MUSKEGON TWP. - In most sports, an athlete’s voice is mostly used to encourage and communicate with teammates.
It’s not a crucial part of their performance skill set. A basketball player can dunk and a baseball player can hit without muttering a word.
But in competitive cheer, a sport that requires all sorts of athletic skills but also loud and clear verbal delivery, a strong voice is critical.
Senior Kendall Eek may have the most valuable voice on the Reeths-Puffer cheer roster.
“The rasp!” Eek said, when asked about her voice. “They call it the rasp because I’m so loud and my voice is so raspy.”
R-P's Kendall Eek
R-P cheer coach Lisabeth Smith said Eek’s “rasp” is worth a lot of points in any given match.
“It draws so much attention,” Smith said. “We get points for that in all three rounds. You can hear her. We really count on her voice. It adds so much texture.”
Eek’s value to the Rockets goes way beyond her voice, however.
She’s a four-time All-Conference selection, and that says a lot right there.
A cheerleader cannot be considered for that honor unless she participates in all three performance rounds for her team, which is pretty rare.
Eek, left, works on moves with her teammates at practice on Thursday.
Eek not only performs in Round 1 (execution), Round 2 (overall skills) and Round 3 (stunts), but excels in all of them.
In Round 1 she performs jumps and motions in sync with her teammates. In Round 2 she performs backflips and other types of gymnastic moves. In Round 3 she is a “main base” who lifts a flier up in the air, tosses and catches her.
“She’s an extraordinary athlete,” Smith said about Eek. “In Round 1 her jumps out in front have to be timed really well. In Round 2, for tucks (backflips), she has to start in a standing position, throw her body backward and land on her feet. You have to be a pretty accomplished gymnast, and we can always depend on her for that.
“In Round 3 she’s a very solid main base. She’s the one who puts them up in the air and catches them safely. There are lots of decisions to be made in a moment.”
As a senior on an underclass-dominated team, Eek also provides great leadership for her younger teammates, which may be the part Coach Smith likes the most.
Eek, bottom left, practices Round 3 stunt moves with her teammates.
“Kendall is a natural leader who is respected by her teammates and respects everyone here,” Smith said. “When she addresses the team, the girls listen, because they know if she says something she means it, and there’s always a lot of substance to it.
“She’s one of the leaders who make it all work.”
Eek started cheerleading when she was five years old.
At first it was just sideline cheer at games, then the competitive part started in the elementary grades and she took right to it.
Her skills were advanced enough by her freshman year to allow her to perform in all three rounds at the varsity level, and she’s been a regular in the Rockets’ lineup ever since.
Eek confers with R-P head coach Lisabeth Smith.
Eek admits it’s been a ton of work. As a sideline cheerleader in the fall and a competitive cheerleader in the winter, she has dedicated about nine months out of every year to the sport over the past four years.
That workload will not ease when she graduates this spring, because Eek will immediately move on and become a sideline and competitive cheerleader at Western Michigan University.
“It’s a long season,” she said. “It can be a lot. We’re here every day. It can be exhausting at times, but it’s all worth it. Our team has gotten really close.”
Eek played more of a supportive role two years ago as a sophomore, when the senior and junior-dominated Rockets were one of only eight teams to advance to the Division 2 state finals.
This year her skills and leadership helped R-P win its third straight district championship, and a top-four finish as this Saturday’s regionals would put the team back in the state finals.
This year’s Rockets are different, because more than half of the athletes are freshmen or sophomores, but Eek said the younger girls rose to the challenge amazingly well.
Eek, in front, practices Round 1 precision with her teammates.
“We have a lot of talented underclassmen, for sure,” she said. “We started out a little rocky, but we’ve really found it in the last couple of weeks. The younger girls have really stepped up and done what we needed them to do.”
The last two seasons have been extra special for Eek because she’s been teammates with her cousin, sophomore Addison Eek, and the two of them have been very close throughout their lives.
“It’s our last year together,” she said. “We’ve been doing everything together since we were really young. I am always pushing her, and she pushes me.”
The idea of getting back to the state finals, this time with her cousin, has been a huge motivation for Eek in her final weeks of high school competitive cheer.
“If we can go back again it will be crazy,” she said. “Most people don’t get to do it even once, and I would love the chance to do it twice.”
