The Knights claimed their fourth national title in the event and first since 2020, after also earning the top spot in 2007 and 2003. UCF won the 2019 crown in the gameday division.

After recording the highest score in the semifinals on Saturday to earn the right to perform last on Sunday, the Knights rose to the occasion in front of the hometown crowd to secure the national championship with a 97.3 event score, ahead of second-place Alabama (96.8) and Kentucky (95.4).

UCF was one of only two teams to hit its routine on Saturday and one of just four to hit in Sunday’s finals.

The Knights’ spirit program continues to make history under head coach Linda Gooch ’85.

Not only were the Knights successful in cheer, but UCF’s dance team placed fifth in the hip hop competition, which is the best finish in program history. The Black and Gold (90.6349) finished ahead of Florida State (89.1270) to hold the title of the best team in the state in the event.

Additionally, UCF also finished among the top 10 in the jazz finals with a 92.4444.

UCF and LSU were the only two programs to advance to the finals in coed cheer, jazz and hip hop.

In the spring of 1980, Linda Gooch ’85 became a member of the UCF cheer team. In August 1984 she was officially hired as the program’s head coach (the 2023 football season marks her 40th with the Knights) and a decade later the squad began competing for national titles. Since then they’ve been routine high finishers in national competitions, claiming Universal Cheerleaders Association national titles in 2003, 2007 and 2020 and a UCA game day national title in 2019. In addition, Gooch — now the longest-tenured employee in UCF Athletics — has been a key figure in the creation of mascot Knightro and the KnightMoves dance team. Her husband Alan Gooch ’84 ’89MA played football at UCF and then coached football with the Knights for 22 years. Both are members of the UCF Athletics Hall of Fame.

This is Gooch’s story on how the cheer program over the decades helped UCF’s rise to national notoriety.

I started coaching UCF cheer in 1984 — at the same time I was teaching eighth-grade history. I would teach school during the day and drive straight to campus and coach the team in the evening. Back then, to qualify for the national championship schools would send in videotapes of their teams performing stunts and pyramids. From those entry tapes, the top 10 teams in each division were invited to compete for the title. This is the 1980s and with no internet or social media. We were pretty isolated. We had no real idea what skills other teams were including in their videos. All we knew was what we saw see at summer cheerleading camp. This was a time of incredible growth for cheerleading. This was on the heels of Olympic gymnasts Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci — and you had all these little girls who had watched them.

The popularity of gymnastics exploded in the US during the ’70s, but there just weren’t enough qualified coaches. As high school programs, like mine, closed down many girls — took their acrobatic skills to cheerleading. What had begun as a sideline activity developed into a kind of alternative gymnastics. I was on the cusp of all of that.

During my first 10 years of coaching from 1984 to 1994 we submitted video entry tapes every year but kept receiving rejection letters. If you were close to being selected, you received not just a letter but a plaque. When you walk into my office today, on a shelf I have four of the rejection plaques. I keep those up there to remind me that nothing happens overnight, and you just have to stay at it. All those sayings about perseverance are really true. You just keep working and you’ll break through at some point.

In 1994 there was no rejection letter. I finally got a congratulations phone call. We had qualified for nationals. I was so pumped. I immediately called our Athletic Director Steve Sloan. I said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that after 10 years of trying we have finally qualified to compete for the Division I-AA national championship.” He went on and on congratulating us. I said, “The bad news is the competition is in San Diego, California, and I need $10,000 to get our team out there.” There was a long pause. Back in 1994 $10,000 might as well have been $100,000. He said, “Well, we’re going to have to find a way to get you out there.” Student Government came up with $3,000, our cheerleaders fundraised and came up with $3,000, the alumni association gave us $3,000 and UCF Athletics made up the difference.

That first year we learned a great lesson about how video works. In the ’90s the college cheerleading national championship was aired (taped delay) on ESPN. We would record the show and watch it repeatedly during all those years when we were getting the rejection letters. The teams just seemed so incredible. So flawless in their performances. What we did not know was that back then the TV show edited out all the falls. I thought everybody hit their routines perfectly.

