(upbeat music)
- With the school year approaching,
the Ole Miss Spirit Squads held tryouts
across campus from each other.
With a record turnout,
keeping logistics straight was the first priority.
- Give numbers to the girls.
Make sure guys are getting letters.
They'll need this to actually take their picture.
Let's do it right the first time,
versus trying to rush through,
because we cannot backtrack.
- Hello everyone!
We're gonna go ahead and get started with check in.
You'll check in at the front,
and then you'll go ahead and get your picture taken
and all those kinds of things.
- You're 66, you can take some of these safety pins
and if you go to the grey door they'll take your picture.
- Okay, thank you.
- You're welcome.
- Hi, Jordan Le Kamp, with a K.
- You can put your stuff anywhere
along the walls right here.
Pictures are taken inside of the open room.
(rock guitar music)
- You have to make sure that the pin
goes all the way through the top and back down.
Otherwise it'll just rip the paper.
- The trick is it makes you take a lot of blood work.
- The key is always team work.
- Is team work.
- Until you stick yourself.
- My hands are a little shaky.
- I might have stuck myself.
- Should be fun.
I'm kind of nervous too.
There's always a little bit of nervousness there.
But, it's a fun process.
- Today is Saturday, first day of tryouts.
I'm a little bit nervous.
But I think everybody here's gonna do really good.
- We're excited.
- It's our third year.
- Our fourth year.
Fourth year for tryouts and so it's fun.
We started out here freshman year in the Tad Pad
and we're ending in the Tad Pad.
So it's pretty cool.
- Freshman year you have no clue,
well you know what's kinda happening
but you're not used to it
so now I'm like, I have experience
so it's a little bit easier
but it never stops getting nerve-wracking.
- You gotta get your little heart right here.
(laughter)
I gotta get down.
(laughter)
But your hanging it on your team.
(guitar music)
- We're taking some pics
getting ready for tryouts.
We just checked in.
Feeling a little nervous
but that's okay.
I'm ready.
- I'm ready.
- What?
(camera snaps)
- Good luck.
- 1, 2, 3, awesome.
(camera snaps)
- Welcome to tryouts for 2016-2017.
- So we are glad that you are here.
We are excited about the weekend
and selecting our 2016-2017 Ole Miss Rebelettes.
- You are the best and you are here.
Okay?
Don't take, we're not taking that away from you.
But we only have so many spots on our team.
- We know that y'all have been working
really really hard preparing for this weekend
and that's a good thing
because it takes a lot of hard work and dedication
to be a Rebelette.
- You are the best but we're looking for something
that's just a hair above the best.
Alright you guys, let's get started.
- Hi, I'm Hope Mayo.
I'm gonna be a sophomore.
- I'm gonna be freshman here at Ole Miss.
- I'll be a senior next year.
- I am from Sugar Land, Texas.
- Boulder, Colorado
- Atlanta, Georgia.
- I was born and raised in Mississippi.
- I'm currently majoring in accounting.
- Hospitality management.
- Molecular biology.
- I followed my mom and dad's footsteps coming
to Ole Miss.
- I've been going to the Grove since I was
a little toddler.
- A weird fact about me is I can sing and talk
with my mouth closed.
- All my friends from home in Kansas City
call me Hope the Hugger
because I love to give people hugs.
(mumbled singing)
(laughter)
- So what I want you to do now is just kind of
spread out.
Find a space where you can dance.
We'll mix and mingle throughout.
You are gonna step on your right foot
and whip one, two, throw three, circle, four.
So you're just kicking out your right foot.
The head goes to the right.
Yes, and then just crosses and then it just opens.
Yes, so one more time.
Let's go from the top.
One, two flamingo cross, three, four, five
and six parterre, seven, and eight.
Think about lines.
Lines with your arms.
Especially on this kick our arms are just really sloppy.
So, again reach through your fingertips.
Don't be shy.
Okay, ready?
Here we go from the top.
Slowly, five, six, seven, eight.
Walk one, two, three, four, five and kick.
Seven and leap.
One drag two, three, four, five rock step
flick is next.
One, two, three, four, five up six and padebure.
Good, do we have any questions?
