Following three years with their previous coach, the Lawrence High School cheer team is adjusting to a new leadership this season under Coach Deondrae Phillips-Worrell.

The change was somewhat unexpected for team members, many of whom met Phillips-Worrell during summer clinics without knowing he’d soon take on the official role. Sophomore Lucy Godfrey, who wasn’t at the clinic, recalled the team’s reactions.

“There were a bunch of rumors going around about who the coach was going to be,” Godfrey said. “Everyone met him before me, because he went to one of the clinics, but I wasn’t there that day.”

Junior Davian Copeland also recalled being confused at first about who Phillips-Worrell was, and what role he played at the clinic.

“At first I thought he was a student. He’s definitely not a student here, but he took charge pretty quickly,” Copeland said.

Phillips-Worrel’s leadership style quickly became evident, marking a distinct shift from the past. His approach emphasized structure, consistency, and purpose in every part of practice and performance.

“He’s a lot more strict, and he’s very punctual, which I love, because everything looks so much cleaner,” Godfrey said. “He focuses a lot on game day, rather than just cool things to happen. So I think we look a lot cleaner on the sidelines.”

From his first few sessions with the team, Phillips-Worrell noticed room for improvement technically.

“Looking at the initial landscape of the team in general, I immediately saw issues in technical aspects,” Phillips-Worrell said. “It’s the way we enter into skills, the way our emotions look, the way we present ourselves, from doing game based elements.”

Godfrey pointed out that the focus on fundamentals has led to real improvements in both safety and performance.

“We look a lot cleaner with our stunts, I feel like our stunts are safer,” Godfrey said. “We progress slower, but they’re safer and a lot cleaner. We also have a bunch of new eight-counts and cheers, because he’s been giving us a bunch of new material, and I love it so much.”

In addition to refining basics, Phillips-Worrell has allowed the team to explore more advanced stunt work and longer sequences.

“I like being able to do longer sequences,” Copeland said. “We get to do four more clips in one stunt, versus only getting to do like one or two things.”

Another major change under the new coach involves preparation for competitions. This year, the team started preparing for state in July, months earlier than usual.

“We have been working on state since we started practicing in July, and state isn’t till November,” Godfrey said. “Last year we didn’t start state until October,” Godfrey. “I think we have a really good chance this year, and the routines already look really good, so I’m excited.”

For Phillips-Worrell, early preparation was intentional.

“The first target I saw was to change all those technical things and execute those technical things,” Phillips-Worrell said. “The big thing that I’ve pushed is intention and intentionality in our execution, and that’s something that I think will take us from our last year placement to a new placement this year.”

Phillips-Worrell said he’s already seeing improvement.

“Last week, we had a skill that wasn’t going the best, but the girl then verbally corrected herself with the correction that I would have given her,” Phillips-Worrell said “I’m seeing them take my small, subtle things and implement them into what they’re actually doing.”

This shift in mindset has begun to show up in the team’s motivation and focus this season, particularly when it comes to competition and school spirit.

“I feel like most of it’s just to improve and keep school spirit up,” Copeland said. “We were trying to do better at our competition this year than we did last year. That was one of the things that we definitely wanted to work on.”

Beyond just physical performance, Phillips-Worrell is working to help the team build a deeper connection to their sport.

“Getting them to see themselves as athletes will, in turn, help them gain the spirit and gain their appreciation for the love of cheerleading,” Phillips-Worrell said. “The big thing is just having them appreciate cheerleading as more than just a pom pom and uniform.”

This story was originally published on The Budget on September 29, 2025.