SignalsAZ.com Prescott News Podcast - Storm Elite Mustangs Join the Wranglers Sideline for 2025 Season

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Send us a text and chime in!The Northern Arizona Wranglers are elevating their fan experience in 2025 by partnering with Storm Elite Cheer, a nationally recognized local team. Now performing as the Storm Elite Mustangs, they’ll bring high-energy stunts and community pride to every game. With over 55 young athletes and nine national wins, the Mustangs will take the field with performances ranging from five-year-olds to high school seniors. Despite an initial scheduling conflict, the team rearranged its calendar to be back in Prescott Valley for the Wranglers’ season opener on March 29. Wrangler co-owner Fred DePalma emphasized the importance of this partnership, highlighting the team’s deep community roots.In addition to the cheer collaboration, the Wranglers announced their 2025 theme nights, including Military Appreciation, Local Mascots Night, and Fan Appreciation Night. Coach Elicia, founder of Storm Elite, shared her journey of reigniting her passion for cheer and creating a local program to give young athletes more opportunities without the burden of constant travel. With the Mustangs performing at halftime, leading giveaways, and even bringing a drumline, the game day atmosphere will be electric. Don’t miss the season opener against Fisher’s Freight on March 29 at 6:05 PM—doors open at 5 PM.Read the full story: https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/storm-elite-mustangs-join-the-wranglers-sideline-for-2025-season/Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Welcome to your Northern Arizona Ranglers Roundup. So here today, we're going to discuss a few things that we have going on. My wife Robin on the side of me with what's happening with the team. Well, really not so what's happening to the team, but what we're doing with our themes during the games. We also have an announcement. We want to go ahead and introduce yourself to everybody. Hey, everybody. I'm Alicia and I'm with Storm Elite cheer.

Your local competitive cheer team. I think we're on national win number nine now. So having a great season so far. So the reason I want that said is we're going to have, we're going to be announcing and bringing on the field for the first time, the Storm Elite Mustangs as our chair team for 2025. So we're going to go ahead and have professional cheerleaders on the, they're going around the country competing and they're going to go out and do stunts and

tricks and really get everybody fired up. So we're really excited about that to have all these local members of this, this team come out and open our games up and do some. over a halftime and be in the stands and really getting everybody motivated. I mean, how many people are you going to have on the field of the team each game? So right now we have about 55 kids in our program. We're going to do a couple different things where we've got the littles. We'll do maybe a couple little dances.

I think what I really want fans in the crowd to see is that you can be five years old and you can be 18 years old and you can have, you know, see these little kids growing and learning and some of these, I've got nine-year-olds that have been on the team for five years. But of course, the excitement comes when you get our level four team out there doing the big flips. We've been practicing the flipping basket tosses and all of the tumbling. So expect to see about 15 to 20 kids on the field when we come out there. Nice. Yeah. So we're nervous because the first game, we have a big competition in Phoenix. And I always say,

Jesus loves storm. It's going to work out. And the first draft of the schedule. came out and we were scheduled to perform or to compete at 430. And I was like, we can't. It's, there's no way. So we're going to send in the littles and it's going to be great. And then they were like, oh, we revised the schedule. We compete at noon. Awards are at one.

We're back up the hill and we're here just in time to kick off the first game of the season. So we're so excited about that. That's great to hear. You know, we talk all the time about our players and what we want for the players is either help them move up, you know, in the league or help them move on. to what they got their, you went to the university for. And I think this is, just as you're saying, they're coming out in their ages, it's such a great opportunity because some of these kids that you have, they want to move up and they want to do chair in college. And possibly later on in

pro sports, too, because it's there or the competition level. And this just gives them that extra boost, something to showcase. Because if you don't, if you don't get to showcase your talents, you're practicing for nothing. So here's another reason for your team to practice, to do it here, to showcase, and also go for their national competitions. Just going to make them better, which is our community. We're helping them move up. This is wonderful. I think these girls part of a pro football team.

Right. Right. So excited. I think boys. You're boys and girls. We've got boys and girls. And we moved here, gosh, many years ago. And we were a cheer family.

I've been coaching forever in California. And moved here and there was no cheerleading. So there, I mean, there's sideline stuff, but we were diehard competitive cheerleaders. And so I just let the bug lay dormant. It was fine. It's, you know, I've had my days and we're fine. And then my daughter went to high school. And it was immediately creeping into her practices.

And can I help choreograph some half times? And then let me help you coach some stuff. And we could take them to competition. And but there couldn't let it stay dormant. No. And there was so many roles with high school. So I was like, you know what? I'm just going to start my own team.

How hard could it be? Right. As you guys know, this is not easy. It is not, at least you don't have to deal with like player moms and play your dad. It's like you get to deal with the adults. And luckily this year we've got some great parents. But there's, you know, you get those years where it's like you're dealing with the moms and the. And then you've, you know.

Sounds like a TV show almost. It very well could be a TV show. We're just kidding. We love all the parents out there that are supporting their kids. Yeah. We're lucky. We've got great parents this season and very supportive. you'll see them helping with, especially when we have the littles kind of wrangling them.

Wranglers. Rangling them around. So, but we're just super excited. And it's helping our organization grow because we've, this year for the next season, we've started, you know, a wrangler team, a, you know, an in-state team. So lots of opportunities for these kids because shears expensive. And so we were able to find with having the wranglers, it's something they can do locally and still be involved and get their kids involved. and get their kids involved and not have to break the bank. So I appreciate.

