Kailey Moncrief is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Ironwood High School for AZPreps365.com.

When most people think of cheerleading, they think of the stereotypical high school mean girls that are shown in almost every coming-of-age film. Despite Hollywood's inaccurate depiction of cheerleaders, little girls everywhere dream about being a cheerleader one day.

There's something so traditional about it and even the biggest critics find it fascinating. The lore of being on the spiritline leaves people wondering what it would be like to be a high school cheerleader.

In the world of competitive cheerleading, it requires quite a bit of preparation. The athletes work tirelessly to ensure that they are ready to take the mat and the coaches put in more work than most people realize.

For a long time, cheerleading was just wearing big hair bows, shaking pom poms, and cheering on the sidelines, but it has come a long way since then and now it is a highly competitive sport.

In fact, in July 2021, the International Olympic Committee granted recognition to the sport, which means that petitions can now begin for cheerleading to become an Olympic sport.

Allstar cheerleading is solely focused on competition and does not cheer for any sports. However, high school cheerleaders do both game-day and competition cheer. High School cheerleaders often have busy schedules. They cheer at football games, girls basketball games, boys basketball games, assemblies, pep rallies, parades, competitions and any other event that they are needed at.

Although most people only see them at games, parades or pep rallies, their biggest focus each year is competition. Just like any other sport, they devote so much time, energy and effort to competing and they want to take home trophies just as much as any athletic program.

But what does the preparation for the competition season look like? Well, allow us to pull the curtain back and give you a sneak peek at the reality of competitive cheerleading.

The Ironwood cheer team is getting ready for its first competition of the season and both the athletes and coaches are working overtime to make sure they are competition-ready.

Competition practices are different from game practices and it is intense, to say the least.

"Competition practice is definitely a lot more packed with more things to remember. It's a lot more fast-paced usually ... it just takes a lot more mental focus to be on a competition team, but the end results are always worth it, " said senior Grace Senft.

A typical high school cheerleading routine consists of a jump sequence, a tumbling section, an elite stunt sequence, a pyramid stunt section and a cheer section.

Each section is scored based on execution, cleanliness and skill level.

The cheerleaders practice each section until they have it perfected and then they piece it all together and work on it until every stunt is hitting, every tumbling pass is perfect and every motion is sharp.

Each practice leaves the athletes exhausted, but despite their feelings, they have to perform perfectly with smiles on their faces.

It's a performance sport for a reason and a good performance is what takes the routine from good to great.

While many high school cheerleading programs pay large amounts of money to have uniforms, poms, and signs custom-made, Ironwood is doing whatever it can to cut costs.

Head coach Rachell May opts to make the uniforms herself so that the kids on her team don't have to pay extra.

"I'd rather them spend the money on their tumbling, on Nationals, or stuff that they really need than us paying hundreds of dollars for somebody else to do it. So I'll sacrifice my time and my energy to do it so that they can get what they need and look good," May said.

May cares about her athletes and she wants to do whatever she can to lessen the load and make sure that they are given the opportunity to cheer, regardless of their financial status.

"We're trying to make it as affordable as possible for our girls. A lot of these girls have to work jobs to be able to afford cheer," said JV coach Casandra Musil.

Cheer is an expensive sport and May has a history of paying that price out of her own pocket.

"Last year alone I spent three grand on my own. My husband loves that," said May.

But it's not just a monetary sacrifice for May and the other members of the Ironwood coaching staff.

They sacrifice their time and energy, and have been known to run the risk of getting carpal tunnel while bedazzling.

On Tuesday practices, while the tumbling and choreography coaches are working with the team, you can find May and her staff knee-deep in glitter, glue and rhinestones.

This year's uniform will feature Ironwood's Eagle mascot and although the patches look professionally made, you would be surprised to know that May used her Cricut machine to cut out each shape and the coaching staff glued each rhinestone on one at a time and completely by hand.

On average a competition cheer uniform can cost up to $300 per uniform and that does not include the bow, the shoes or the warmup outfits.

By making the uniforms themselves, Ironwood saves a large sum of money, but that is not the only advantage of doing it in-house.

Assistant coach Stephanie Land says that she loves customizing the items for the team. "Just making sure that we get it done in a timely manner and if we want to make some changes early on we can kind of see that right away and make the changes that we need, rather than sending it out, having someone else do it and having it come back and it not being the way we really want it to be," Land said.

The team is also working on putting fundraisers together so that it can afford new warmup shoes and it has been utilizing fundraising opportunities to help pay for the necessary equipment that is required to run a successful cheer program.

However, competition prep does not just consist of preparing to put on a great performance.

Cheer competitions are put on by different organizations such as USA, UCA, or NCA.

These organizations are required to have certain paperwork before a judge, a team, a coach or an individual athlete can participate.

It is the job of the head coach to make sure that all of the athletes and coaches have filled out these forms correctly and that the competition receives them by the deadline so that her team will have the opportunity to compete.

Between coaching her team to ensure a well-executed performance, hand-making the uniforms, signs, and props and handling paperwork,  May is busy all day, every day.

"As a head coach, I'm doing cheer stuff at home for at least three to four hours each night,'' May said.

Although she does all of these things to help ease the financial burden, it is her love for her team that drives her to go the extra mile on its behalf.

She enjoys crafts and she loves to gift her athletes with personalized items throughout the season.

Senior captain Kennedy Jennings said that the team is given gifts frequently. "Pretty much for every big event that comes up, whether it homecoming, first comp, last comp, nationals, banquet, beginning of the season, birthday gifts and sometimes just little things to keep us motivated throughout the season," said Jennings.

While the athletes see the hard work that their coaches do for them, they only see a fraction of the energy that goes into running the spiritline program.

"I know they feel our energy and they feel the love that we send them and all the things that go into that, but I don't know if they necessarily see the behind-the-scenes part," said Land.

Some of the athletes know how much work May puts into this program and try to help out as much as they can.

"I'm always trying to help Coach May however I can. She puts a lot of effort into it. ... All the coaches have been showing up and putting in the effort and helping out everyone as much as they can, giving corrections before and after practice, staying late to help anybody however they can -- it's really making a difference, I feel," said Jennings.

As Ironwood is getting ready to kick off its competition season, the coaches are ready to see all of their hard work and preparation pay off.