The New Ulm Eagles Winter Cheer team, coached by foods teacher Ashley Schneider,  is set to start its first-ever season this November.

“I’m just excited that we get to offer it because I know when I was in school, winter was my favorite,” said Schneider.

Winter Cheer started this year for several reasons, the main one being many requests for the program. “Neubarth and Bergmann looked into it, and it is a very low cost to the school to offer it,” Schneider said.

The only cost would be hiring the coach, since there would be no travel costs, and they already have the uniforms. High school Athletic Director Neubarth and Principal Bergmann were willing to go through with it because they wanted to get more people involved, said Schneider.

The team is going to focus on cheering for boys’ and girls’ basketball games.

“So we do have to balance between girls and boys sports as well,” said Schnieder. “We plan to cheer at as many of the girls home games as possible for basketball. And then we ideally are also going to cheer for all the guys home games too.”

Winter Cheer will also only be cheering at home games as opposed to fall cheer, which traveled for away football games.

Schneider has had an abundance of cheer and coaching experience. “I was in cheer for three years in high school. I did fall, and I did winter cheer,” she said.

Schneider also became the assistant coach for fall cheer after the team started to grow. “I’ve done that for two years now, and then now I’ll be doing winter.”

Keelie Dietz, a junior who has been in fall cheer for six years, has already signed up for winter cheer and is excited for the season to start.

“Now that it’s in the winter, I have something to do and more stunts and more moments with the girls that I love,” Keelie said.

Keelie also said she hopes to improve some of her stunting skills and learn more tumbling techniques throughout the season.