With Nationals nearly four months away, the dance team focuses

on winning a National Championship.  With football season underway, the dance team, led by senior captain Tiffany Phillips, who individually has been nationally ranked since she began dancing in 1994, continues working hard to improve from last year’s tournament.

“Every April, we compete for a national title in Daytona Beach, Fla.,” Phillips said. “This is like [the]  Super Bowl of  [collegiate] dance. Dance teams come from around the country for [the National Cheerleading Association Dance Competition].”

The competition requires every team to perform several dances, each one

showing different styles and routines, ranging from hip-hop to individually

choreographed dances.

“Nationals consist of an intro, hip hop, jazz, pom-pom and an outro

[routine],” Meishca Williams, a senior in business who is in her third year dancing with the team, said.

Despite a first-round elimination in the 2008-2009 NCADC, the team has

finished consistently in the top ten nationally the past four years, and

in 2001 finished second in the nation.

Williams said despite losing, the defeat brought the team closer together.

“Especially when you don’t make it to finals, it’s even more of a bonding

experience because the team is forced to stick together,” Williams said. “[Besides], nationals is always fun.”

The team has been working to once again gain national recognition by

practicing four days a week, running two miles every day before practice,

starting earlier in the season and continuing their rigorous dance

workouts, consisting of everything from leaps to hip-hop to ballet.

“We run every day to get into shape, so we can look good,” senior and

third year dancer Ashley Gatto said. “We try to practice uniformity so everyone looks the same [doing the cadences] on the field.”

The dance team is led by head coach Jamila Wright, a former N.C. State dancer and two-time NDA Collegiate All American, and can be seen performing at football games, where they practice technique in

preparation for the National Dance Contest in February.

Phillips said her team competes much harder than it may seem like they do.

“What most people don’t understand is dance is a very competitive

sport,” Phillips said.  ”We do more than shake our pom-poms at the football

and basketball games. Our team also dances at other sporting events such

as gymnastics and are also very active in the community.”

Most recently the team helped at the Prestonwood Country Club Golf

Tournament to raise funds for travel and uniform.  The team gets limited

funding from the University and is responsible for covering nearly $45,000

annually.