On March 6 Longwood beat Winthrop 79-58 in the Big South tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to this week’s NCAA tournament. The Lancers finished December 7-5 before winning 19 of their last 20 games to make the NCAA tourney, where they will face #3 seed Tennessee in Indianapolis on Thursday. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Longwood cheerleader Makayla Whittaker about being a captain and winning the conference tourney.
You grew up in Virginia: what made you choose Longwood? It was my backup school because I wanted to go out of state, but once I got here it felt like home. The community is so close and the class sizes are smaller.
How did you 1st get into cheerleading, and what is the best part? I did gymnastics/dance when I was younger but in high school I tried out for the cheer team. I wanted to get more involved after coming to college and I ended up making the team as a freshman. I have loved every second of it and the best part is that I have grown so much in terms of my skills.
You have been on the cheer team for 3 years and are now a captain: what is the key to being a good leader? You need to be a role model and act how you would want others to act toward you. There are 4 people in a stunt group and everyone has a job to do so you need to work together and understand each other to make sure that nothing goes wrong. Communication is key so that we are all on the same page and you need to want the best for everyone. I set a high standard for myself and want to elevate the entire team and make sure we are hitting our goals. We have big dreams and want to accomplish them. It does take a lot of time but is totally worth it.
What do you think the role of a college cheerleader is today, and how has it changed over time? Our school is very small so we have been able to show our faces at a lot of events like a send-off or a ribbon-cutting. It is a big duty to represent the school at games so we plan our routines/practice/lift. We are there to support the team as well as get the fans loud so we did more crowd-involvement this season. We got a new coach this year and her key word is “elevate”: we are trying to grow bigger and become more competitive with the bigger schools. Our stunting this year has been more complex.
How frustrating has it been to be a cheerleader for a great basketball team during a pandemic? Last year we could not attend games so it was just a building year to grow stronger as a team. It was a downer to not support our team in person and was very frustrating, but we still did everything we could to show our spirit around campus.
You are majoring in Kinesiology/Exercise Science: why did you pick those subjects, and what do you hope to do after graduating? I was originally a special education major because I love being around children, but deep down I wanted to be in the medical field. There are so many opportunities I will have with this major but I would like to do sports medicine for children. My mom is in the medical field so I guess I got my passion from her: I am very excited about the future. I would love to move out of Virginia: maybe somewhere like Georgia that has a hospital that does sports medicine. I have some big dreams and am very determined to reach them.
Last Sunday the Lancers had a 21-PT win over Winthrop in the Big South tourney title game: how excited was everybody to win the conference tourney for the very 1st time? It was so exciting! I am so grateful that we got to be there to see it in person. It shows you how important our small community is: a lot of fans were there and we helped get them rowdy. There was also a nice welcome-back as the buses rolled back into campus.
How does your school decide who gets to go to the NCAA tournament, and what will it mean to you to see your group doing its thing in front of a national TV audience? Since our men AND women both made it we had to divide our own team in half. We would love to all be at both but we want to support both teams: half of us leave today for the men’s tourney in Indianapolis and the other half (including me) leave tomorrow for Raleigh. We will have 2 full stunt groups at each tourney with a couple of floaters. We have been practicing our routines/chants/signs to get the crowd involved.
Your women’s team also won its own conference tourney: is this the greatest week in the history of your school?! We definitely made some history with both teams winning their respective Big South tourneys. It is something you dream of happening and set as a goal, but never thought you would be the one to accomplish this amazing achievement and actually be part of the NCAA tournament. I cannot wait to see how they both do this week!
Any predictions? I think that both teams will win! I would love to see them keep going and see how far they can get: anything is possible so Go Lancers!!