You don’t have to bring a stunt group. USA Cheer encourages it, and your own group gives you the best chance of hitting clean. If you come alone, you’ll stunt with other attendees, and some colleges bring current team members who pull participants into groups. Wear your hair in a ponytail. Athletic shorts, a tank or t-shirt, cheer shoes and socks. Nothing you have to adjust mid-tumbling pass.

Who should go

USA Cheer aims these events at high school juniors, high school seniors and junior college athletes. There’s a separate freshman and sophomore rate too, so underclassmen can attend. The early bird discount doesn’t apply to that rate.

Go if you’re weighing cheer against STUNT. Go if you genuinely don’t know what level is realistic for you. Three hours of watching coaches react to your skills answers that question better than a year of guessing from Instagram.

One administrative note. Junior college participants who are 18 or older need a current USA Cheer membership before they can register. Sort that out first, because the event won’t show up in the app otherwise.

Cheer recruiting and STUNT recruiting work differently

Traditional college cheer isn’t an NCAA sport. Some programs sit under athletics, some under student affairs, and each school sets its own rules for aid, roster size and tryouts. There’s no NCAA recruiting calendar telling coaches when they can contact you.

That’s why so much traditional cheer recruiting still ends at a spring campus tryout. The combine gets you invited. It doesn’t get you rostered.

STUNT works like other varsity sports. A match runs four quarters: partner stunts, pyramids and tosses, group jumps and tumbling, then a team performance. Both teams run the same routine at the same time and officials score execution and synchronization. Whoever performs it better takes the point.

STUNT rosters have defined positions, including main bases, secondary bases, flyers, back spots and tumblers. A tumbling specialist can hold a spot without ever stunting. If your tumbling runs well ahead of your stunt work, that’s worth knowing.

The growth numbers explain why coaches are recruiting hard right now. STUNT cleared the 40-program threshold in its first year as an emerging sport across all three divisions, faster than any of the sports that came through that program before it.

If you’re open to both, say so out loud at every table. Plenty of schools at these combines run a cheer program and a STUNT program, sometimes under different coaches.

Questions to ask coaches

Ask these at every table and write the answers down. The differences between programs will surprise you.

• Is there scholarship or aid money for this team, and how do you award it?
• What does a normal practice week look like during the season?
• How much travel is there, and who pays for it?
• What do athletes pay out of pocket for uniforms, shoes, camp and warmups?
• How many spots are you filling this year, and how many returners do you have?
• Who covers injuries, and is there an athletic trainer at practice?
• Does the team compete, and at what event?

That last question catches people off guard more than it should. Some programs go to nationals every January. Some do game day only.

What to do in the 48 hours after

Email every coach you spoke with within two days. Reference something specific from your conversation so they can place you. Attach your video link and your academic information in the same message.

Then keep those coaches updated on a schedule. New skill, better grades, a competition result. A short email every six to eight weeks does more than one long one in March.