While Illinois Wesleyan’s many sports teams have been making headlines for years, a new team has quietly emerged as a frontrunner for athletic and academic excellence and may soon be competing on a national level.
This team is none other than the Illinois Wesleyan spirit squad. The spirit squad consists of 20 student-athletes between two groups: the cheer team (nine students) and the dance team (11 students.)
These two teams previously operated as separate club sports before being unified into one team this year. Both groups are led by Penny Brooks, who Illinois Wesleyan hired as their first spirit squad director in March of 2025.
Brooks graduated from the University of Minnesota with an undergraduate degree in elementary education in 2022. While at UM, Brooks was a four-year member of the cheer team.
Then, she moved to Illinois and was presented with the opportunity to lead the spirit squad, which came with the task of uniting both the dance and cheerleading teams alongside coordinating the Tommy the Titan mascot as well.
“It’s a big transition for everybody,” Brooks said,
“It’s all a lot of new, but a lot of exciting new. This year, we really focused on establishing culture within our program before we pick up to the next lever next year,” she said.
The transition from club to university-backed sport came with changes (including mandatory workouts, attendance and team travel) for the students, but the team doesn’t regret it.
“It was definitely hard at first, but I think it’s something really great for this program,” junior Langley Upton said.
“Coach Brooks has brought us a lot of insight and made us stronger athletes. Even though some things have changed, it’s fun to see some of our traditions and cheers still carried out in the band and student sections,” Upton said.
The new conjoined squad began performing during football games last fall, traveling to some away games and has been cheering on the sidelines of all home men’s and women’s basketball games with additional halftime performances.
“Performing on the spirit squad has been so much fun this year,” junior Norah Wilson said.
“Its been so exciting to have a bigger team and the gameday environment is always so positive.”
The team isn’t just finding success in the athlete part of student-athletes. In the fall of 2025, the Spirit Squad had a 3.46 average GPA (beating the Fall 2025 All-IWU GPA of 3.14) with three members having a perfect 4.0 GPA.
“Balancing being a student and an athlete is tough,” Wilson said.
“Late nights after practice studying for exams aren’t always enjoyable, but I have great support through my teammates and my professors and so far I’ve been able to make it work pretty well.”
As the squad begins looking ahead for next season, the main goal is to begin competitions.
“In the collegiate level for cheer and dance, college nationals is our only competition,” Brooks said.
“Illinois Wesleyan has never represented at UCA and UDA College Nationals, and that’s our goal next year,”
While high school and club level dance and cheer teams have lots of competitions, the Universal Cheer Association and Universal Dance Association nationals are the only competition for the collegiate level of dance and cheer.
“You’ll often see on social media, dancers and cheerleaders, calling it like our Super Bowl,” Brooks said.
“It’s our one weekend of cheer and dancing at the collegiate level; our one opportunity to show off what we’ve been working on all year long,” she said
“We’re gonna go down, dip our toes in that competition space, and take our squad, our program up to that next level of elite athletes to hopefully kind of transition a pipeline of recruiting, higher and higher achieving athletes into our team,” Brooks said.
“I’m most looking forward to continuing to grow and develop as a team in the upcoming year with our new coaches,” Wilson said.
“They’re amazing and I believe they have the ability to turn our program into something really impressive,” she said.
