Three cheers for OCC

Mike Reynolds needed his students to be a number of things when they went to the Universal Cheerleaders Assn.’s National Championships in Florida this month: smooth, practiced, confident, relaxed. But he also needed them to be awake.

Reynolds, the advisor of Orange Coast College’s dance program and its cheerleading instructor, put his teams through a grueling schedule in the weeks leading to the tournament on Jan. 12 and 13.

Every day, seven days a week, the dancers gathered at OCC at 5 a.m. to practice their routines. The cheerleaders got to sleep in, though: Their practices started at 6 a.m.

It wasn’t just to develop their toughness. Florida is three hours ahead of California, and Reynolds wanted to prepare his team for the time difference.

In the end, it paid off, as OCC took home three first-place trophies in dance, hip-hop and cheerleading.

“Three in one weekend is pretty unprecedented,” said Reynolds, who runs a dance studio in Huntington Beach with fellow OCC instructor Dan Sapp.

Winning, though, is a tradition among OCC dancers. The school’s dance squad has won nine national titles from the Universal Cheerleaders Assn., and the cheerleaders have won six. This year marked the first time that OCC’s dance team has won the hip-hop contest, which was instituted just a few years ago.

On Tuesday, the cheer team was back on the field behind the OCC gymnasium, practicing for its February competition in Las Vegas. Several members of the dance team sat watching on the sidelines — as they had in Florida.

“We’re like a family,” said first-year student Britney Gale. “We were in the front row to cheer them on, and they were there to cheer us on.”

For encouragement, Reynolds placed the three Florida trophies by the field during Tuesday’s practice. Cheer team captain Mitchell Le, a second-year student, said he was still reeling from his success in Miami.

“We were really shocked when we won,” he said. “We were happy because we knew there was tough competition out there.”