While student athletes are often recognized for their fitness aptitude, their intellect and academic commitment play a big role, as well.
This is the case for the West Ranch competition cheer team, which placed first as the 2025 CIF Southern Section Academic Champion out of 2,600 schools throughout California.
With a combined GPA of 3.64, this feat is the first in West Ranch’s cheer history, according to Jayme Fechtelkotter, West Ranch head competition cheer coach.
“These student-athletes are not only fierce competitors on the mat but also committed scholars in the classroom … Basically, every year, all the sports teams who compete for CIF enter the CIF Southern Section Academic Champion Award. Athletic directors submit each team’s individual GPA, [and the award] takes the team’s cumulative GPA and awards the highest one,” Fechtelkotter said.
Fechtelkotter, who has been coaching since 2019 and is a West Ranch alumna, said encouraging academic excellence is an important part of the role of a cheer coach.
“It’s just a huge accomplishment. Throughout the season, our sideline advisor and I are always doing grade checks with the girls every month. We’re always pushing them to have AP and honors classes,” Fechtelkotter said. “I think West Ranch strives for academic excellence, so the girls have a great environment. We’re always pushing them to have the best and highest GPA.”
Not only does Fechtelkotter help monitor and encourage the girls’ progress, but also encourages them to be introspective on how they could do better on their own.
“They have a monthly self-evaluation where they tell us how they’re doing in school, how they’re doing in cheer, and then they have a goal for every month of what they want to achieve. We’re basically checking grades every month for the girls, and we’re reaching out to teachers. If the girls need help, we’re helping them set up tutoring,” Fechtelkotter said.
Building that sense of accountability paid off, she said.
“This is just such a great reward for the girls, because it really showed them that their hard work has paid off, and they’re able to balance school and their social life and work life and cheer life, and that’s a really hard thing to do,” Fechtelkotter said. “It was just a really great reward for them.”
