Throughout the past ten months The Bethpage Varsity Kickline Team has been practicing weekly preparing for their ongoing season. With multiple practices a week, putting their best foot forward for all the upcoming events they need to be ready for.
The season begins with summer practices twice a week, working hard for the upcoming football season, as they perform at every home game. At the beginning of the summer they attend a camp hosted by NDA, the association who runs their national competition. The camp is three days long, from 9:00 to 4:00 each day, learning four different routines throughout and working toward perfecting them when they perform for their family at a showcase at the end of the three days.
For the school’s football season, the girls typically have two or three routines they alternate between performing at games, practicing each routine every practice making sure each one is ready. Towards the end of the summer and in the midst of football season, the girls begin to learn their competition routines.
Junior Lauren Kelly, an active fan at the football games says, “I loved watching them at the football games and their performances made me happy.”
After they learn the new routines they alternate between practicing those and the routines they’ve been performing. At the end of football season they completely switch gears to competition season and begin to practice four times a week. There are competitions almost every weekend in January, and the NDA regional the first weekend of February. The practices within competition season consist of drilling the dances, and changing things up throughout the routines if they don’t seem to be working at the competitions.
The routines continue to evolve and change from the time they learn them to the time they compete it for the final time at their nationals. February consists of constant practicing and during the schools February break, the team practices for 6 of the 9 days. The hours of the practice range from 4 to 7, depending on the day.
Typically the week after break, or the first weekend of March the team departs for their Nationals in Florida, staying there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The competition days are Friday, Saturday and Sunday, throughout their time there they find any down time to practice their routines and change them. Some dances even change the morning of when they compete, doing everything they can to do their best as they take the stage.
The team took home 6th in the nation for small varsity gameday, and 7th in the nation for small varsity kick. This team puts in constant effort throughout the year, preparing for every performance they have, putting their all into each one.
