Cedar Rapids Jefferson cheer squad performing at Taxslayer Bowl

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Hawkeyes aren't the only Eastern Iowa team headed to a bowl game in 2016.

Members of the Jefferson High School cheer team have been invited to perform on Jan. 2 in Jacksonville during the halftime show at the Tax­Slayer Bowl, where Penn State is playing Georgia.

Twenty-two teens are going to Jacksonville, according to Sherren Huston, who has coached the team for 20 years. The Jefferson girls will join dance, cheer and drill teams from across the nation in the performance.

The team consists of 10th- to 12th-graders, Huston said.

WorldStrides OnStage programs first contacted the team with an opportunity to perform in 2012, Huston said. The team traveled to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis that year. In 2013, the team went to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Huston said.

'We're very proud that they would ask us back again, it means we must be doing something right, like coming there prepared,' Huston said. 'They ask you to learn the choreography before you come down to the bowl game. Then we have several rehearsals leading up to the game.

'The fact that they're asking us to come back means that our kids must be stepping up to the challenge and working hard to perform well at these events.'

Senior Bethannie Fox, 18, said she is most excited to work with choreographers once she arrives in Jacksonville. This will be her first performance at a bowl game, even though she has been on the team for four years.

Fox said the performance requires mental and physical readiness.

'We're having practices to learn the dance and then we have practices to work on stunts so that when we go out there we can be prepared for what they're giving us,' Fox said.

The team will leave for the TaxSlayer Bowl on Dec. 29. There also will be an all-day cheer clinic with professionals one day during the team's trip, Huston said.