Right cheer

In last month’s edition of Tiger Pride, we wrote about two sisters, Caroline and Maddy Joseph, who are an extreme rarity: Both are LSU cheerleaders on the same squad this season.

But the Lafayette natives are not alone. More than 30 years ago, twin sisters Terri and Tonni Schriber—now Terri Simpson and Tonni McCollister—cheered together for the purple and gold for two straight seasons in 1979-80 and 1980-81. Back then, freshmen were not allowed to cheer, and with only six female students allowed on the squad it was an unwritten rule that seniors would step down and allow underclassmen to take their positions. Still, the Schriber sisters’ run together on the sidelines ended on a high with Dale Brown’s hoops squad making it to the Final Four in the springof 1981.

“Going to Philadelphia and cheering for that team was definitely a highlight,” Simpson says. “Sharing that memory with my sister is really a special thing.”

There was little time to reflect after the Tigers’ tough loss to Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers, because the LSU cheer squad went straight from the Final Four to Miami for one of the NCAA’s first cheer competitions. “We were so proud to represent LSU there,” says Simpson, a Bel Aire alum that spent summers coaching young cheerleaders with her twin.

Though her demeanor is soft-spoken now, Simpson and her sister could really pump up the volume for game time.

“Oh yeah, we could get loud,” she recalls. “But that was a million years ago. I guess over time you tame yourself a bit.”