My thought heading out to San Diego was, “We just don’t want to embarrass ourselves.” I figured, it’s our first year competing, let’s just keep everything in the air, so I gave our team a routine that I knew we could hit. Well we nailed it and came in a very close second to Morehead State University (in 1994). We came back to the Orlando airport and the (UCF marching) band met us at the gate. They were playing the fight song as we came off the plane and it was awesome.

We never looked back. In 1996 we moved into Division I-A along with our football team; in 1999 we finished in the top three; in 2002 we were runner up; and in 2003 we won the title. That 2003 championship truly was a David and Goliath situation because the University of Kentucky had won eight consecutive national championships. There were two generations of college cheerleaders who had never known another champion. For UCF to come in and do that was absolutely magical. Showing it wasn’t a fluke, we came back and won it again in 2007 and at that point UCF Athletics was really taking off. We had opened our on-campus football stadium that year with the Texas game.

There have been some incredible moments that mark milestones for the program. In the Troy State playoff game (1987) as a coach it was incredibly gratifying to get the noise penalty. After all that’s what every cheerleading coach should aspire to — having it that loud. I remember the officials walking over to (then head coach) Gene McDowell and saying, “Coach, you’re going to need to get on the PA and tell the fans to quiet down so we can get the ball snapped.” And he replied, “We’ll take the penalty.” It was great. I have one of those penalty flags framed in my office — as a badge of honor. Winning the first cheer championship (2003) and having our own documentary on WE TV after we won our second title in 2007 certainly elevated our national profile and traveling to Paris in 2013 to represent the USA in the European Open Championship put us on a world stage.

In the world of cheerleading people had stopped asking “Where is UCF anyways?” They knew who we were.

One of the most gratifying moments for me was ESPN’s College GameDay coming to campus in 2018. Lee Corso has a tradition of putting on the mascot head for whatever team he is going to pick to win. Coach Corso called me (earlier in the week) and said “Linda, this is going to be epic. I’m going to put the whole knight costume on.” We knew that this could possibly be one of the most iconic video shots in all of College GameDay; something that would be played and replayed on the show for years to come. We had 90 seconds during the commercial to get Lee Corso into our Knightro costume. We pulled it off and Coach was right — it was epic.

The GameDay experience was a chance to raise the curtain. They give you five days’ notice if you are selected to host the show. If your spirit program isn’t doing a great job at your games and you haven’t created great traditions and a great game day experience for your fans, the no amount of magic is going to happen in those five days to get you ready. Fortunately, at UCF we had been preparing for this moment for most of my adult life. Now it was just a matter of raising the curtain and showing the world what we have going on at UCF.

We always said it does not matter what you’re doing at UCF; just try to be the best at what you do. We are an aircraft carrier of a university. Positioned in Orlando, Florida, right in the middle of the state, it was our geographic birthright to be competitive at whatever we applied ourselves to. Athletics is just one of those areas where we are going to excel. We knew it was just a matter of time when all of our sports would eventually be competing on a national stage. Our goal was to make sure our spirit program was ready when that happened.

When people ask about the organization of the spirit program, I tell them it’s like a football team. You have the offense and the defense and the special teams. Cheerleading is the offense; the dance team is the defense, and the mascot program is the special teams. We’re all part of one big team totaling 70-80 people and we work very hard to be unified.

In terms of mascots, in about 1986 or 1987 a yellow dragon first appeared on our sideline and that was Puff. Puff looked a little like a bumblebee, and it had black dragon chest stripes. Then came Mack the Knight, who was sort of a cross between an astronaut and a knight. He had googly eyes and a football body.

In 1994 the athletic department decided that we needed to create a real animated mascot and asked if I would manage that aspect of the program. Trey Gordon had been a cheerleader and went on to work in student government. Trey took an interest in this project and I suggested he get some drawings done. He went to Metropolis Graphics in Winter Park and the committee loved the initial drawings. We had the costume made and Knightro I was born. Knightro II was similar but had a plastic face kind of like a doll. When it needed to be remade again, someone suggested the costume needed more sparkle so we had a vendor out at Disney create Knightro III (aka Glitter Knightro). All that glitter was heavy and “Glitter Knightro” weighed 50 pounds, making game days in Florida particularly rough. In 2007 we redesigned the costume again and that brought us our beloved Knightro IV costume that we have today.

