This year's football season we took a new approach by throwing more elite stunts and pyramids at games and performances. Our goal this year was to go down to nationals and HIT our routine. Football games gave us a chance to practice more elite transitions in front of 26,000 people and build confidence in ourselves. This was one of the many new ideas head coach Joe Mackley had for us. One evening we were asked to bring our flashlights to his home, but no one knew what he had in store for us. He asked us to shine our individual flashlight on something in the distance. We were unable to make out the word on our own; it took all of our flashlights together to be able to read the sign saying "Champions". This is where we knew where we wanted to be -- all committing ourselves to work together even harder than we have to this point. This lead us to our next step -- taping.

Since everyone was on the same page, taping was easier than in years past. We flew through the sideline and cheer allowing us to include more elite transitions on our tape. We knew that it was by far the best tape Delaware has ever made. We were awarded with 3rd giving us a free trip to Florida!!

As nationals approached many individuals were dealing with outside hardships. It took the effort of everyone to help those in need to make it through the most difficult part of the season. With Christmas here for the rest of the university, we began double sessions. Finals were over with, and it was time to focus on our nationals routine. Our routine included more elite stunts and pyramids than ever before, but our main focus was still to HIT our routine at nationals. Three days before Christmas break the coaches had another surprise, they brought in UCA instructor Jimmy Lassiter to tweak our routine and give us that little extra boost we needed.

On January 11, 2001, our friends, family, and alumni gathered at Pleasure Island to kick off what hoped to be a great weekend. Having a bid straight into finals we took the extra day to visit the new arena where we would be competing, Disney's Wide World of Sports. Though we didn't know we were missing our five-minute warm up on the mat, the trip proved to be beneficial to the competition the next day.

As we entered the arena Saturday morning, nothing was new to us; we had seen it all the day before. We were slated in the #2 spot behind northeast rival Villanova University, which was where we wanted to be. Having to go 2nd gave us the advantage to put the pressure on the rest of the field. As the music began a sense of calm came over all of us because we had taken the right steps to put us where we wanted to be. Everything came together during those 2 ½ minutes on the floor. When the routine came to an end, all 16 members, three coaches, parents, alumni, and friends in the stands knew we had accomplished our goal…TO HIT! Whatever happened from that point on was now out of our hands, we were just happy to have achieved our goal. That day all our dreams came true as they announced 10-time defending national champion Morehead State as second place and gave us the NATIONAL TITLE!

This year's motto ONE TEAM, ONE UNIT, ONE GOAL proved to hold the team together. We are all very proud of our accomplishments and this year's team will always be remembered for their hard work, dedication, support of each other and bringing home Delaware Cheerleading's first NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!

We would like to thank everyone that supported us throughout the year, especially our coaches: Joe Mackley, Melissa Bailey, and Doc Bill Shearer and all of our friends, family, and alumni. Nothing would have been possible without any of you this year. Thank You!!!