The cheer competition checklist isn't about covering basics — it's about systematically removing the things that go wrong even when a team is ready. Stunt falls and tumbling errors are performance issues. Missing music documentation, uniform violations, and expired athlete memberships are administrative errors that cost points before your team sets foot on the mat.

Use this timeline to work backwards from competition day. The goal is to arrive with nothing left to worry about except the routine.

Four to Six Weeks Out

This is when administrative issues need to be resolved — not the week before. The penalties for missing this window are significant.

  • Verify current physicals for every athlete. Your school's athletic department sets the deadline. Don't wait for it.
  • Confirm GPA and academic eligibility. Minimum is typically 2.0, but check your organization's specific requirement.
  • Register all athletes and coaches in your organization's system (USA Cheer, state association, etc.). Age verification must be current.
  • Order your competition music from a licensed vendor. Unauthorized remixes and single-song mixes without proper licensing documentation are grounds for disqualification. The license purchase receipt is required at registration.
  • Research the specific scoring system for your competition. USASF and UCA score sheets are different. What counts in one doesn't always count in the other. Coaches who don't know the sheet often miss scored elements — props, stunt placement requirements, pyramid requirements — that could have been included.

One Week Before

Practice and logistics converge here. By this point, your athletes should be hitting skills at 90%+ consistency. If they're not, the week before is not the time to add difficulty.

  • Run a complete mock competition. Full warm-up sequence, then a performance run-through — exactly as it will happen on the day. Time it.
  • Confirm the time limit. A 1-to-5-second overage is a 1.0-point deduction. Over 5 seconds varies by organization but it's always a bigger hit. Know your window and verify your mix is inside it.
  • Print your music license documentation and put it in a physical folder that travels with you. Digital copies on a phone are a backup, not the primary.
  • Inventory your music backup plan. You need: a dedicated MP3 player with your mix loaded, a backup phone on airplane mode with the file, and a charged backup battery. Equipment failure happens. Your plan shouldn't depend on a single device.
  • Inspect every uniform for midriff coverage. Sheer, mesh, and fringe materials do not satisfy the coverage requirement. The midriff must be covered when the athlete stands at attention. A 5-point uniform deduction (under UCA rules) is avoidable at this stage — not after warm-up.
  • Check that all scored props are included and rehearsed. Poms, megaphones, flags that appear on your score sheet must be present and used.

Day Before

Keep this day focused. Athletes should rest, not run extra practice hours.

  • Pack everything the night before. Uniforms, accessories, backups, paperwork folder, music devices. Assign athletes specific items to be responsible for.
  • Confirm your arrival time and route. Add 30 minutes of buffer for unexpected delays. Being in line early is not optional.
  • Enforce a recovery night. Good sleep, a cool room, screens off an hour before bed. Athletes who don't sleep compete differently than athletes who do. This is within your control.
  • Do a light mental run-through. Not a physical practice — a quiet visualization of the routine hitting cleanly. It's a documented performance advantage for athletes at all skill levels.

Competition Morning

  • Eat a balanced meal 2–3 hours before performance. Not immediately before. Not skipped.
  • Arrive earlier than check-in opens. Every item on the paperwork list needs time to hand over without rushing.
  • Verify all athletes are present and accounted for before you leave the staging area. Every athlete must appear throughout the routine — not just some of them. If someone is missing, you need to know before warm-up, not during.
  • Review the score sheet one more time in warm-up. Confirm every required element — stunt sequences, pyramid placement, prop use — is in your routine and staged correctly.
  • Remove jewelry, piercings, and address nails before the line forms. Athletes cannot do this in the queue or on deck. If it's not handled before, it becomes a penalty.

After the Performance

One thing coaches consistently forget: clear the gym of everything. Every belonging, every bag, every piece of equipment. Leaving items behind is not just disorganized — at some venues it creates issues with the next team's warm-up space and reflects poorly on your program.

Track It Across the Season

The checklist above covers one competition. If you're running multiple events across a season, the administrative overhead compounds quickly — athlete eligibility status changes, music documentation needs to be re-verified per competition, and uniform inspections should happen before every event, not just the first one.

CheerCounts tracks your team's practice data, roster status, and routine details in one place, so you have the full picture before competition season starts rather than piecing it together in the days before each event.