The KnightMoves dance team kind of grew organically. We already had Starlet Knights, which were the auxiliaries of the marching band — flag-bearers, baton twirlers and a dance team. The dance team wanted to participate at basketball games and we tried that. It made sense for athletics to govern that group, and so they asked me to take on that assignment, too. Our dance team began just with basketball and but as we moved to the on-campus stadium we decided to bring the dance team down on the football sideline as well. They have been a wonderful addition.

I get asked a lot, “What does it take to win at the highest level?” To win the championship you’ve got to keep everything in the air and hit your routine. It’s two minutes and 30 seconds, and you have to be perfect. There is no do-over. It’s rarely about the most talented team. It’s really about who can hit their routine in that moment on that night under those lights and with all of that pressure. It’s not just preparing them physically, it’s preparing them mentally; coaching them to be at their best when their best is needed.

It’s so important to be open to change. Nothing stays the same — strategies are always evolving. It’s the same for us. You can’t be stuck on how you’ve always done things. This is something that I have always loved about our university.

Our UCF culture embraces being the disruptors. Change is our middle name. As a young university we’ve had to be open to trying new things.

More than the championships and success, it’s my goal that members of our team leave with life skills. After college the ability to go out in the world and apply the discipline, structure and teamwork that they have learned from being a part of our team toward success in life. That is what our program is about. Learning to work together with people from different parts of the country and different backgrounds provides such an opportunity for growth. If you come in to UCF as a freshman and you’ve lived in the same town all your life and you’ve gone to the same schools, same church and been around the same friends growing up, then use college to spend time with someone different than you.

I’ve had members of our team tell me, “This program has changed my life. If you can make it four years here in this program, you can do anything.” I believe it is the camaraderie of a team environment and our emphasis on life skills that sets them up for success in life after college – it is a launching pad to bigger and better things ahead. We have hit so many milestones and reached so many goals already and we are just getting started.

Big 12, here we come. Let’s Go Knights, Charge On.

That quintet will be recognized at an induction banquet on Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, at the Celeste Hotel (4105 N. Alafaya Trail) on the UCF campus in Orlando. Individual tickets are $135 each — or $1,250 for a Hall of Fame Table (10 seats) — and include an hour-long cocktail reception beginning at 6 p.m. ET followed by the dinner and program at 7 p.m. ET.

. Questions can be directed to  in UCF Athletics at 321-558-6291.

The five inductees will be honored on the field at halftime of the UCF-Georgia Tech football game the following day at FBC Mortgage Stadium (kickoff time TBD).

Since 1998, the UCF Athletics Hall of Fame has been inducting former Knight players and coaches and others connected to the ��AV program.

Here are details on the five 2022 inductees:

Mackenzie (Audas) Parkrall ’15, Softball, 2012-2015

• Earned a bachelor’s in early childhood development and education from UCF
• Named ESPN Capital One All-American as senior at Ů��AV in 2015
• Selected unanimous all-American Athletic Conference in 2015
• Named Conference USA Co-Pitcher of the Year and Freshman of the Year in 2012
• Finished third all-time at Ů��AV in ERA (1.65)
• Finished first in UCF history in career strikeouts/7 (8.29), appearances (150), starts (125), and innings pitched (823)
• Ended as UCF all-time leader in strikeouts (975) and no-hitters (five)
• Finished second at UCF all-time in wins (78) and shutouts (29)
• Finished second in NCAA in ERA in 2015 (0.95), behind teammate Shelby Turnier
• Helped Knights to three NCAA Championship appearances (2012, 2014, 2015)
• Led UCF to two AAC championships (2014, 2015)
• CoSIDA Academic All-American as senior in 2015
• From Tampa, Florida; attended Plant City High School in Plant City, Florida

