WAURIKA — Man, this is a tough sport! People are tumbling around, bodies are falling and there’s blood flowing!

There’s a new team in Waurika, and some of the participants already have stories about the physical toll it’s taking.

“I’ve had three bloody noses,” said Matt Wilkerson, whose background includes having been battered around a bit as a Waurika High football player.

Another gridder, Nathan Howard, noted, “I had a big knot on my head from getting kicked.”

“And,” added Eagles football player Zac Latta, “I’ve had a busted lip and a bloody nose!”

Yep, it turns out competitive cheerleading is a physically demanding, athletic and dangerous sport.

Wilkerson, Howard, Latta and Zac Fletcher, a two-way starting football lineman and WHS powerlifter, are the male members of Waurika Competitive Cheer. They’ve joined eight girls ranging in age from 9 to 17 on a squad that makes its competition debut Saturday and Sunday in Fayetteville, Ark.

Waurika Competitive Cheer may be the community’s first co-ed competition cheerleading team. It’s the brainchild of Karen Howard, whose son Nathan and daughter Danielle are members.

“Danielle, Karrington Morris, Alyssa Masoner and Courtland Henderson have been on a competitive cheer team in Duncan, and I was getting tired making the drive up there. So, we decided to do a squad here,” said Karen Howard, who’s been assisted in organizing and coaching the team by Michelle Rodriguez and Rachel Masoner.

Although the competitive team is not an Oklahoma State Secondary Schools Activities Association-sanctioned program, Howard said Waurika school officials were important in getting the program off the ground.

“Mr. (Dale) Spradlin (high school and middle school principal) said forming the team would be great and no problem for the school,” she said. “They allowed us to do it, and they’ve been letting us use the gym at the grade school as a place to practice.

“We asked girls who’d been cheerleading and some others who said they wanted to do it, and we got the four guys to help us.”

There’s also been community support, with several businesses climbing aboard as team sponsors.

“We’ve also gotten donations from individuals and we’ve done some fund-raising, like selling ‘hoodies’ and stuff,” Howard said. “We couldn’t have done it without the families and the supporters.”

Kayla Salazar, a junior on the high school cheerleading squad, is Waurika Cheer’s veteran. Other members are Makayla Peeples, Kelsi Dennard and Jessica Guzman.

Danielle Howard, Masoner, Henderson and Morris are the team’s tumblers, while Howard, Masoner, Henderson, Peeples and Guzman are the designated “flyers.”

Competitive cheer involves most of the basics fans see cheerleaders doing at school sports events, but those elements are enhanced by more tumbling, acrobatics and formation building. Timing, enthusiasm and being able to “work” a crowd also figures into judging at tournaments.

The extra emphasis on tumbling and acrobatics prompted the need to find male members for Waurika Cheer. Although it’s rare for rural Oklahoma males to be involved in cheer, the four guys said that after some initial ribbing from peers, their masculinity has not been “threatened.”

Recalling how Wilkerson helped put the male quartet together, Fletcher said, “Matt came up to me and said, ‘Hey, dude, let’s do this cheerleading thing,’ and I started laughing.

“But he was serious. So, I said, ‘OK, I’ve got your back.’”

Once they committed, the guys began to realize why cheerleading squads at the college level have many males on their roster.

“It’s a lot more work than I expected,” Nathan Howard said.

Explaining their role, Fletcher said, “Our job is throwing them up and catching them, and lifting them up. It takes some strength and timing.”

“We have to make sure they don’t fall and hurt themselves,” Latta noted.

“If they fall,” Wilkerson added, “we fall with them.”

Salazar confessed, “It’s weird having the boys on the team.”

“But,” she said, “they try hard and it’s fun — and we need them. We all get along.”

After three months of practicing, Waurika Cheer gets its first taste of competition in Fayetteville, where it will compete against two other teams in the senior co-ed division. Since it’s the end of the season, the only other upcoming competition will be in the UCA/NCA Championship Cup tourney.

But if the program takes off, Waurika Cheer will be more active when the next season begins in September.

“We wanted to start slowly, because the guys had never done (competitive cheer) before,” Karen Howard said. “All the kids have tremendous ability, but they’re all doing other things in school and sports as well. The boys all play a lot of sports and six of the eight girls are on the Waurika school cheerleading squad this year.

“Next year, we’ll try to do at least one competition a month, in places like Dallas and Oklahoma City and Fort Worth.”

Howard also mentioned that Waurika Cheer will continue to pursue sponsors and funding. She said there’s a Waurika Cheer account at First Farmer’s Bank, where those wishing to contribute can make deposits.

In addition, the squad has a spot on the Hamburger Helper national Web site, where people can leave comments about the team and it’s goals. Those comments could help Waurika Cheer land a grant from Hamburger Helper.

“One thing we really need now is cheerleading mats to use at the elementary school,” she said. “We’re using wrestling mats to practice on now, and those mats are pretty thin. Cheerleading mats have a lot more padding.”

As the four male team members have discovered, the extra padding is needed — cheerleading can be a tough sport.