Standing side by side, senior Niya Brooks and junior Mia Potter hold their talons up under their pom poms as the Richardson High School Alma Mater plays after the final football game of the season.

Several members of the varsity cheerleading squad had family members with backgrounds in cheerleading. Having family connections to cheerleading impacted their journeys in high school cheer.

“This is something she’s always wanted me to be a part of,” senior and cheerleading legacy Niya Brooks said.

Brooks’s mother was also a part of Richardson High School cheerleading when she was in high school and supported Niya from the stadium stands this year.

“I think she sees a lot of great things in me, and she wants to do a lot of things that I’ve done previously,” Niya’s mom said. “I’m a very proud mom.”

Junior Mia Potter was inspired to join cheerleading by her two older sisters, who were also in cheerleading at RHS.

“I remember them talking about pep rallies and the fun dances they got to do,” Potter said. “I just remember being inspired to do cheer as well, because it looked like a blast.”

Senior Vanina Poulsen used some of the skills that she learned from her sister, a former RHS varsity cheer captain, as she navigated through this cheer season as a captain herself.

“The main thing I learned from my sister was that being a captain means you’re looked up to by the younger girls, and that they rely on you to show them how to become better in both cheerleading and just in regular school,” Poulsen said.

Poulsen’s sister, Joan, watched her sister cheer at football games and influenced her performance.

“Joan came to every single one of my games and made me feel like I had someone there to cheer to,” Poulsen said. “I felt like I had someone to follow in the footsteps of, and I knew that even when she’s in college, she would support everything that I did as a captain.”