We're honored that, you know, you reach out and we're just so excited to be doing this. Well, what Robin will say in a lot of things that are doing for the teams is we're about community. And when we're putting together like our national anthem singers and our half times, and we get calls from people that want to sing from Phoenix and California and other areas. And I'm always like, they can be great singers. But I would rather get, you know, an elementary school choir, local, into sing our national. Anthem because we're supported by the community is what they're a community-owned team. We, you know, we own it.

We just write out the checks. The community is the one that makes it. We just said that earlier, too. But that's why this is what we want. We want the community be here performing, giving them the opportunity to be part of this team and what we're building. And what, Robin, what do we have going on coming up with our games? Yeah, well, first of all, the Storm Elite Mustangs are going to be doing all the

giveaways during the games. And we're getting, we're doing a lot of giveaways this year, a lot of free stuff coming to the game. It's going to be so fun. Yeah, so we're going to make sure they stay busy on top of performing, you know, at the halftime. We'll have to find a t-shirt gun or something. Timeouts, yeah, lots of T-shirts and lots of free stuff.

But we've put together some fun themes for the games this year. So our first game is March 29th. So next Saturday. And the theme is, this is our community. So we really want to just showcase our community for that first game. And we're bringing in a lot of different areas we're having a member of the Prescott Police Department singing the national anthem. Emory Riddle's ROTC doing the color guard and just sponsoring the game is Prescott Times Media.

They're doing the coin toss for that. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Mayor Kel Palguda is doing the coin toss. I always want to say Palguda. I try to get that out there. So we always, and that's our tradition that we started when we took over the team is we always have the Prescott Valley Mayor do the coin toss. I think that's the first game. So our second game is going to be April 19th, and that is going to be our faith and family

on one side of it, and the other side is Easter bunny and Easter egg hunt. But we wanted to combine that because, of course, Easter is fun with the Easter eggs and the Easter bunny for the kids, but what is Easter really about? And so what we're going to be inviting is all of the different congregations, the different churches in the area to come set up on the concourse and have their own little displays of what Easter is. So that's going to be a lot of fun. on May 18th is teacher appreciation. May 24th. Oh, I'm excited for this one. Local mascots.

So we're going to have a local mascot contest at halftime. So if you have a local mascot, go ahead and reach out to me. And we'll get that said. High school mascot, junior eye mascot. Business mascot. Yeah. And any sheriff's mascot's been down in the past. Yeah. Arrested whiskey last year, our mascot. Yeah. That was great. That's fun. June 7th, military appreciation. June 14th, dad appreciation. That's Father's Day weekend. We're going to have a lot of giveaways for the dads that weekend. Oh, it'll be fun.

June 28th is rodeo, and I hear we'll be having some rodeo tickets to give away for the Prescott rodeo at that game. And then June 12th, or July 12th, I'm sorry, this one brand new. Never done this before. It's a fan appreciation game for halftime. We're going to be giving out fan awards. So we're not going to tell you ahead of time what awards you're working towards. We're just going to be noticing things that fans are doing throughout the season.

In the arena and tailgating. And listen, I walk out the tailgating every day. game. And I will judge if we're going to do anything out there, especially with who feeds me. Who's got the best food? Who's got the best food? This fan is getting the award for the best. Exactly. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. So for dad appreciation, I know it to be fun as if we taught some of the dads a halftime show to come out and do a half time show for a lot of fun. Storm League, we could get some of those dads out there. And then we can get you. Yeah, well, I guess you need to get the dads out there. We get the dads.

I'm sorry, I'm busy that day during the game. I'll let you throw a toss-up in the air. We can have punching and kicking on half the field, and then we can do cheerleading on the other half of the field. I mean, great combination. Kind of hit everybody's talents. This is great. You guys have thought of everything, and the timing is perfect.

Teacher appreciation. They're just getting out of school, so great time for them to relax and enjoy. It's going to be free teacher tickets, just throwing that in there. That would be great. Awesome. Well, again, thank you guys so much for thinking of Storm and we're so honored and it's going to be just such a great season. We're excited to do this. I mean, this was something that we talked about doing a couple years ago and we're just trying to put it together. How would this work? Because how do we get more of the community involved and how do we do this for a chair team? And so it just took a couple years of thinking about it and going like, all right, I think we have an idea and we reached out and it just matched. It worked great. And I'm excited to see how it goes. I'm excited to see how it goes. And I'm excited to share it with the rest of the league to say like, hey, check out our team.

Well, they're bringing in a whole production. Yes. I'm just really excited to see the show that they bring. We have a lot of fun. We even have a drum line. Nice. It's going to be great. Drumline.

Here we go. That is awesome. It's going to be fun. Well, thank you very much for being part of our team and getting all these kids and families involved. It's just going to make it more exciting, more energy there. And, you know, well, you have to tell the parents of your team is why they're in doing a little practice before the games.

You know, they can't be in there. They got to go set up their own tailgating outside. They might as well have a chair elite party, chairly Mustangs party in the parking lot, while they're waiting for the doors. They're waiting. They're excited. I'll go out there and I'll say hi. Which fan is my mom's make some mean Pesole.

They're going to be out there. They'll be cooking. I want to know who's making the best desserts. I shouldn't bring those in to me, please, because I can never make it out there. All right, moms, you hear what they're saying here. We got you. So I don't thank you guys so much. Well, thank you very much.

And thank you for watching your Wranglers Roundup. We look forward to seeing you at our first game on the 29th. Kickoffs at 605. Door is open at 5 o'clock. We're playing Fisher's Freight out of Indianapolis. They're a brand new team and it'll be their very first game that they're ever playing with us. And their first loss, too. So they're going to start off right.

Let's go, Rob, right. Go, Wranglers. Go, Wranglers.