Boom, Crash, Splash

The SCF Wave
Top row (from left to right): Suzette Dimas and Jazmine Fuentes
 Second row (from left to right): Terra Jones, Alexa Ayala and Alyssa Brooker
 Third row (from left to right): Fransheska Avilés and Amaris Holliman
Front row: Sabrina Ortiz
Not Pictured: Tamara Kenon, Camila Vargash and Naomi Ortiz

In the beginning of its sports program, SCF relied on all five of their sports: basketball, baseball, volleyball, softball and tennis. The Manatees had constant and reliable support from the fans also known as the SCF Maniacs. Don't ask me why they call themselves that because I don't really know, so it's best to leave well enough alone on that until the next story on it.

But a new group has arrived and continues to make themselves known as the same support as the SCF Maniacs and turned out to be the group known as the SCF Wave.

Who are the SCF Wave and what do they do:
The SCF Wave are a cheerleading/dance team that cheer and dance at many of the SCF basketball games. The group dances to several hip hop and Latin music while getting the SCF Maniacs hyped up with their cheers and dance moves minus the cheerleading outfits.

Each individual has a story behind them where they bring years of experience doing cheerleading, hip hop dancing, gymnastics and everything in between.

How it Began:
The SCF Wave started during the 2018-19 school year with five to six members with the founder and first president of the group Erinn Lee. Currently, Lee now goes Florida Gulf Coast University and has handed down the torch to now president Sabrina Ortiz and co-captain Naomi Ortiz. Now the team has expanded from five to girls to 11 to 12.


"Erinn (Lee) decided to create something that was originally at SCF and she wanted to bring a dance and cheer element to SCF," said Sabrina Ortiz. "She and I are best friends and we grew up dancing together."

"The Wave is not a mandatory, it's by choice if they want to come," said Ortiz on the expansion. "Basically what we did was create posters and post them all around the school and all over social media to spread the word for people to join, mainly girls."

The team meets up every Monday and Wednesday and practice for two hours.

"What we basically do within the practices is go over the fundamentals of how you would start a dance class or how you start cheers," said Ortiz on the practices. "We go through body exercises and body warmups as well as doing the same thing with vocals."

The Wave officially began during the 2018-19 SCF basketball season and going in, Ortiz did not have any cheerleading experience, but Naomi did after doing cheerleading for two years.

"With the exception of Naomi, none of has any cheerleading experience," said Ortiz. "But I did for Erinn because she wanted to get the team/club going and we both were kind of uneasy about it because we never did it before and kept asking ourselves 'how are we going to do this?' Naomi was like 'I don't think I want to do this anymore Sabrina' and I told her that we just got to look at this as another form of dance because well-rounded dancers can do anything so why can't we do cheer as well. Low and behold that's where it started. We kept coming to practices and having so much fun at the games. Naomi and I just fell in love with the atmosphere and watching the basketball team play well and being involved with big groups of people."

"One of the main reasons I did this was I missed dancing," said Naomi Ortiz. "It was another way to keep doing what I like to do and have been doing since I was little."

Ortiz mentioned a moment where the team got to travel to see the basketball team play in Tampa and are hoping to travel again by the second half of this season, but in order to do so they need to raise funds and get a van to travel instead of using their own personal vehicles for transportation. The Wave did actually do a fundraiser at St. Armands Circle in Sarasota.

"We just walked around and told people who we are and how were trying to raise money for our team to get uniforms and transportation," said Ortiz on the recent fundraiser. "They even asked if we can do some cheers for them which we did."

The SCF Wave still plan to plan more fundraisers in the near future, while the Ortiz family continues to pass on the torch after they enroll at FGCU to join Lee.

"Every girl I've worked with has a lot of potential to be the next president of the Wave," said Sabrina Ortiz. "I would like to see more because I think it can happen in another semester, so we don't know who will be in charge of the team to take over for me and Naomi once we head to FGCU."

Both Sabrina and Naomi will still be helping out the Wave for part of the 2020-21 school year due to her major, but it may not be one of Sabrina's main priorities fall 2020 and hopes that the team will continue with possible scholarship opportunities and making it an official team. The Wave will also plan to do cheer and dance for next volleyball season.

"I'm just hoping they'll do more events for us to continue running the Wave," said Naomi Ortiz.

My Thoughts:
I first met the original group of members including the founder last school and they all gave it 100% maximum effort to get the team hyped up and the Maniacs on their feet to keep cheering for the basketball and volleyball team.

Thinking about this story while I wrote reminds of how I did a story on the FGCU cheerleaders and how they got little to no credit for getting the Dirty Birds hyped up and they were considered and arguably the SCF Wave are also considered athletes.

How you may ask? Well it's simple: If you can run, jump, flip, do any kind of gymnastics or dance, then you are an athlete because you keep moving and that's what the SCF Wave does, they keep moving. I hope that the SCF Wave continues to do what they're doing and will make it an official part of the SCF athletics family.

If you want to know more about the SCF Wave, follow them on Twitter and Instagram:
Twitter: @SCFWave
Instagram: @SCFwave8