Three-year varsity athlete and two-year cheer captain, Syracuse commit Gemma Fox has undoubtedly left her mark on the Redwood Cheer program.
“I think people need to understand that cheer is a sport. We’re not cheering for ourselves, we’re not performing for ourselves, we’re performing for other people, which skews the concept that we’re not really a sport. We’re always labeled with something else: football cheer or basketball cheer,” Fox said.
Fox began cheering on Junior Varsity (JV) her freshman year and quickly ascended the ranks, becoming a JV captain during football season her sophomore year and joining varsity that spring. She spent her first three years cheering as a base until last summer, when she began flying. Coming into a new position, especially one where she is thrown up to 18 feet in the air, is a daunting challenge.
“Stunting can be pretty difficult. You can get mentally scared of it. Some skills took me months to learn that should have taken me a day because it’s just scary,” Fox said.
Despite the physical and psychological hardships of being a new flyer, Fox is regarded by her peers and her students as an inspiring figure of determination and grit. In her free time, Fox coaches elementary and middle schoolers at the Corte Madera Recreation Center and volunteers to assist the JV team.
“I connected a lot with the lower teams, making sure that they always knew who I was, and they would come to me if they had questions. [I worked on] creating a whole environment for cheer and not as much of a division between JV and varsity,” Fox said. “During basketball season, I was at almost every one of JV’s warmups because their coach couldn’t be there on time. I was leading the warmups, helping them assemble the quarters, [and] fixing what wasn’t going well.”
Senior co-captain Devyn Johnson admires Fox’s extra hours in the gym and her determination to lead the team while improving her flying skills.
“Having her as an example pushes me to want to be better. Even though we’re co-captains, I still look up to her and want to be the best I can be because of her,” Johnson said.
Throughout her years cheering, Fox has suffered ankle injuries, a broken nose and constant changes in the structure of the cheer team. Through all of it, she has remained a steadfast leader that her teammates, co-captains and coaches alike look to for guidance.
“We’ve had six different coaches over the four years and it’s been really hard. I think [Fox] is really good at handling her emotions well and keeping focused even when things are tough,” Johnson said.
