Submitted Photo Vytalli Klimpel, seen here as the hockey bunny during her senior year at Minot High in 2017, will look to lead the Magi varsity cheerleading team as head coach in 2021.

Earlier this month, Minot High School hired an alumnus and former Magi cheerleader to oversee the varsity cheer squad this coming fall.

Vytalli Klimpel, a Minot native and 2017 graduate of MHS, will take over head coach of the Magi varsity cheerleading team. Klimpel will be overseeing the cheer duties for football, as well as boys and girls basketball. For the past three years before this promotion, she served as a coach for Minot’s junior varsity team.

Currently enrolled at Minot State University, Klimpel also brings three years of cheer team experience at the collegiate level with the Beavers. Now in her fifth year of college, the former Magi cheerleader is majoring in physical education and plans to graduate next spring.

In her new role at Minot High, Klimpel will have an assistant as well as a junior varsity coach to help with organizing cheer duties. Having cheerleading experience dating back to her time as a student at Jim Hill Middle School, the college senior says cheering is a sport in and of itself.

“When you are on a cheerleading squad, it is just as much physical as any other sport, and the performance aspect is very important just like it is for the sports we cheer for,” Klimpel tells The Minot Daily News.

Klimpel states that she started her interest in cheer after several years in competitive dance while honing her craft at Studio X, a dance school in Minot. While attending Jim Hill Middle School, she says her friends encouraged her to make the switch to cheer, and she has been hooked ever since.

“Because of my background in dance, it was just a natural fit and I wasn’t nervous at all when I first tried out,” Klimpel tells The Minot Daily News.

Training camp for the Magi varsity cheer team begins the second week of August. Meanwhile, new head coach estimates there will be roughly 16 members on this year’s team. Always looking to recruit more talent, Klimpel says one of her main objectives is to ease the tensions in trying out so as to increase enthusiasm for the sport.

“I really want to create a more inviting and welcoming atmosphere for our team so not as many kids will be scared to try out. I just encourage local kids to just go for it and try out because you never know what is going to happen until you try,” she adds.