Amateur poms, formerly known as male poms, is one of the most exciting anticipated traditions of the WJ spring pep rally. Along with the dancing, the funny performance ends with an exciting prom-posal.

In past years, there haven’t been difficulties finding participants as athletes and seniors are usually excited to perform and contribute to the tradition. Surprisingly, this year has been troublesome due to the lack of interest and attention towards the group, delaying practices and bringing the team together at the very last minute. Some even signed up and then dropped out, causing an even bigger deficit of people going into pep rally week.

Poms captain and amateur poms coach senior Siena Fluegel drew attention to this problem and worked to recruit new members as time was counting down.

“I reached out to Noah [Prevost] and Zein [Saleh] to see if any of their friends would be interested,” Fluegel said. “After that practice Monday was pretty good. We have a good amount of people doing it now.”

After Fluegel reached out to numerous senior guys, many responded to her urgency and changed their attitudes.

“I decided to join Poms because they needed more people and I didn’t want it to die out for the years after us because our year didn’t have enough people to do it,” senior Gavin Hartz said.

Due to Fluegel’s advocacy for the performance, more people stepped up just in time for pep rally week. At the first practice amateur poms only gained a few people, but by the second they were able to fulfill a whole team.

“After the first practice we didn’t really know what we were doing, but after the second we started to get the hang of it,” senior Josh Koenick said.

With the new additions to the group, they have been able to learn the routines successfully. The group is also confident that they will continue to improve going into Friday morning.

“So far, the team is absolutely crushing it!” senior Devin Markert said. “We’ve nailed about two thirds of the routine, and we’re about to nail the last third tonight at practice. It was a totally wild rollercoaster to get the team ready with only three practices the week of the pep rally, but thanks to our amazing coaches, we’ve been transformed into the most awesome and best male poms squad in the universe!”