Three CU cheerleaders were late to their performance at the CU men’s basketball game in Boulder, scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday, after two of them auditioned for “America’s Got Talent.”
Travon Booker, Ozell Williams and Zach Watson (back row from left) performed a tumbling routine at the first found of tryouts for America’s Got Talent on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2013. They were joined by Taylor Ullemeyer (not pictured), D.J. Moore (middle front) and two younger members of Mile High Tumblers. (Alison Noon/CU Independent)
Ozell Williams and Travon Booker, juniors and tumblers on the Cheer Squad, and Taylor Ullemeyer, a senior flyer, left the Colorado Convention Center around noon after the boys’ tryout. About 1,200 people were expected to perform in front of producers of the NBC talent show at the fourth of seven major audition locations.
Booker said squad members are punished with laps in Balch Fieldhouse for being late, but he did not expect to be running Saturday afternoon.
“We go in there and hit our stuff, so they can’t complain,” Booker said.
Williams and Booker were joined by Zach Watson, a sophomore at CSU, in their floor routine. Ullemeyer and a prospective member of the Cheer Squad, D.J. Moore, traveled with them for moral support.
Each act had 90 seconds to perform in the initial tryouts for the “America’s Got Talent” auditions, when anyone who shows up before 7 p.m. is allowed to participate.
The college tumblers showed off their flips to TWRK’s “BaDinga” and Keys N Krates’ “Dum Dee Dum,” which they played on Williams’ phone. A perfect performance was thwarted when it received a call about 30 seconds in.
“Everything was good except for that,” Booker said. Williams also said he felt “pretty good” about the routine.
It was each of the men’s first attempts at a nationally televised contest. Their previous tumbling experience includes performances in front of tens of thousands of people at national cheerleading competitions and football games.
Williams said the three regularly tumble at Broncos games through an offshoot of Mile High Tumblers, the organization he started two years ago through the Boys and Girls Club.
On Nov. 23, Williams attempted what may have been a world record-breaking number of continuous back handsprings during the Buffs’ game against USC.
Contact CU Independent Reporter Alison Noon at Alison.noon@colorado.edu.
