An integral part of the game day experience, Northwestern cheerleaders work hard to bring spirit to Welsh-Ryan Arena

Kalyn Kahler’s four years as a Northwestern cheerleader at Welsh-Ryan Arena hardly could have ended on a higher note.

When Northwestern trailed a struggling Michigan team by six points with 16 seconds left in overtime Tuesday night, it looked like Kahler and her fellow senior cheerleaders, Grace Jaworski and Jackie Marthouse, would leave Welsh-Ryan on Senior Night after another tough loss to cap off a mediocre 2014-15 home campaign.

Instead, Tre Demps caught fire, almost single-handedly sending the Wildcats to a second overtime they would ultimately win, and Northwestern’s senior cheerleaders – honored before the game along with the senior players and student managers – experienced a special night they will likely never forget.

About four hours before Demps’ second game-tying shot swished through the net, the cheerleaders began arriving to the arena. According to Kahler, the squad typically gets to Welsh-Ryan about an hour before the game starts. The cheerleaders go to their locker room, get ready together, make sure they have all the right clothing and often watch other Big Ten games on the TV while they wait to go out to the court.

Then, after collecting free t-shirts from Wildside and practicing their stunts for the game, the cheerleaders lead the team out onto the court while individually carrying the eight W-I-L-D-C-A-T-S flags.

“Some people are really attached to one letter,” Kahler said. “One of my friends has to run the ‘A’ every time, and I’m just like ‘why?’”

Kahler, a veteran cheerleader, usually leads the crew with the “W,” which presents some challenges.

“That can actually be really tricky because the opposing team will always be on the court, and there’s also the fog,” Kahler said, referring to the fog machine that always greets the players and cheerleaders when they run out to the court. “First of all, you’re running blindly, and then you’re running blindly onto the court where there’s already an entire basketball team, so that can be tricky sometimes because you have to dodge the opposing players.”

Cheerleading during games is hard work, but so is preparation throughout the week. The squad practices on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday, which, according to Kahler, “gets to be a lot during basketball season” because they do women’s and men’s games.

Sometimes, though, that preparation is met by empty seats and overall lackluster attendance at Northwestern home games – Kahler’s least favorite part about cheerleading.

"The worst part – not that I want to call out students at this school...actually, I am going to call them out," Kahler said. "I get it. We all have homework, we have midterms, but it's so annoying to me that people don't care and don't want to come.

"It does make sense to some degree, but at the same time it's super frustrating being a cheerleader and saying to your friends, 'Hey, you should come to the game today' and having them not give a crap about it. The student apathy toward sports really annoys me."

Among Big Ten teams last season, only Penn State trailed Northwestern in attendance during in-conference games, according to NCAA statistics. During the last two home games, however, Northwestern’s attendance has been stellar, with an atmosphere that has at times electrified Welsh-Ryan Arena and spurred on the players during two big wins.

"The last [home] basketball game against Indiana was really cool. I thought that was the best environment we've had this season for men's basketball," Kahler said, talking prior to Tuesday’s game against Michigan. "You could even tell, the players were feeling it themselves."

If Kahler had a chance to amend her statement, she’d surely choose Tuesday night’s thriller instead. When each of Demps’ game-tying threes went in, it was like a bomb went off the way the crowd erupted. Added to that, emotions ran high with three seniors – JerShon Cobb, Dave Sobolewski and Jeremiah Kreisberg – playing their final Northwestern home game. The win seemed like a fitting end to the year for Kahler and her teammates.

“I love sports, so I'm going to go to the games anyway,” Kahler said. “Why not be a part of the experience?”