Joe Burnett ’08, Football, 2005-2008

• Earned a bachelor’s in interdisciplinary studies with a minor in hospitality  from UCF
• Record-setting cornerback and return specialist for Knights
• Named first-team All-American as senior in 2008 by ESPN.com and Sports Illustrated, as only player in country to rank in NCAA top 20 in both punt and kickoff returns (he led Conference USA in both categories); a second-team pick by Walter Camp Foundation; named Conference USA Special Teams Player of Year in 2008
• An eight-time first-team all-Conference USA selection (four as punt returner, three as defensive back, one as kickoff returner)
• Named to Freshman All-America teams in 2005 by Football Writers Association of America (FWAA), Rivals.com, CollegeFootballNews.com and The Sporting News
• Helped UCF to its first two bowl berths (2005 Hawaii, 2007 Liberty) and school’s first conference championship in 2007
• Holds UCF record with 16 career interceptions; set UCF and Conference USA career marks for punt return yards with 1,304; set UCF records for most punt returns (96) and tied the record for most punt return touchdowns with three
• Averaged 13.6 average yards per punt return and 28.7 yards per kick return, along with two touchdowns had 221 career tackles, including 12 TFLs, 16 career interceptions and 35 pass break-ups; started 46 games among 49 career games played
• Drafted by Pittsburgh Steelers as 32nd pick of fifth round (168th overall) of 2009 NFL Draft
• Played three seasons with Steelers (2009-2010), New York Giants and Jacksonville Jaguars (2011)
• Moved on to Canadian Football League with Edmonton Eskimos (2011-2014), Calgary Stampeders (2015-2017) and Montreal Alouettes (2018)
• Native of Eustis, Florida

��’85, Cheer Coach, 1984-Present

• Led UCF to Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) national cheer championships in 2003, 2007 and 2020 (plus a World Cup championship in 2019) and multiple top-five finishes as longtime UCF cheerleading coach
• Has led UCF to top-10 finishes in 26 of last 28 years, including fifth in 2022 and second in 2021
• Led UCF teams to top-three finishes in seven straight years (2015-21)
• One of most decorated and nationally respected cheerleading coaches all-time
• Has headed UCF cheer program for 38 years (since April 1984), with Knights first competing for national championship in 1994
• Recipient of 2011 Colonel Gene Moeller College National Coach of the Year Award
• Led 2015 UCF Cheer Team to first-place finish at European Open Championship in Paris, France
• Played leading role in creation, design and character development of UCF athletics mascot, Knightro
• Established UCF KnightMoves Dance Team in 1996
• Received Shining Knight award in 2020 from UCF Alumni in distinguished alumni category
• Received special award for her “significant impact” on cheer at 2011 at National College Cheer and Dance Championships
• Four-year letterwinner with cheer team at UCF
• Married to former longtime UCF assistant football coach Alan Gooch, a 2006 inductee into the UCF Athletics Hall of Fame

Latavius Murray ’12, Football, 2008-2012

• Earned a bachelor’s in interpersonal/organizational communication from UCF
• Finished his UCF career second in school history in total touchdowns (44), eighth in carries (453), seventh in yards (2,424) and third in rushing TDs (37)
• Also caught 50 career passes for 524 yards and six TDs
• MVP of 2010 Conference USA Championship Game and 2010 Liberty Bowl victory over Georgia, when he scored winning TD and rushed for 104 yards in UCF’s first bowl win
• First-team all-Conference USA choice in 2012
• Rushed for career-high 233 yards and two TDs in final game of junior year in 2011 versus UTEP
• Ran for 1,106 yards and 15 TDs on 198 attempts in senior season of 2012
• Has played in NFL since 2013 with Oakland Raiders (2013-16; sixth-round draft pick in 2013), Minnesota Vikings (2017-18), New Orleans Saints (2019-20) and Baltimore Ravens (2021)
• Has rushed for 5,492 yards (1,310 attempts) and 49 touchdowns in NFL career; also 195 receptions for 1,369 yards and two TDs
• NFL Pro Bowl selection in 2015 after rushing for career-high 1,066 yards (career-best 266 attempts) and making career-high 41 receptions (232 yards)
• Inducted into 2022 Greater Syracuse Hall of Fame in June
• Native of Titusville, Florida; attended high school in Onondaga, New York

