Stepping Lively / Clapping and stomping in team spirit: [ALL EDITIONS]

Beth Whitehouse. STAFF WRITER. Newsday, Combined editions; Long Island, N.Y. [Long Island, N.Y]. 23 Apr 2000

HOW MUCH spirit can there be in the clapping of hands, the stomping of feet?

Ask Ferntzie Pamphile, a 16-year-old junior at Walt Whitman High School in South Huntington. She claps, and stomps, and smacks the wood gymnasium floor with her open palms so hard that they smart.

Ask Porsha Saunders, a 15-year-old sophomore at Longwood High School in Middle Island. She claps, and stomps, and when she jumps into the air, girls on either side clap their hands between her ankles.

Ask Simone Webb, a 17- year-old senior and co-captain of Farmingdale Senior High School’s Steppin’ Dalers. She clapped and stomped in front of an auditorium of her peers this month at a high school leadership conference at the State University at Stony Brook.

Clapping, stomping, slapping, shouting. Such moves are being choreographed and then performed in precise rhythm and unison- without musical accompaniment -by step teams at a growing number of local high schools. And the clap of these hands, the stomps of these feet, carry meaning handed down through generations, beginning with African tribes that performed in step competitions in centuries gone by.

Step traveled to the United States with the advent of slavery, and continued to be performed in the 20th Century by members of black college fraternities and sororities. While people far younger than college age have embraced step for years in more urban areas, in the past five years, step has also journeyed to youths in the ‘burbs.

Step teams have sprung up in high schools in at least a dozen locales across Nassau and Suffolk Counties, including Middle Island, Farmingdale, Deer Park, Greenport, Hempstead, South Huntington, Huntington and Port Washington. Some community groups also have local teams.

“It’s something different. Everyone knows sports like football, basketball,” said Lauren Mason, a 15-year-old Longwood sophomore who is on her high school’s step team. She’s drawn to the noise, the beat, the momentum. The growth of her school’s step team is perhaps one of the Island’s most impressive-two years ago, there was no team at Longwood. Last year, there was a varsity team. This school year, so many girls tried out that Longwood created a junior varsity team so more students could participate.

Longwood has 22 girls on varsity, 15 on JV. Although boys are welcome on most high school teams, and do perform with some, the teams predominantly are made up of girls. And while there’s no requirement that step team members be students of color, the vast majority are. The step teams perform routines made up of steps with creative names such as “Freak It Baby” – that’s the step where Porsha’s neighbors clap between her airborne ankles-at halftimes during home basketball games and other school and community events.

School officials such as Longwood principal Leonard Bozza are happy to see another segment of the school population embracing after- school life.

“Students of color have not been participating in great numbers in cheerleading or some of the other activities we had,” Bozza said. “A number of students said they were interested in this. What you see is proof that they are. The idea is to have all students involved in some type of aspect of the school. If this is what these students can relate to and it’s something they can contribute to the school environment, that’s great. It’s a definite win-win situation.”

Gala Handler, a Spanish teacher and advisor for the Walt Whitman step team, is another school-official- turned-step-fan. “It’s similar to cheerleading, but it’s very different because it’s very hip. They don’t do splits and stuff like that. It’s rhythm. It’s not the all- American cheerleader types. It kind of opens the door for others.”

Students probably asked for step teams at area high schools because of older brothers or sisters who went to college and stepped with their black Greek organizations. College steps are usually far more complicated; some sororities or fraternities step with canes, some do it blindfolded.

“It’s supposed to teach unity,” said Terri Hall, adviser to the step team at Port Washington’s Paul D. Schreiber High School. “I think with high school students it’s hard to instill that same concept into them, the importance of it, how valuable it is. That you function as one unit. Wear the same clothes, walk the same walk. We are one body, for one cause.”

Still, high school students said they are learning unity, and other things, from being step team members. They practice at least two days a week after school when they are set to perform, showing commitment and dedication, said Olga Brown Young, dean of students at A.B.G. Schultz Middle School in Hempstead, which has its own step team in addition to Hempstead High School’s team.

“If you can work that hard to learn a routine, you can do the same when you have to study for an exam, because your mind becomes disciplined,” Young said.

At Walt Whitman, the step members call themselves TSOP, and only the step members know what that stands for. When last year a sister of one step team member died, the team members created a step for the dead girl that they performed at the pep rally in her honor. The team also participated in a program where members taught emotionally disturbed children a step. “They learned it,” Ferntzie said. “It was a positive thing for them. We also learned we have to have patience with them. Everybody had fun.”

Longwood adviser Donna Watkins said she’s amazed at how the team members master nerve-rackingly complicated routines and weather the team peer pressure not to be the one to mess up. “They have eight, nine routines in their head, but they keep all that straight,” Watkins said. “I can’t keep up with them.”

Neither can fellow students. “Everyone loves it,” said LaShawna Ford, a Longwood varsity step captain. “In the hallways, we get special requests.” And in high school, that is high flattery.