NEW HOPE – “Together As One” has taken on a new meaning for the New Hope band, coed cheerleading team and Dance Xpress.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the New Hope High School spirit teams collaborated on a Senior Night performance at halftime of the football team’s final home game. All three teams were together on the field for the show, which concluded with music from Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller.”
Since then, the collaboration between the teams has become an annual event and has brought the coaches and their athletes closer together. More than five years later, those bonds will grow even stronger now that the New Hope band, coed cheer and Dance Xpress teams are going to make history together.
On Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2026, New Hope’s teams will compete in Varsity Sport’s inaugural Division II National School Spirit Championships at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. In addition to the Universal Cheerleaders Association National High School Cheerleading Championship, the Universal Dance Association National Dance Team Championship and the new National School Band Championship, New Hope’s teams will compete in their spirit squad’s event and on the same stage at the same time as one team.
New Hope High cheerleading coach Rachel Robertson said NHHS will be the first Mississippi school to enter all three spirit entities in this competition and then compete together in the first competition of its kind.
“I think we are going to have to go down there and fight our butts off,” Robertson said. “This is a really big undertaking to take 80 people and fundraise those costs. To see door after door open, has been the little affirmations we needed.”
Robertson, New Hope band director Erica Shirley and Dance Xpress coach Courtney Hall said the school will be allowed to have 75 team members on the performance floor. The teams will be required to do a performance that includes a fight song, an offense or defense cheer, a crowd participation cheer and a band chant.
Performances could win prizes and awards valued at $75,000 for the teams and for NHHS.
Robertson said she remembers the feeling she had when she walked off the football field at the end of “Together As One.” She said the coaches agreed that they wanted to preserve that feeling of unity and help it grow stronger through the years. Robertson said the coaches have tried to make that happen by organizing shared performances and fun tailgates where all members could hang out together, even outside school.
“To see the past two years, I think it has kind of bled over into dance and amazing band camps and we just pulled together,” Robertson said. “It is not a show; it is more a vibe and a feeling, and I think it started with that group of kids.”
The three coaches agree the spirit squad members who are part of the Class of 2026 are providing the momentum driving their teams as well as leading the school in unity.
That’s part of the reason Robertson, Shirley and Hall feel so strongly about coming together to make history. Even though things have fallen into place to set the teams on the path to Florida, the coaches acknowledge it is a huge undertaking that will require a lot of planning.
But, as New Hope Dance Xpress senior Laila Macon, a captain, is fond of saying, “If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough”. Robertson, Shirley and Hall said the teams will use that mantra as motivation in the next few months so their school spirit helps punctuate their historic trip.
“We want to make everybody proud,” Robertson said. “I know our administrators have seen the way we are together. They have often said, ‘That was so neat that you do this together.’ To be able to put this out there and bring some really great light to our school, I would love nothing more.”
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