OU hires former NCAA coach to lead dance, cheer teams

A former NCAA cheer coach is the new cheer and dance coach at Ottawa University.

Regina Smith, originally from Georgia, has arrived and taken the title of the Braves new head cheer and dance coach. Smith said she is prepared to coach long term.

Junior Ceviona Taylor, captain of the cheer team, said the team does daily exercises and mile runs in preparation for cheering at football and basketball games.

"Coach Smith is really well experienced at the techniques and skills she has been teaching us," she said.

Before coming to OU, Smith was a spirit coordinator and head cheer and dance coach at Thiel College, Greenville, Pa., a NCAA Division III college.

Smith said her Thiel teams gained respect, leadership skills and new traditions during her tenure.

The teams also ranked and qualified three years in a row for UCA College Nationals, she said.

Sophomore Breanna Jones, a cheer team member, said Smith provides the teams with vision.

"Coach Smith provides the teams with a vision that is not out of reach and that is a place where myself and my team members want to be taken," she said.

From 1992 to 1997 Smith was a Bolingbrook Pop Warner League Trojan Cheerleader, and from 1991 to 2001 she was a Chicago Napeville Blaze All-Star cheerleader. Smith was chosen as an All-Star Universal Cheerleaders Association cheerleader.

Smith said she intends to draw on her cheerleading experience at Illinois State University when coaching the teams.

"The cheer and dance teams at Ottawa will be much safer, traditional and much better talent wise," she said.

The Lady Braves cheer and dance teams have placed and won multiple competitions during the past two years.