Grand Canyon University is a three-peat national champion.
The Lopes won the Spirit Program – Game Day LIVE title in their division for the third straight year at the UCA/UDA College Cheerleading and Dance National Championships last weekend in Orlando, Florida.
Spirit Programs Senior Manager Jesi Weeks said the team was excited to win the title, as they've done every year since the category was launched three years ago, and to get the second-highest score of any Game Day competitions in all categories.
Game Day includes a performance by Cheer, Dance, the Thundering Heard Pep Band and mascot Thunder, the units that lead what has been dubbed “The Greatest Party in College Basketball” at Global Credit Union Arena sporting events on campus.
“It’s the overall culture at GCU that goes back to collaboration,” Weeks said. “We don’t have contrasting interests, we all try to work together. That works to our advantage.”
The teams start working on their routine at the year’s start and perform it in August camps.
“When you get all three of our programs together, and how well we work together as leaders for our teams, it’s really fun to watch our kids support one another, share responsibility for our overall program success, and to hype each other up. It’s a winning formula,” said GCU Dance coach Jacque Genung-Koch.
GCU’s Dance team showed its continued rise among the nation’s elite, competing against more than 40 teams in the Division I level. It placed fifth in Division I Hip Hop and sixth in Division I Jazz. Its jazz performance of the Dolly Parton hit “Jolene,” and its unique costumes, created a buzz on social media and at the competition.
“People were talking about ‘Jolene,’ watching our dance, and looking up GCU Dance team. We caused a stir and made people take notice on the largest stage there is for dance, our Super Bowl,” Genung-Koch said.
The longtime coach of a team that has had consistent success at the nationals said it was her favorite group because of its large number of student leaders who have a desire to serve, its spiritual growth with six baptisms this year so far and “the most talented, hard-working and loudest squad ever” who dance and cheer at basketball games.
“No other dance team does as much at their university basketball games as the GCU Dance team does – no one and no contest,” she said.
Thunder took fourth place in the Open Mascot division. The cheeky Antelope, the boisterous Thundering Heard Pep Band and the Cheer team played a big part in the Game Day win, despite Cheer not making the finals in its Small Co-ed competition. In a social media post, the Cheer team shared, “It’s not always about the win, it’s about the growth. We are stronger together and will cherish the memories that we made forever!”
Jeremiah Park, a third-year cheerleader, explained to Varsity TV what makes the Lopes special.
“Our program just gives everything to God,” he said.
“We are together at every single basketball game, every single big event, like our Midnight Madness and Lope-A-Palooza, and it just shows how much we gel together like a family and what we do in showing the world what we’ve got.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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