Savannah Williams was hired by Franklin High School (FHS) as the new head cheer coach the first week of June, 2023. She works full time as a defense attorney in addition to her coaching, and previously worked as the head cheer coach at Federal Way High School in Washington for three years.
As a young kid, Williams was a cheerleader for Youth Cheer, and she was on the varsity cheer team in high school, but didn’t consider coaching until she was in law school. “I knew professionally, I was focused on school and had no plans to pursue any athletics outside of for fun or lower level competition. But, when I was in law school, I had an old athletic director reach out and ask if I knew anyone looking to coach a couple different sports (tennis, cheer, dance – all of which I did in high school) and I applied to the coaching job for cheer,” Williams said.
Williams is excited to start coaching at Franklin. “I love to coach and it is something I look forward to doing on days of practice and games. I am excited for this season and what is to come for this team,” added Williams. “I have a strong group of athletes that are open to the new ideas I bring and they work hard. We also have a lot of fun. I am not nervous about anything at the moment, everyone has been super friendly and helpful so that has eased most, if not all of my nerves.”
Williams says her goals for the team this year are to be more active throughout the school, building spirit for all athletic sports, not just the ones that they cheer at, as well as “learning a lot [more] new stunts and tumbling… Stunts are where you can see us lifting individuals and throwing individuals in the air and catching them.” She adds that “ I have a lot of good, strong athletes this year so I know we will be able to do some more advanced stunting and dances.”
Williams went on to share that “Franklin Cheer is [also] looking to compete at OSAA competitions this year! It is not confirmed yet, but we have plans in the works to make it happen for us this year and we are excited. That is definitely new!” She says she is “most excited about growing as a team and really seeing what we can do this year! …When my team challenges me to be a better coach and look at higher difficulty material, I know it will make for a great year!” Williams also said that the team is hoping to make appearances at sports for special events like senior nights and rivalry games, but those schedules are still in the works.
You may recognise the Franklin Cheer team from a football, home basketball, and any playoff game, where they provide moral support and showcase routines. Cheer practices began this summer, every day from seven to nine. According to Kainea Tengan, an FHS cheerleader, practices have been fun. “First we stretch, and then we practice some of our cheers that she made and some of our teammates have made, and right now we’re practicing stunts.” Tengan went on to say that they also learn dances that they perform during games.
Practices take place on the track or in the upper gym three times a week for two and half hours, in addition to the game at the end of the week. Williams is responsible for leading practices, creating and teaching cheers, dances, stunts and tumbling. Williams explained that she is also responsible for ensuring the academic success of her student athletes. She also provides connections to future opportunities for students looking to pursue cheerleading beyond high school.
She says she plans practices by having practice agendas. “It depends what we have going that week. I start with our basics of warming up all things we already know, then we do new material and end with working on things that we have previously learned but have not quite mastered yet,” Williams explained. “I run practices the same way I plan them for the most part. We typically go over the agenda and go in that order. Practices have a lot of high intensity and then breaks or lower intensity throughout.”
As for planning the routines, she says “I plan routines by finding songs that are upbeat and fun. From there, I choreograph the dance portion in the upper gym or in the gym at home. I visualize what I want it to look like and then create formations based on that.” Williams went on to say that “From there, I decide what stunts and key points I want to end out our routine and what counts that would work on. When I teach my team, I see what counts work best for them and then I mix the music to fit what works best for us. At the end, we have our final routine.”
Williams stated, “I think it is also important to know that cheer is not a one size fits all sport. We really open up to people who want to do cheer and are coachable humans.” Williams shared, “I have individuals on my team who are trying out cheer for the first time to those who grew up doing cheer; I have female and male cheerleaders this year as well.” She went on to say “I am just really excited to be at FHS. The team is amazing and they really just work to be better athletes each day. I am really fortunate to have such a strong and fun team!”
Along with being excited herself, Williams’ team seems excited to work with her too, Kainea Tengan said they “really do like [the] coach, I feel like she knows what she’s doing, she knows when to be silly, but then she’s also serious when she knows she has to be and when she wants us to do well.” Williams concluded, “Franklin has welcomed me with open arms and I can see a program really build here for Franklin Cheer. Of course, that doesn’t happen in just one season, so I am hopeful for many future seasons at Franklin High School.”
