Several cheerleaders perform at a Clarke Central High School varsity football game on Sept. 1 against Gainesville High School. Clarke Central High School’s cheerleading program has been led by head coach Brooke Craft for the past three years, and Korbyn Boyd has recently joined as a new assistant coach. Photo by Aneesa Conine-Nakano.
Head cheerleading coach Brooke Craft and cheerleading varsity captain Mara Woods share their thoughts on new cheerleading assistant coach Korbyn Boyd.
Clarke Central High School’s head cheerleading coach, Brooke Craft, added Korbyn Boyd to the program as a new assistant coach this year. The position was left vacant by math department teacher and assistant coach Alex Swatkowski after her departure last year.
“I had a previous assistant coach last year and she is no longer here at Clarke Central,” Brooke said. “I knew that she wasn’t going to be able to help us out this year and I became friends with Coach Boyd last year. I knew she was a cheerleader and she had a lot of cheerleading experience. I asked her if she’d be willing to help out this year and she was like, ‘Of course, I’ll help out!’ It all happened very naturally. It worked out.”
Varsity cheerleading captain Mara Woods, a senior, is excited to see how Boyd will help further the program.
“I hope she just stays the same, energetic and fresh,” Woods said. “I hope to act fresh cheers and stuff. Keep being vibrant and keep being the leader she is now.”
Woods is also impressed by the dynamic between Craft and Boyd during practice.
“They work well together. They work very well together,” Woods said. “They’re sisters, and when one says something they both agree to set it in stone. I just want (the program) to keep growing and make sure that it has the leadership it has now.”
With regard to specific cheerleading goals, Craft feels Boyd will help her better the team by offering a fresh perspective on certain techniques.
“We are trying to work on the stunts we are doing,” Craft said. “We have some higher stunts that we would like for them to do and Coach Boyd was a flier in high school in all the previous years, so her knowledge on how to talk to the flier and what the flier should do is really helping out a lot. I was a base, so we’re getting to see things from two different perspectives. She came in not really knowing all of the girls at the beginning of the year, so she could see things that I didn’t see. We’re fixing all of the different motions, making sure our motions are tight.”
