trying to remain cheerful

I've seen other cheerleading websites, but I’ve only ran across one other cheerleading “blog” while surfing the web. And mine is the only Cheer Coach’s “blog.” A blog is a web-log, a journal or diary kept on the internet. Most of the more famous blogs are political. There are now so many of them that you hear TV news pundits talking about a “blogosphere.”

Of course, last I knew the only other male cheer coaches in Iowa was one guy at a community college and some guys who own an exclusive Cheerleading gym outside of Des Moines. I’ve been posting a lot of entries lately, if you’d like to take a look at it, click on over to http://cheercoach.blogspot.com.

Before you say, he has too much time on his hands, keep in mind that that a blog isn’t something that you have to put a lot of work into like most websites, A blog is a free service and they basically give you a template and a program to add to your web browser so that all you have to do is type and click.

It’s been an interesting season so far. Iowa allows each high school 8 cheerleaders during football season and 6 for basketball. In a perfect world, you’d have 2 Freshmen, 2 Sophomores, 2 Juniors, and 2 Seniors. In a perfect world, you’d hold tryouts in the Spring, get 12 or 20 candidates and choose the best 8. Then you’d go to a camp or clinic during the summer and maybe even get a few practices in before school even started.

I’m here to tell you, there is no perfect world. Last year I had 5 Seniors and one Freshman. We had tryout practices but only had 4 candidates. We had tryouts, but 2 of the 4 candidates chickened out.

We were supposed to have ordered new uniforms last Spring, but we didn’t even have a squad until school started about a month ago.

I had 5 cheerleaders, 2 of which are TOTAL rookies, and only 4 ½ uniforms, 2 bags, 4 sets of pom pons, and only one megaphone (guilt-guilt & shame former cheerleaders!). Did I mention that 3 of those 4 ½ uniforms fit really bad? And we haven’t had time to think about new uniforms because we’ve hardly practiced so we hardly know any chants. (Let alone cheers and stunts).

Nikki is the skinniest kid on squad... a 25 inch waist but we STILL can't get a uniform that fits her. We need to do something about it- parent in the stands were even complaining about how her navel shows. I don't think I've had a 25 inch waist since I was say 8 yrs old.

We're kind of a motley crew, but at least there's a squad. Underclassmen all the way.
3 Sophomores; one was on Varsity last year, one was on Junior High for a brief time, and another that was on junior high for two years- she even got 3rd place at the Iowa State Fair for Gymnastics!

Then there are the 2 Freshmen; complete rookies to the sport of cheerleading, one of whom is pretty cynical and pretty stubborn.

Several kids have approached me and told me that they’re planning on coming out for basketball season. AWESOME- although, if I want uniforms that fit, should I wait till after tryouts in November to measure & order? Of course, I had several kids tell me that they were coming out last Spring but they didn’t.

One of my rookies must have felt alienated, like she didn’t have any friends on the squad, because she went to work and recruited two (for THIS season). One’s quiet as a mouse and while the other cheered last year in Junior High, is painfully shy and doesn’t want to perform in front of the whole student body at pep rallies.

That’s Varsity. Junior High is about as complicated- 3 out of my 5 Junior High cheerleaders are now ineligible because of poor grades, and one of the 2 left has a broken ankle, so she’ll be on the Disabled list for about 6 weeks.

Guess how she did it- she was watching a cheer competition on ESPN and decided to practice some chants at home.

Then there are the three seventh graders; THERE'RE SO TINY! I guess I got too used the almost-all-Senior Varsity squad I had last year. This group really makes me feel old though, because when I first came to Boyer Valley 5 years ago, I taught them Art as Second-Graders!