer was just getting started in Washington.

Many people still don’t realize how very athletic competitive cheer really is. There are elements of dance, cheer, gymnastics and stunting, with a major focus on stunts. Some people call that acrobatics. And it can be dangerous. The worst injuries we’ve ever had were a broken arm and a broken nose.

Q: Have you always wanted to work with cheerleaders?

A: When I cheered in high school and at Gardner-Webb University, I never thought I wanted to work with high school girls because of all the drama. But I changed my mind when I worked all over the country for Cheer Ltd., in summer 1998. That’s when I discovered beautiful Whatcom County, when I did a camp in Ferndale.

Q: Where do you practice and what’s the cost?

A: We have tryouts every spring. Tuition is $75 per month, and scholarships are available. We renovated a warehouse in the Irongate district a year and a half ago after practicing all over the place our first six years.

Q: Your team seems like a large family.

A: We really are like a family. When I gave birth to Devyn recently, our girls and their parents were wonderfully supportive. We want to help girls to become stronger, more confident women. We stress high standards for behavior, both inside and outside practice.