Although De Soto High School has a cheer team, junior Daric Coffee decided to go one step further and join a cheer team outside of the halls of DHS.

Coffee is on Fierce Five, the top team at KC Cheer.

KCC is the longest running and most successful Cheer gym in the Kansas City Metro area, securing more than 250 national titles over 16 seasons.

Coffee has performed at KCC for two years now, starting out on Flawless, another team at KCC.

“I began cheering my sophomore year, because my sister is on a team there, and I thought it would be a lot of fun, so I tried it,” Coffee said. “I love it now, everyone is so cool and fun, and the others make the practices worth it.”

Fierce Five is categorized as a senior small coed team, meaning the team is composed of five to twenty members aged 10-18 years old and must have at least one male cheerleader.

Due to the multiple practices a week, balancing school and cheer has been difficult.
“It’s hard balancing all of my school work and cheer, because I always have homework in at least one class, and sometimes we can have up to five practices a week,” Coffee said.

Because he secured a spot on the top team in only in his second year of cheering, Coffee works extremely hard to keep his spot.

“It makes me work a lot harder, because I know that my spot isn’t safe,” Coffee said. “There’s a lot of other guys who would gladly take my spot. Nothing is just given to me, I need to work for it.”

Daric is very excited to continue the season and hopefully bring back a world championship title to KCC.

“I think we have a great chance of winning [worlds] because we have worked very hard, and the other teams don’t know what’s coming.”

Catch Daric Coffee and the rest of Fierce Five in their attempt to win the world championship in Orlando, Florida in April and bring it to Kansas City.