It was impossible to bury the jubilation brought to the table by hundreds of little girls and young ladies on cheer teams from Boston, Brockton, and Providence who packed into the Madison Park gymnasium on Saturday for their Pop Warner league’s first-ever meet in the intense, growing world of youth cheerleading.

As the announcer read off the winners by age group, several times the Dorchester Eagles or Dorchester-based Boston Raiders were called, prompting deafening roars from the various teams sitting in wait for their trophies and their tickets to the New England regional competition later this month.

For the adults, particularly the board members for the new Metropolitan Pop Warner League – a league founded out of necessity for several city programs left out of the mix when the former Eastern Massachusetts league dissolved – there was nervousness combined with hope. Their new league has been through ups and downs this year, and they say they’ve learned, but successes like this cheer meet help everyone catch the vision.

“We were kind of forced to do this because if we’re not going to take care of ourselves, we can’t expect anyone else to,” said Arkey Taylor, vice president of the Raiders and a Metro board member. “We decided to put egos aside and do what was best for the kids. We’re just the audience. This is their show.”

Metro President Dameain Mims said they’ve had growing pains this year, including a lot more travel than they expected, but successful events like Saturday’s cheer meet in the heart of the city help the momentum.

“We’re doing what we have to do to keep it going,” he said. “We’re all here for the kids. Things could be better but we’re making the most of the situation. It’s not the ideal, but we have to do what we have to do, and a lot of programs are starting to see the vision now.”

Mims said when the former Eastern Mass league dissolved and teams went to different north and south divisions, the city teams had to organize and do so quickly. The teams that came along with football and cheer were Boston Raiders, Dorchester Eagles, East Boston Jets, Roxbury Titans, Brockton Jr. Boxers, and Mt. Hope (RI) Cowboys. Those with only football this year were the Boston Chargers (Roslindale), Providence Hawks, Mission Hill/Fenway Buccaneers, Boston Bengals, Cambridge Warriors, Quincy 94 Elite, and the Boston Chiefs. There are 1,445 total participants, Mims said, including 967 ballplayers and 478 cheerleaders.

While some programs have struggled to keep up, many of those in the new Metro league are heavy-hitting national contenders in cheer and football, like the Eagles, the Raiders, and Mt. Hope.

Mt. Hope President Demetrius Perry noted they have seven national and 12 regional championships in cheer, and 12 regional football titles, but they wanted to stay with Metro for its vision.

“We decided to stay with Metro because there’s a brotherhood here,” he said on Saturday. “We had opportunities to go other places, and we could have been successful anywhere, but I saw the vision here and I wanted to put my guys and girls where they could be loved, accepted, and respected. This is the first competition, and they did it well. They’ve started to offer opportunities now for programs that didn’t have cheer before.”

The Dorchester Eagles cheer team celebrated a first-place finish in its the age group, advancing the squad to the New England Regionals. The Eagles have been dominant on the football field but had dropped their cheer program years ago until joining the new Metro league.

Board members of the new Metro Pop Warner, including Aundria Burcy, Tenita Perry, Secretary Gelisa Brown, Lena Fields, President Dameain Mims, and Arkey Taylor.

Enter the Dorchester Eagles, who had dropped cheer years ago but continued to compete for national titles in football. With football remaining at a high level, the Eagles decided to revive their cheer program as they headed into the new league. On Saturday, they had several cheerleading winners announced alongside storied programs like Mt. Hope and the Raiders – who have three national cheer championships under their belts.

Gelisa Brown, vice president of the Eagles and the secretary of the Metro board, said they are very excited to be in a league with common interests among kids and adults.

“We’ve all played each other so many times and built friendships outside of football and cheer as well,” she said. “We’re able now to do things that are more under our control and it’s easier to communicate with each other. All of our programs are inner-city programs now and the challenges facing our kids in Boston are likely the same ones kids in Rhode Island or Brockton are facing. We all face the same things and football [and cheer] are just the vehicles to help these kids.”

She noted that cheer can often get “overshadowed” by football, but Metro in its first year has done a good job of bringing the cheer programs off the sidelines and sharing the spotlight with football.

“I think everyone buying in and putting forth their best effort helped the league to take off,” said Lena Fields, of the Raiders. “We have so many volunteers helping and the cheer is really taking off with football. The girls are working just as hard as the boys are on the football field and competing at the highest levels.”

Mims and others said they are trying to capitalize on the growth nationally in Pop Warner cheer programs. Hundreds of girls attracted to the sport who are new to cheer – starting at age 5 and going until the early teen years. For those in city programs, it’s also a way to build sisterhood and keep girls focused on positive activities.

“It’s giving the kids something to do and keeps them busy,” said Tenita Perry, the cheer coordinator for Metro and a leader in the Mt. Hope program. “These are all inner-city teams, and we need to give them something to do that’s productive.”

An overall shot at the first-ever Metro Pop Warner cheer meet at Madison Park. Seth Daniel photos

While the football side of Metro Pop Warner squared off last Sunday at White Stadium for the ability to move on to the New England Regionals, cheer programs qualified on Saturday and await competition in Springfield on Nov. 11 and 12 with a trip to the national competition on the line.
On Saturday, as the event wrapped up, adult volunteers helped to pull up the competition mats and fold the judges’ tables – putting it all away. Outside the gym, an adult cheer volunteer from the Raiders was emptying out water from a cooler long after everyone else had left.

“This is what is going to keep us going,” Mims said, thanking the cheer mom. “This is the vision we have for supporting our kids in this league.”