Holy Trinity welcomes new varsity cheer coach Stacey Zabinski. Alongside Coach Welch, Coach Zabinski is looking forward to this year’s cheer season with ideas of her own. As a dancer all her life, Zabinski has the skill and plan for the cheer program. Her main goal is to boost school spirit on Friday night football games and in her team as well. She is also helping junior varsity coach, Kim Edmondson, with the objective of building the program based on the strength of the varsity team so the school can see both teams working together to improve the junior varsity cheerleaders feeding into the varsity team. 

Coach Zabinski also had the aim to possibly include both teams more often on Friday nights. She proposed to embrace an opportunity for change through collaborating with the band. “As I want to make Friday nights an exciting experience, we are also looking into the chance to work with Jason Stevens, head of the band. He has been on board and open to ideas,” Zabinski said. 

While football has been the primary focus of cheerleading in past years, having more performances in the basketball game quarter breaks during the winter sports season is another goal. As co-captain of her dance team in high school, and working closely with other cheerleaders for years, Coach Zabinski also has the experience and ability to plan a successful pep rally.

She intends to focus on making this happen by being a positive influence on the cheerleaders she works with. “I want the girls to know that they can shine whether their background is cheerleading or dancing. We are going to see ways where girls with more of a cheer background will shine and moments where girls with more of a dancing background will shine,” Zabinski said. 

Coach Zabinski is trying to incorporate a stronger captain and co-captain role in her team as a teaching opportunity to assist in forming new ideas as a team. This can include different choreography, stunting, and team bonding exercises. Essentially what she expects of her team this year is additional peer leadership and while still working together, learning to be independent. 

“I would really like to guide these young women as they grow and as they get ready to move on to college. I would also love it if I could be somebody that these girls can look up to and feel comfortable talking to whenever needed,” Coach Zabinski said. It would be ideal to design an atmosphere where each and every one of them can collectively use their creativity and make smart decisions as a team.