BHS senior makes UM cheer squad

Bigfork High School senior Keiko Sagami will trade red, white and blue for maroon, silver and white after she graduates in June.

The BHS cheer captain heads to the University of Montana a month before classes start to begin practicing with the cheer squad on August 1. She made the team after attending tryouts the last two weekends in April.

“I was bawling in tears I was so excited,” Sagami said. “I’m so pumped.”

Sagami was one of 35 girls and 11 boys that tried out for the team. Colson McCoard, a 2011 BHS graduate and cheer and stunt squad member, also made the team this year. UM has two teams, one is more of a cheer and stunt team and the other is more of a dance team. They picked the top seven for each team. Practices will determine the top six that will perform at football, basketball and volleyball games, and the seventh will be an alternate.

After tryouts Sagami was offered a spot on the team she wanted to be a part of. Being a cheerleader is all about stunts and tumbling for Sagami, so she chose to be on the cheer and stunt team.

“There is nothing more exciting for me,” Sagami said. “It’s challenging and it’s a thrill.”

Stunts and tumbling is what drew her to cheerleading in the first place.

When Sagami was a freshman a classmate asked her to tryout for the team, but Sagami wasn’t interested. Participating in the typical cheerleader stereotype was not something Sagami was interested in becoming.

“I figured cheer was just shaking pom-poms,” Sagami said.

But BHS’s cheer squad’s routines aren’t the typical high school cheers. They involve flips and spins that are thrown in the air and acrobatics on the ground.

Once Sagami realized it was more than pom-poms, she did try out and she made the team. After her freshman season, she was hooked.

She was also dedicated to ballet and had to juggle the two passions, plus high school classes, until she decided to focus solely on cheerleading last Christmas. Now rather than attending Northwest Ballet Company classes, Sagami attends gymnastics classes to work on her stunting and tumbling abilities.

“Dance was always fun, but with cheerleading I realized I could really go to college with my ability, and continue the sport,” Sagami said.

Her dance experience was put to use for choreographing cheer and stunt routines that BHS performed during football and basketball games this school year.

Sagami goes into the Radio/Television program at the UM Journalism School this fall and will have to juggle her time between a full set of classes and being on a competitive university team. She said she’s not worried about being able to stay on top of things because of all the multi-tasking she had to do her four years at BHS.

She maintained a 4.0 grade point average and is one of five students that attained valedictorian status. Although achieving valedictorian is a great accomplishment, Sagami is much more excited about her future with UM’s cheer team. Sagami said for her mom, it’s the opposite.

“My mom was so proud of me (for making the cheer team),” Sagami said. “But she still maintains that she’s more proud of me for being valedictorian.”