If you want to run real quick you have like
two minutes to grab some water, fan your face.
- Although learning the jazz routine seemed
to come natural to the Rebelette hopefuls
ironing out the problems with their hair
was a whole other issue.
- I'm braiding my hair but it's not working well.
But other than that it's great.
- Can somebody tell me, I don't know.
- Mine won't stay up.
Did you not see it?
- This is what happens and I'll start all over.
- It's a process.
You have to have light 25 bobby pins
and hairspray.
I use about a half thing of hairspray every time
I put my hair up.
- I brought a blow dryer to dry my face.
- On the other side of campus the cheerleading
tryout was heating up.
Contrary to their dancing counterparts,
cheerleaders were expected to come into tryouts
knowing the material and having their skills ready to shine.
(intense orchestral music)
- Alright, we're gonna go ahead and get started.
First number's gonna come on out.
Guys have letters on their arm.
Girls have numbers on their thigh.
109 and he's H.
There you go.
(intense music)
- Come on y'all.
Nice. Good job guys.
- This is a vet group.
(cheers)
Beautiful.
Good save.
- So you have 163, 194.
This is a relook at 90.
- Really, still?
- You don't know yet.
- 174, 201.
One extra girl and two extra guys.
Okay, we are still not done.
Y'all are making it very difficult.
Very difficult, but kudos to you for doing that for us.
- Alright, so ladies here's what we're gonna do.
So you have nine laps.
Each time that you go around your partner's gonna
sit there to the side.
Your running first there right by our normal little corner.
(upbeat music)
58, 59, one minute
(cheers and claps)
(upbeat music)
- 110 is gonna be a definite yes.
And 115 is a definite yes.
- And number five.
- Yes.
- A lot of these girls and guys just take it for granted
all year long that you're on the team and then a month
before tryout it's like uh oh let's try to get better.
- When she made the team last year she walked up
to me when I "congratulations" and I said "if you
don't spend next year this is gonna be a problem"
and she said, "Okay."
- Really cute.
- Yeah, she is really cute.
- I'm fine with keeping her to the second round
if y'all are good with that.
This is Ole Miss.
It's about everything.
- I just really wish she would have done something
more with her fight song as in like smile or just
a little bit more.
Cause then I would have said a yes or through.
- Right.
- I put literally no smile three times.
- 178.
- Okay.
- 51.
- These two either one
- Either one you're good with.
- She's a non-tumbler.
- She's a non-tumbler?
- Well, she doesn't tuck, new to tuck.
- She doesn't have skills tumbling wise.
- That's easy.
- I like her.
- Can we pick alternates for all-girl
and callbacks for all-girl.
Technically, all of these could be on mat together.
- Stunt wise, I think she is a much better stunter
than she is.
- And then our next one would take us to 60
total for tomorrow.
- After the first round of cuts there would be
another full day of auditions and deliberations
for both squads.
By the end of the last round both groups would have
their final count and their team selected for the
2016-2017 season.
(cheerful music)
- So, we selected our team last night.
It's been posted online
so it's the first time that
we are meeting the new squad.
They are excited to see each other.
They get their official first Ole Miss Rebelette t-shirt
for 2016-2017 season.
There's lots of hugs and smiles and pictures
and whatnot.
Parents are gonna be here to share the first moments.
We'll meet about it and talk about expectations for
the year, their role now that they've been selected
as a Rebelette what that means and what that entails
for the next year.
- After a long weekend it's so nice just to wake up
and know that we're just about to be new teammates
and have a good meeting and kind of get the feel
for the year and it's something that we're always
really excited about.
- I don't know, I mean, it's kind of sad, honestly
thinking it's our year at last and it really feels
like yesterday we were freshmen.
- It's weird.
- Oh, I can't tell you.
It's so exciting because yesterday was a really
intense audition.
Friday night and Saturday are intense.
- This is wonderful.
This is payoff of four years.
We just feel so excited for them because it's senior year.
- It's senior year and they worked very hard.
- The dynamics are already strong within the
group that's been selected.
So we're excited to start the year and get everything
rolling and continue to make history and build upon
the foundation that we've set so far.
(energetic music)