GO TOPPERS!!!

  Bethany White is excited about heading off to college this fall. As matter of fact, she is making routine visits to Bowling Green on weekends already. That’s because she was selected one of the Western Kentucky University All-Girl cheerleaders.

“I’m really excited because I think it will be a new environment for me, but it’s a lot bigger,” she said. “I am looking forward to meeting a lot of new people and to experience the bigger atmosphere of it.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to Western and I started out wanting to play soccer at Western,” said White. “Then, my junior year I started getting serious about competitions and I talked to Josh Buley, the coach after the state KAPOS competition. I went down in the fall of my senior year and practiced with them and just decided to try out.”

“It was an open tryout, so anybody could go try-out,” White said. “They started with 40 girls for the all-girl squad and made three cuts after each day of practice and actually 31 tried out. They took 20 girls and four alternates.”

White said she wanted to try out for the all-girl squad and doesn’t plan to make the move to the co-ed squad anytime soon. “I don’t like flying and all the girls have to go up in the air and a lot more is expected of those girls,” she said.

“On the girls squad I can stay on the ground and base and kind of do what I am used to and what I am good at,” said White.

“An awesome cheerleader all four years,” said Corbin coach Tony Carloftis. “She was a big leader her senior year. She loves all sports, she ran track, played soccer and is real athletic.”

White will not be alone at WKU has brother, Ben is a student at Western.

“We went to camp there last year and our state competitions has been there for the last two years, so it was a good fit,” said Carloftis.

The former cheerleading coach (resigned recently) said it was no surprise to her that White earned a spot on the all-girl squad. “She is a UCA instructor as well. She is very smart and has a lot of karmas and lots of leadership,” said Carloftis.

White said she will miss her squad at Corbin High School. “It’s kind of like a sisterhood. All of the girls I have cheered with throughout high school I consider very close friends of mine,” said White. “We are kind of like a little family of sister and Mrs. (Toni) Carloftis was our mother. They were the group of people that if anything happened or I had a problem I could go to.”

“Cheering is something that we all loved to do and that bonded us together,” said White. “We all loved to cheer.”

White kept busy at Corbin High School where she played soccer and ran track while cheering. ‘During football season we only had two practices a week and so, I would split soccer and cheerleading a little bit. Games were never a problem, soccer was Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and football games were Friday nights, so it worked out well,” she said.

“Coach Steely and Mrs. Carloftis made it very easy, they were lenient with me,” said White.

White will become the fourth girl to attend a major as a cheerleader. She thinks the efforts of Carloftis pushed Corbin cheerleading to a new level. “I think it was the competition thing. When Mrs. Carloftis took over my freshman year we started in KAPOS, which is like the Kentucky regional, and state competitions and it became very competitive. It wasn’t something that you could throw a simple skill and do well. It became a lot harder and we had to throw harder skills to compete on the level that everybody is at these days.”

“And getting third in state people started noticing Corbin,” said White. While in high school Corbin has finished fifth, fourth and third twice.

Carloftis feels White is ready for the college level. Asked what she needs to do, Carloftis said. “Nothing, she is ready. She is driven and real disciplined. She is used to being busy a lot. She has multi tasked all her life. To play soccer and cheer, she worked around both practice schedules and ballgames.”

“She is used to a busy schedule, so she will do fine, she won’t have any trouble at all, I don’t think,” said Carloftis.

There are plenty of things that she will miss about Corbin. “Coach (Steve) Jewell was kind of like my dad at this school and Mrs. Carloftis was like a mom,” said she. “There are certain teachers that I am really close to.”

“I will miss Friday night lights for football games,” White said. “I always loved Friday night football games. I will miss the people, my underclassmen that I was close to. I am pretty sure I will miss Corbin in general.”

White wants to be a teacher when she finishes Western Kentucky University. “I am going to double major in biology and education,” she said.