April 4, 2003

The University of Louisville Ladybirds Dance Team , All-Girl Cheer and Co-Ed Cheer won the National Cheerleading Association's (NCA) National Championship in Daytona Beach, Florida today. The Ladybirds and Co-ed repeated as national champions from a year ago.

The Championships will be aired on CBS Sports April 26 at 2-p .m. ET. All three teams were ranked first (based on submitted video entry tapes) going into the preliminary round. It is the first time in the history of the competition that one school has swept all three competitions.

"People just don't realize the scope of this win. There are 192 universities here and we swept," said Todd Sharp, spirit coordinator. "The kids were amazing today. We always knew we had amazing spirit squads here but this is beyond our dreams. The crowd was cheering for us. We had more than 200 fans made up of family, alumni and current students to cheer us on. Never been a sweep in the history of NCA/NDA. The closest anyone ever came before was us when we got two of them last year.

Order of Finish: Dance Competition 1. Louisville, 2.) BYU 3.)USC 4.) Rutgers and 5.) Memphis

Co-Ed Cheer: 1.) Louisville 2.) NC State 3.) Oklahoma 4.) Purdue  and 5.)Memphis

All-Girl: 1.) Louisville  2.) Memphis, 3.) Florida State