Krystina Sarff ’07 ’09MA, Rowing, 2004-2008

• Earned a bachelor’s in interdisciplinary studies with a minor in Spanish minor and a master’s in English from UCF
• Three-time All-American (first-team CRCA as junior and senior), all-South Region selection and team MVP
• UCF team captain as senior in 2008
• Still holds UCF 2K and 6K all-time records
• Led UCF to highest national ranking at No. 9 rowing with V8 squad as junior in 2007
• Led UCF to first NCAA Championship appearance in 2007
• Helped UCF upset No. 7 Virginia in dual competition and then No. 8 UCLA and No. 14 Washington State in 2007 Windermere Classic
• Four-time CRCA National Scholar-Athlete
• Two-time Conference USA Commissioners Academic Medal recipient
• Attended US Under-23 National Team selection camp
• Served as assistant coach at Ů��AV in 2008-2009
• After receiving her B.A. and M.A. from UCF she went on to earn a Ph.D at the University of Florida
• Currently is a Sport Management Professor at North Central College in Naperville, Ill. and also has coached at Michigan, San Diego, Oklahoma and Florida
• Originally from Tampa, Florida; attended Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, Florida, as prep senior and competed at Florida as college freshman before transferring to UCF

The program has now placed in the top 10 of the College Cheerleading National Championships 26 times in the last 28 years under head coach Linda Gooch ’85, including Division IA trophies in 2003, 2007 and 2020. They also brought home the top prize in the Gameday Nationals Competition in 2019.

Orlando’s Hometown Team competed in the semifinals of the competition on Tuesday, where they placed fifth. In the final round on Wednesday evening, the team hit a perfect routine on the biggest stage and with no deductions the Knights earned a 93.7 performance score. The 93.7 was the highest scoring routine of the entire competition in Division 1A. Unfortunately, the flawless performance wasn’t enough to overcome the missteps in the first round.

The Knights cheer team finished as the National Runner-Up with an 89.05 event score in the Cheer Division 1A competition. The top five included South Florida, UCF, Kentucky, Liberty and Ole Miss.

The KnightMoves Dance team finished fifth at this year’s competition.

The Knights have now placed in the Top 10 of the College Cheerleading National Championships 23 times in the past 25 years under head coach Linda Gooch, including national titles in 2003 and 2007. The University of Kentucky took home the Division IA title, and the other top finishers were Ohio State, Alabama and Hawaii.

ESPN is planning to schedule a broadcast about the competition this spring.

In 2007, UCF claimed its second national championship, outlasting several SEC schools. During the 2007-08 season the team received additional national exposure when it was featured in a six-part television documentary that followed the team as it prepared to defend its national title. In 2011, Gooch was selected as the recipient of the Gene Moeller Award, which was presented at the ESPN College National Championships to recognize the college cheerleading administrator/coach of the year.

How did you first become part of UCF’s cheerleading tradition?

When I came to UCF, cheerleading was just beginning to transform from pom-pom girls to the more acrobatic alternative gymnastics that you see today. I was reluctant, but a good friend from high school who had also gone to UCF kept encouraging me so I went out for the team and was selected in the fall of 1980. Interesting how a seemingly insignificant event like trying out for the cheerleading team can change your life.

When did you realize you wanted coaching to be your career?

Growing up I was a gymnast, and from the time I was in middle school I always stayed around to help spot and coach the younger kids. This continued as I moved through high school, and by the time I was at UCF I was working as a gymnastics coach to help pay for school. I don’t think that I viewed coaching as an occupation or work – it came easy. It was like breathing. I didn’t have to think about it, I just did it. After graduation I taught 8th grade social studies and coached the UCF cheerleaders after school. After about 10 years of doing both I had to make a decision, so I chose to coach full time at UCF.

What does it take to be a good cheerleader?

We have a coed team at UCF. As far as skills for the team, overall athleticism and strength is the basis for most of the men. I have actually recruited a number of men from other sports. One of the young men on my team this year was the Highland County Offensive Player of the Year in high school football and he can dunk a basketball. For the women, at the competitive level of our Ů��AV program most of these young ladies come with a good deal of gymnastics skill – and quite frankly they have to be a bit fearless.

What is the key to being a successful coach?

Discipline. Nothing happens without it.

Who inspired your achievements?

My husband, Alan, was a football coach at UCF for more than 20 years. He was always such a great motivator with his players. He was disciplined and knew how to work hard but was enthusiastic and able to keep it fun. I had a great opportunity to watch and learn from the success that he had with his football players.

What accomplishments have you been most proud of at UCF? 

Certainly our national championships in 2003 and 2007 were wonderful milestones for our program, but as far as coaching success or achievement I don’t know if you can really measure your successes as a coach or teacher until about 10 or 15 years later when you see what your students or team members did with the principles that you taught them.

