Katie Bell hired as the new Southwest Mississippi CC Cheer Coach

Story from Southwest Mississippi CC Athletics: Travis Connelly, Sports Information Director
When it comes to the world of cheerleading, Katie Bell is very familiar with it. From being a cheerleader herself to transitioning into coaching the sport at the Mississippi Gym of Dreams facility in Brookhaven, she has been involved with it since the age of 5.

Now comes a new challenge for her, coaching on the collegiate level as she was recently named the new Southwest Cheer Coach. She replaces Cindy Henderson who recently resigned from the position.

“I’m coming back home,” said Bell, a former Southwest cheerleader. “This is just a great opportunity to give back to where I started as a collegiate athlete. I can’t wait to see what this program does.”

Bell adds that she is honored to get the chance to coach the Bears. “It felt like God opened that door and the timing was right for me to step into the role that takes a lot,” she said.

While this is Bell’s first collegiate coaching job, she has years of experience working with youth as young as three up to the age of 23.

“I do a lot of choreography, getting them ready for state,” she said. “I’ve worked with North Pike, Parklane, camps from all over the place.”

As far as qualities or traits, there are some that she will really push for and expect from her student athletes.

“Integrity, confidence, excellence and respect,” she said.

When looking at the challenge of relating to her team, she believes she will be able to do so as she knows exactly what they are going through as she cheered at Southwest just a decade ago.

“It wasn’t THAT long ago for me,” Bell joked. “Of course, this generation is completely different and that is something that we had a challenge with at the gym with rethinking how to coach these kids. We’ve taken a lot of time to do research to find out how they learn. A lot of it is through social media. It is not as much hands-on.”

When it comes to her coaching method, Bell is laser-focused on success and knows what it takes to achieve it.

“I don’t do anything half-way,” she said. “I like for everyone to look good. If you look good, you feel good, you play good. That is something that I have always stood by. I can’t wait to get in there and build these kids’ confidence because once you start building their confidence, they believe in themselves, they perform better and that is when you get to recruit. All it takes is that one national championship and then, you have it.”

Bell believes that the coaching skill sets that she and Coach Cory Boyd bring to the table will help lead to success. While Boyd specializes in tumbling, Bell’s main specialty is choreography.

Bell took over the Southwest Cheer program earlier this week and immediately, she was blown away at the dedication of her student athletes.

“Yesterday (Thursday) was my first day with my team and we had a 6:00 a.m. workout,” she said. “I never in a million years thought that I would pull up and see all of them sitting on those steps 15 minutes before practice started, in the proper clothing,
ready to work out at six o’clock in the morning. That is the difference in wanting to be an athlete and wanting to be a cheerleader. They are athletes! They want it and they understand that their scholarship is earned.”