Turning Intentions Into Results With The Pacer Team.

The Pacers perform at the 2026 Homecoming football game on September 18. The team spent the month beforehand preparing this routine. Photo Credit: Elle Hege.

Brayden Howard, Sports Desk Lead for The Powderhorn

They’re on the field every home game with the football team. They practice 6 hours a week, have 3 team officers, and a coach. And yet, this team is not officially a sport, not Varsity, and not JV. Officially, it’s only a club. Despite all of this, the Pacer Team remains an enthusiastic community, working hard to improve themselves, each other, and hopefully provide some school spirit. The Pacer team is a school dance team that performs at every home football game throughout the season, and practices the other 4 days of the week from 3:45 to 5:30.

“It’s all student-led. There’s a Junior officer, which is Cameron, and I’m the senior officer, and then the captain is Roz,” said Senior Pacer Officer Gracie Jackson. “But basically I feel like it’s not really a tight hierarchy, like we’re all the same level, we all do the same things. We all teach the dances, we all stretch together, and we all lead practice.”

The student organization of the Pacers has helped build a cooperative and positive environment for all of its athletes. The team uses a peer mentor structure called sister groups, where two underclassmen are mentored by an upperclassman on the team.

“We just hang out outside of Pacers to just get to know each other better and it creates a really good environment. That way if you show up to practice and don’t know anybody, you’ll still try just as hard” said Jackson. “I feel like it just wouldn’t be as good for the team without it, and I think it’s why everybody’s really close.”

The second layer of student organization is more hierarchical, with the captains and officers filling some of the roles that a coach would traditionally perform on many teams.

“I’ve taught the pep rally dance, and I lead groups over and over and over again in practice. I also lead stretches sometimes,” said Jackson. “I would say it’s been a challenge for me though, because I’ve never had a leadership role, but it’s helped me grow as a person. And honestly, it’s improved my abilities as a leader.”

The details of the Pacer’s practices and activities only reinforce the image of a hardworking team with a detailed and carefully practiced catalogue of dances and routines. But not every dance is created quite the same, with different styles of dance being rolled out for different performances.

“We do kick dances, which is kicking with our legs, and we do pom which is like the cheer dances but a little more groove to it. The pom dances are like really sharp movements. We do hip hop which is a lot of groovy, kind of swagger with it stuff. Then we don’t really do jazz a lot. Jazz is kind of like pom but you’re being more flow-y,” said Jackson. “We stick to kick a lot, so I feel that’s what looks best with our team, because we all look uniform.”

In order to master all of these dance styles, the Pacers keep a consistent and energetic practice structure, practicing Monday-Thursday starting at 3:45 pm. These practices are essential to perfecting the complex dance routines that the term learns each week.

“First we have a stretch, led by one of the officers. Then we go outside, and we practice either our sidelines, which we do during the football game, or I’ll teach technique” said Cameron Parker, junior officer on the team. “Then after technique, we’d start learning choreography, we take about a week for each dance, and practicing the dances usually takes the rest of practice.”

Despite having a number of practice hours roughly equivalent to many Varsity teams, Pacers is officially qualified as a club. For some, this is an unsatisfactory situation that doesn’t give the team the credit it deserves.

“I think it should be a Varsity sport. Because it’s such a time commitment, and it would be fair to be considered a sport because we practice the same amount as all the other sports,” said Parker. “And it’s hard. It’s hard work. It takes a lot of effort for us.”

The effort put into the Pacers starts all the way at the top with the captain and is felt throughout. The team schedule has to be organized each Sunday, and the team must practice every dance thoroughly to ensure everyone is in tune.

“What we always say is that the dance isn’t the hard part, the cleaning is because the cleaning is very meticulous and it takes a lot of time because it’s basically the same thing over and over again,” said Pacer Captain Rosalyn Rabinowitz, a senior. “Cleaning a dance is basically making every single move sharp. It’s going through every single step in the dance and making sure that everyone’s doing it the exact same way.”

Even outside of the hard work of day to day practices, even bringing the team together and organizing the practices and the selection of dances for each week's performance. 

“Every single Sunday is when my Captain duties start every week. I send out a schedule for our practices that week, so it includes what dances we’re going to learn, when we’re going to learn them, when we have morning practice, and generally just lays out our entire practice schedule for the week” said Rabinowitz. “So every time we have practices, normally I’m the person who like brings everyone together and is like, okay, let’s get started. Let’s do this. We’re following our schedule, but I feel like a lot of it is hyping up the team and adding to that team morale.”

Pacers is of course a dance team, and for many dance is a sport in its own right. This gives Pacers a unique connection to the outside community due to its connection to the broader community of dance in Watauga.

“I’ve been dancing for a long time outside of school, I danced with a studio outside of Pacers. And I found Pacers to kind of be a connection between school and dance” said Parker. “Because when you’re doing a sport outside of school, you can feel a little disconnected, and feel like you don’t do a school athletic. It can make you wonder ‘do I even do a sport?’ But Pacers is such a good thing to have. It makes you feel so involved in school. I feel like Pacers ties my school experience to my dance experiences.”

This community of dancers and Pacers also seems to be growing at Watauga, with new students signing up year after year. This year, the team counts about 30 Pacers, with roughly 40 people trying out.

“It’s definitely growing. We have a big team this year. Each year our team has grown in size. Every year we have more and more girls at tryouts, and I feel like it’s because the sport is spread a little more every year” said Parker. “It’s definitely one big family, we’re all friends, and we all have a good relationship with one another. And it definitely makes the team a more positive environment.”