An LNW Cheerleading Tryout Candidate must... 

• Be fully enrolled at Lincoln Northwest High School by March 24th, 2025 (the first day of your tryouts). 

• Have 2.5 cumulative GPA or higher. 

  • If a candidate is highly qualified for the team and has between a 2.0 and 2.5 at the time of tryouts, s/he may be added to the program roster on a probational basis. See our Academic Contract for more information. 

• Be enrolled in, attend, and passing a minimum of ten credit hours per term. 

• Have his/her previous season’s account in good standing (i.e. paid in full). 

• Provide a copy of your pre-participation (sports) physical dated on or after May 1, 2025 to the LNW Athletic Office before practice time on August 5th, 2025. 

Optional Pre-Tryout Clinic with LNW Cheer Coaching Staff. Join the LNW Cheer coaching staff to learn proper motion placement, tips and tricks for strength and flexibility workouts at home along with the traditional Flight Song choreography and a handful of our traditional team cheers and chants. This year’s clinics will take place on:

• Thursday, February 27th from 6:00pm to 7:30pm

A $5 admission will be charged at the door for this optional clinic.

Tryout Application. Prior to arriving at in-person tryouts, all candidates must submit an online application through Google Classroom. As part of this application, a candidate’s current teachers will be solicited for recommendations. A candidate’s application information and the average of the recommendation scores will comprise half of the final overall tryout score.

Tryout Week. After submitting an online application, candidates will attend three tryout week practices where they will learn a full-length cheer, three chants, and a dance to be performed in front of a panel of qualified judges* at final auditions on the Thursday of the same week. This content along with basic cheerleading skills including jumps, kicks, motion placement, facials, and vocal projection will make up the second half of the final overall tryout score.

*Tryout judges have a basic knowledge of cheerleading skills and will not have any personal ties to the candidates being judged. Alumni members of LNW Cheer may be used but will have been removed from the program for at least four years.

Making the Team. If you make a team, you will be sent an email late on the evening of the final audition night with invite information to the next day’s all-team breakfast at LNW.

Team Announcements. Announcement of your team member status will be posted to official LNW Cheer social media platforms, after which team members are permitted to share their status publicly. Any pre-sharing of your team status is reason for removal from the team.

All decisions about team membership made by the Tryout Committee are final.

Post-Tryout Inquiries. If a candidate would like feedback on why s/he did or did not make a team, they may choose to write to Head Coach Abby Filbert (afilber2@lps.org) on their own behalf via email starting and ending the Monday following tryouts. No inquiries will be responded to before or after that Monday time slot. Additionally, only general points of feedback will be shared--a candidate waives the right to see or have knowledge of any specifics in regards to point totals, point breaks, etc.