That is one of the great things about having been at UCF for so many years. I have the chance to watch young men and women soar to even greater heights in their life after their time on our team and have been fortunate in many instances to have them return to say that their experience as a member of our team truly made a difference in their lives.

In honor of the 10-year anniversary of the 2003 national championship, those 18 team members were inducted into the UCF Athletics Hall of Fame. That team had a 100 percent graduation rate with all 18 going on to receive their college degree. One went on to medical school and is now a surgeon, one went to law school and is an attorney at a prominent law firm in town, three are  teachers, one is a pharmacist, another is a firefighter, and still another is an Orange County deputy. They continue to bring honor to our program and our university even today and that is something to really be proud of.

Tell us a little about your family.

My parents, Norman and Jane Labbe, are season ticket holders for football and basketball. I don’t know if they have missed a single UCF home football game since I was a cheerleader back in the early 80s. My husband and I met as students at UCF. Alan was a defensive back on the football team. He now owns his own commercial real estate company, TIZON Commercial, and is working with the Orlando Sports Foundation to bring a bowl game to the UCF campus in 2014. We have been blessed with two great sons who are diehard UCF fans. Zach, 15, is a sophomore on the swim team at University High School, and Noah, 12, is in the 7th grade and plays basketball.

What do you like about your job at UCF?

I love the challenge of starting from the beginning of the season and building a team every year. I absolutely can’t wait to see what the season will bring. There is no telling what heights this team can reach and I can’t wait to challenge them to come together and unselfishly work toward a common goal.

Even now, on the verge of traveling to London to cheer in the 2012 Summer Olympics, UCF graduate and former national champion Jackie Martin is having a hard time describing just how lucky she is to get the chance to watch Kobe, LeBron and KD in action on the world’s biggest basketball stage. But that’s just what Martin will do as part of a professional cheer unit working at the Olympics in London.

`It’s almost an indescribable feeling knowing that we’ll be right there for those games,” said Martin, who got her undergrad from Ů��AV in 2006 and her masters in 2008. “Another one of my girlfriends sits next to me at work and we talk about going to London all of the time. We’re going to get to watch the best athletes in the world compete for a gold medal and it’s going to be an indescribable experience.”

Martin, a four-year cheerleading letterwinner at UCF, was a member of the Knights’ 2003 National Championship team. She has parlayed cheering into a career, working for Varsity – a company that organizes cheerleading camps and provides performers for various sporting events all over the world. Cheerleading has already taken Martin to Poland, Scotland, Denmark, Colombia, Australia, China, Sweden, Trinidad & Tobago and Mexico. And next up — London — after she, stunt partner, David Clemens and 14 others were selected to perform during the semifinals and finals of the basketball events at the Summer Olympics.

Martin, who now lives in Memphis, Tenn., is still amazed to this day that she has been able to pursue her passion of cheerleading and make a career out of it.

“I talk to my dad about this a lot and I can’t believe that I’m doing this for a living. When I went to UCF and was cheering I never realized all of the lessons that I was learning, especially working for (UCF spirit team coach) Linda (Gooch),” Martins said. “One of the cool things about my job is that I’ve done cheerleading all over the world. In 2010, I was on Team USA for cheerleading and we won a gold medal. I am the luckiest person in the world. We have the best life-slash-job ever.”

Remarkably, Martin isn’t the only one to be able to use the skills she learned in the UCF cheer program in her career. UCF’s powerhouse program has alumni working in some of the biggest venues in the United States. To wit:

Martins said her success and that of several other ��AV products is because of the life lessons and discipline taught by Gooch. Martins said being a part of the ��AV program shaped her core beliefs because there is so much more being taught than just cheerleading techniques. Much of that credit should go to Gooch, Martin said.

“Linda doesn’t just think about us being cheerleaders, but what we’re going to do the rest of our lives,” Martin said. “She teaches us that school is the most important and she teaches us etiquette, talking to people properly and how to go through job interviews. She creates incredible people coming out of that program. She shapes us and everyone that comes out of the UCF cheer program comes out so much more than just a cheerleader.”

Martin still fondly remembers her time at UCF and said there’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t think back to 2003 when UCF broke onto the national stage and won the school’s first-ever national championship.

