Coming off Mountain Vista’s first-place jazz finish at the 2023 spirit state championships, the program’s leader learned she’d be making history among Colorado’s coaching elites.
Keri Atchison, the longtime spirit director and head pom coach for the Golden Eagles, officially became the first pom coach inducted into the Colorado High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“Our motto the whole season was, ‘You’re more than a number,’” Atchison said. “‘Your worth is how you show up and what you share in the gift of this dance. And they did it beautifully.”
She’s only the second spirit coach to be inducted, following her mentor and trailblazer Virginia Lorbeer, who was inducted in 2019. Lorbeer recently passed away.
Atchison is a Littleton native and alum of Heritage High School where she was a Liberty Belle on the school’s pom team.
Atchison, who was part of the original staff when Mountain Vista opened in 2001, is in her 33rd year of teaching and 24th year of coaching.
Under Atchison, Mountain Vista poms have captured 14 league and 16 regional titles in pom, jazz and hip-hop categories, plus 10 Class 5A state titles and five state runners-up.
Vista is the only team in Colorado to hold state titles in all three dance divisions: pom (2006, 2008, 2009) hip-hop (2013, 2014) and jazz (2010, 2015, 2018, 2021, 2023).
Atchison has been named Coach of the Year in the Continental League eight times and in 2008 and 2021 was chosen as the Colorado Dance Coach of the Year.
In 2018, Atchison was awarded the prestigious Dale Yost Teacher/Coach of the Year by the Colorado High School Coaches Association. In 2022, she was recognized as a National Coach of the Year finalist at the National Coaches Convention.
“I had a principal tell me, ‘Never be afraid to hire someone who is better than you, smarter than you, more talented than you … they will be your magic-makers,’” Atchison said. “That’s what I’ve been able to do. I have a team of assistant coaches who all danced for me … They came back and give to the program they grew up in … I have a team of choreographers and technicians and dance studio owners who all come along and help me grow these Mountain Vista dancers into not only incredible dancers but incredible women.”
Now, Atchison is officially a Hall of Famer. Colorado Community Media spoke with Atchison about the honor, the future of pom and spirit as a sport and more:
Colorado Community Media: What was your reaction to being told you’d be inducted into the Colorado High School Coaches Hall of Fame?
Atchison: I was actually shocked. For so many years we weren’t even considered a sport or a part of the Coaches Association. We weren’t considered a sport until CHSAA recognized us. After CHSAA recognized us as a sport, CHSCA invited us into their coaches association in 2012. So, it blew my mind. A few years ago, a woman named Virginia Lorbeer, who had been my mentor and just this incredible woman who really got us recognized as a sport, got inducted. I had no idea that a few years later it would be me.
CCM: Virginia Lorbeer was clearly a titan of the sport, but also your mentor. What did she mean to you and to spirit sports as a whole?
Atchison: She was so instrumental in getting us to be a sport. Actually, when we first got invited to join CHSCA, she was the spirit board president, starting in 2012. She asked me to be her vice president. And so we spent 12 to 13 years together running that board and doing everything we could to educate our spirit coaches together. So, there was really nothing that I have ever done as a coach that she wasn’t right there alongside me. So, losing her recently was so difficult and so hard because she and I have been together for years doing this. Really, really sad loss for our spirit community.
CCM: Other than becoming a sanctioned sport, what has changed or grown in the spirit community most since you’ve been involved in the sport as an athlete or coach?
Atchison: When I was Liberty Belle, a pom back at Heritage, we were just an activity. And we had sponsors; we didn’t have coaches and we had very few opportunities to compete. We were there simply to support the other sports. And now, here we are 40 years later and we are a sport that is so competitive. The state of Colorado is highly competitive in our leagues, our regionals, at the state level and even at the national level. And so the balance that spirit athletes have between still being true spirit leaders at the school, supporting everyone and being just as highly competitive … it’s just incredible to see how far we’ve come in 40 years.
CCM: What about Mountain Vista is so special and why is the culture one you’ve wanted to build and retain all these years?
Atchison: It’s been incredible. I’ve been so fortunate because I have an incredible administration all the way up to the district level that truly supports our spirit athletes. We won our first state title in the 5A pom division back in 2006, jumped into hip-hop for two years and were able to win a couple of titles there, and now we’ve really been a jazz team. So, we’re the only team in the state of Colorado on the dance side that’s won in all three divisions.
CCM: Is there a difference in your style or approach between pom, jazz or hip-hop?
Atchison: What I have found, and what I think works really well for the Mountain Vista dance community, is I really let the dancers dictate the direction we go. They come to me with different strengths over the years. Initially, they were all very, very pom-focused, so it made the most sense to us to compete in the pom division. And then we had a couple years where that group had grown up together doing hip-hop and that was their strength. So I said, “OK, let’s figure it out,” and let’s move over to that division. So, the learning curve is for me much more than it is for the dancers.
CCM: What made the jazz group that won in 2023 so special?
Atchison: Oh my goodness, this group was absolutely incredible. [The past two years] we came up just a little bit short and had been the runner-up, so this group was so hungry. There’s a lot of subjectivity in our sport … similar to gymnastics or ice skating … they decided rather than try to focus on beating another team, they were going to focus on growing themselves and being the best they could be and their worth would be found in the performances they gave and how they felt about it more than trying to get a placement. When they made that mental shift, it’s actually what made them unstoppable. They had a maturity and a grace and an excitement to put this routine we focused on this season out on the floor. It just kept getting better and better because they felt so good about what they were doing and weren’t focused on the outcome.
CCM: What do you think the future of pom and spirit sports is? What do you see on the horizon?
Atchison: I think what’s happening is that because we, in the state of Colorado, focus so much on also competing at the national level … there are areas that, nationally, cheer and poms are growing … and Colorado is on the cutting edge of that. Thankfully, CHSAA welcomes those things and helps us implement those changes so that we’re always able to offer at the state level what the nation is doing. And so it keeps us constantly growing and on that cutting edge because CHSAA has really stepped into letting us grow, and it makes all the difference for our athletes.