Jessica Acosta
Friendship brought Jessica Acosta to cheerleading, and friendship is keeping her there.
The Coupeville High School sophomore, who is entering her first season with the Wolf cheer squad, is a firm believer in the Ohana lifestyle which springs from being part of a team.
“I started this summer at cheer camp and I started because it’s something that I have always wanted to do and it’s something I could do with my friends,” Acosta said.
“What I enjoy about cheer is learning the cheers,” she added. “It’s so much fun and I also really enjoy stunts.”
When she’s not working on her cheer game, Acosta enjoys playing soccer and spending time with family and friends.
A fan of her Spanish class (“I knew what I was doing and I got to work with my classmates and that was something I really enjoyed”), she can often be found listening to music and sets no limits on what tunes she enjoys.
“I don’t have a certain type of music genre that I listen to,” Acosta said. “I like to listen to different music and discover something new, because I could like something I haven’t listened to.”
As she and her cheer teammates put in long hours of work with new coaches Emily Stevens and Amanda Jones to prepare for the fall season, they do so without being acknowledged as a sport.
Each Washington state high school is allowed to choose whether they consider cheer a sport or an activity, and CHS currently opts for the latter.
That’s something Acosta would like to see change.
“I feel like cheer should be considered a sport because we do warmups, we also run and we do just as much work as other sports do,” she said.
Either way, Acosta will continue to put all her effort into making her first season on the sidelines an impressive one.
“I’m not doing any other sports or activities, so that I can really focus on cheer and be able to give it my all.”
Coupeville Sports 