NHS welcomes new cheer coach

Niwot High School is working to revamp its cheerleading program and recently hired a new head coach, Ashley Poindexter.

Poindexter is currently in her fourth year at CU Boulder where she’s been cheering since her freshman year. Before becoming a Buff, Poindexter was a gymnast and a cheerleader in high school.

“I was a competitive gymnast for 13 years and then I started cheering my junior year in high school,” Poindexter explained. “I actually cheered at another high school in Colorado, called Rock Canyon in Highlands Ranch. They actually have one of the biggest cheer programs in Colorado so I was really lucky to cheer there, and from there tried out at CU.

She is studying advertising and creative writing, and will graduate after one more semester.The coaching position kind of fell into Poindexter’s lap from a relationship between a NHS parent and the CU cheer coach.

“One of the parents of a Niwot cheerleader in the past knew my coach,” Poindexter said. “When the job at Niwot opened up they reached out to my coach at CU and thought I would be a good fit. I went over there and got started right away.”

With her background in gymnastics, Poindexter knows how important tumbling is in collegiate cheerleading, and even high school cheerleading now.

“Doing cheer, you are so focused on stunting and cheers that there’s not really that much time to learn how to tumble,” she said. “So having the gymnastics background is just such a huge step already.”

Even though Poindexter was not familiar with Niwot before the landed the job, she was not willing to pass up the opportunity to keep one of her passions in her life.

“Finishing up my last season of cheer at CU, I’ve been kind of sad that it was going to be out of my life because I’ve always had gymnastics, or cheer, or something,” Poindexter explained. “So when this job came up it was a really cool way to keep cheer in my life. I’ve never heard of Niwot but I took the opportunity right away.”

In the past, NHS hasn’t had enough girls for both a JV and Varsity team, but this spring’s tryouts yielded two full teams, which Poindexter is excited about. With two teams, she’s looking forward to taking them to cheer camp and working on tumbling with the girls.

“Both teams are going to be doing a UCA [Universal Cheerleaders Association] camp, which is going to be a huge learning opportunity for them,” Poindexter said. “We are also planning to do a lot of tumbling at a gym that my coaches at CU own, so the girls are going to be learning a lot that way as well.”

“It’s so much fun and you learn so much,” she said of the camp. “UCA instructors are the best cheerleaders in the U.S., so there’s no one better to learn from. I also have [some] girls on the JV team who have never even cheered before. A lot of them are just trying the sport for the first time.”

Poindexter hasn’t been out of high school for that long, but said she’s looking forward to being involved in all the activities she loved in high school and enhancing those for the team.

“I forgot so much about what’s fun about high school,” Poindexter said. “We’ve started talking about the homecoming traditions, and being in the parade, and doing all the fundraisers around the community—all those fun high school traditions that I’ve been away from. I think working with the girls to make those so much more fun and really get involved in everything that high school offers is going to be really awesome.”

“I’m really excited to take what I’ve learned here and bring it to the girls,” she said.