“I was a freshman and didn’t know too much about what was happening at the time, but being on that team was one of the best experiences of my life,” she said. “To this day, the girls on that team are still my best friends. Not only did we win a national title, but we did it together. It was a night that none of us will ever forget.”

And she figures that cheering at the Olympics alongside Bryant, James, Durant and others will be a similar feeling.

“We are so excited and I still can’t believe that I’m going to the Olympics,” she said. “It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.”

With its third-place showing, the Black and Gold has now earned a top-three finish in each of the past six seasons. That includes a national title in 2007, while the Knights also were named the national champions in 2003. This year, UCF completed the evening ranked behind only Kentucky and Alabama.

UCF also has placed in the top-10 of the College Cheerleading and Dance National Championships 17 times in the last 19 years under head coach Linda Gooch.

In the Division IA hip hop dance competition, KnightMoves grabbed ninth for the second-straight year. Memphis took home the title, while only LSU, Cincinnati, Tennessee, UNLV, Florida State, Arizona State and Kentucky finished ahead of UCF.

It is now the fans’ time to cheer for their own UCF spirit program.

The Knights will be competing at Nationals this weekend, Jan. 14-15, in Orlando’s own backyard, ESPN’s Wide World of Sports. They will be seeking their third national championship — UCF won in 2003 and 2007.

As the competition quickly approaches, the level of excitement rises within the team. UCF senior cheerleading Danielle Walden is confident about the team’s routine. “I think we are very prepared,” Walden said. The team has been performing at halftime at men’s basketball games, in front of alumni cheerleaders, as well as other teams from Mississippi State, Ohio State, LSU and Tennessee, who will also be competing this weekend.

As a senior, Walden is very excited to compete at a National level one last time. “It is bittersweet because it is my last year,” Walden said. “But I am very excited because the team is extremely ready to go out there and perform.”

To help them get prepared, the team keeps something in mind everyday: work hard. And that is why head coach Linda Gooch got an actual hard hat.

“The hard hat represents the working class, blue collar mentality. It is something that we really drilled in this group,” Gooch said. “We told them `if you continue to work hard, we are going to be prepared for this competition’ and I wanted a visual symbol of that.”

The week leading up to the National Championships, every time an individual hit all of their parts in the routine, they get to put a sticker on the hard hat with the goal being that they would completely cover it by the time of Finals.

“A lot of times all you think about are the failures; the times that you have dropped or the times that you have fallen short and it’s a way to remind them of the times that they have been perfect,” Gooch said. “It represents how well they are doing and how much they have progressed and improved.”

Gooch also talked about this year’s extremely talented group and how it was something that they really had to put a lot of work into getting them to this point. “Sometimes you have tons of talent and it’s just really easy and it’s not really developing the talent. It’s more managing the talent,” Gooch said. “This year we really had to develop the talent and when you watch them perform, you see it.”

As a member of one of the top squads in the country, UCF cheerleaders must stay motivated and have a great deal of time management. Balancing being a student-athlete and being on the team can be challenging at times, but like Walden says, “staying focused is key.”

Gooch could not agree more. “I think everyone is unselfish until they have to give something up, and this group has done a great job at putting their personal wants and needs aside for the betterment of the team.”

Aside from their evident excitement and passion, Gooch believes the team is “physically prepared” but also believes that when the time comes, it is the mental aspect that really matters.

“You have to be perfect when it counts. The competition is not really about which team is the best, it’s about which team is the best in that two minutes and 30 seconds,” Gooch added.

“I’ve been a UCF coach for 27 years and a cheerleader since the covered wagon days,” Head Coach, Spirit Program, Linda Gooch laughed. “My father retired from the military in Orlando, so I finished high school here. I never wanted to be a Gator, I just wanted to beat the Gators!”

Regardless of the team Ů��AV is battling, the Spirit Program rarely misses a beat. On game day, they kick off the energy that inspires and ignites the crowd and players. And it’s not just cheers or chance that make them fierce. Their “spirit” requires strength and stamina, developed through practices and training with Gooch four days a week. That human firepower that bursts forth on the field involves serious acrobatic skills, super strength—some have been UCF’s weightlifting record holders—and plain old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, sweat.

“In many ways, we’re the face of the UCF athletic department.”