Lake Oconee Academy’s Ally Blythe has been cheering for as long as she can remember, although her days of motivating the Titans are numbered.
She will graduate in a couple of weeks and attend the University of Georgia in the fall.
That is where Blythe will continue her cheerleading career as a Bulldog on the sidelines.
She said she has been competing in the sport for nearly a decade.
“I’ve been cheering for almost 10 years,” Blythe said. “It’s a passion of mine.”
Blythe’s mother, Jennifer, is the Titans’ head competition cheerleading coach. She has an extensive background in the sport and has more than 20 years of experience as a coach. Jennifer also has had success at LOA in recent years.
As a former member of the Titans’ competition squad, Blythe said she has learned a lot from her mother.
“I have been around the sport for a long time, and I fell in love with it through her,” she said.
Blythe said her cheerleading career started when she was in elementary school.
She added that the sport became more serious when she started going to a gym in Marietta during her freshman year. “I would go three to four
“I would go three to four times a week to compete on their all-star team,” Blythe said. “I competed for a smaller gym before that in middle school, but once I hit high school, I started to get better.”
Blythe played multiple other sports growing up, but she said cheerleading is still the one that stuck.
“I played softball in middle school and a little bit of golf at the beginning of high school,” she said. “Mainly, it was cheer. Once I started to travel to Marietta, I was doing too much and stuck with cheerleading. I do like both softball and golf, but cheer has always been No. 1.”
Next, she will transition to UGA, where she plans on cheering during all four years of college.
Blythe highlighted that it wasn’t easy landing a spot on the Bulldogs’ pep squad.
“They won’t let you try out for the team unless you are accepted into the school,” she said. “First, I had to get in, and then I had to go through tryouts. The night before, they sent out videos of everything we had to learn for tryouts. I had to practice some new routines and make some adjustments.”
Blythe said she made it past the first round of cuts, which made her feel good about her chances of making the team.
“During the first day, it was all tumbling and stunting,” she added. “The next day consisted of performing all the things we had to learn from the videos. There was a panel of judges and they made the decisions on how we did against the other girls trying out. That is when I found out that I had made it.”
Blythe is one of five new members of Georgia’s sideline cheerleading squad amongst a team full of veterans.
She said she will be cheering on multiple athletic programs while in Athens.
“I will cheer for all of the home football games, some of the men’s and women’s basketball games, home gymnastic meets and volleyball matches,” Blythe said. “The away football games depend on seniority. The older girls got to go to the national championship this past season. I thought that was really cool, so I hope to be able to do that one day.”
Blythe expressed that after her four years are up, she would consider coaching the sport.
“There’s not really professional cheerleading, but I can see myself coaching in the future,” she said. “It would be because of my mom. I’ve seen her coach and have a lot of success.”
If that doesn’t work out, Blythe said she still wants to be involved in some type of sport.
“Since I am majoring in sports management, I want to still be involved in sports,” Blythe said. “Even if it’s not cheerleading, that’s okay. I hope to maybe work for the (Atlanta) Braves one day.”