All-Star Retirement???

[ashscott41]

@pebbles46 you introduced the idea of fast tracks. Someone else outlined the many possible paths she has seen athletes take during her years at WC. Everyone else is trying to get you to see that all of those routes are a possibility for your daughter. It goes against the "WC way" to be told of a fast track to Stars. These are young kids and things change every day. Injuries, burnout, families moving, the list goes on. Telling your daughter now she is a future Star would be like me telling Bailie Key she has a guaranteed spot on the 2016 Olympic team. She's had a great junior career and is going to be a contender for sure, but there is no way to make that decision now. Everyone also thought Rebecca Bross would be on the 2012 team, but injuries kept that from happening.

In a sport as dynamic as cheerleading, you have to take things one day at a time. Focus on having the best possible season with Twinkles this year. Wait and see where the future takes her. If she ends up on Stars in a few years, great. If she ends up on Suns or Ody or at NJSE or CJA or SJS or on sideline JV, that's great too. I think it was SharkDad who said it best- the parent's only job is to show up, ask if they had fun, tell them you're proud of them, and ask what they want for dinner. Do that everyday and she will be happy. Let her coaches worry about team placement.

As for your question about athletes leaving, yes it is a yearly thing in all youth sports. These are kids. Sometimes they want to try something else, sometimes they just want to hang out with their friends, do school cheer, try out for a play, etc etc. At a gym the size of WC, yes there will be a substantial number of kids that decide for whatever reason not to come back. A higher number of kids in the gym means a higher number will be leaving. At 12/13 is when they start seeing the possibility of a life outside the gym. Puberty and growth spurts can make this sport flat out painful and hard to continue at a high level. The pressure on a well-known L5 team is not for everyone. Everyone has already said these things, but you're still asking the same question so hopefully that will clear things up. If you have other future questions like these, I'd suggest talking about them with Joelle or Ms Pascale. They're lovely ladies and I'm sure would be more than happy to discuss all of this with you.

 

[mamabear]

Yes CheerDad, I have been falsely accused of introducing the scenarios or routes
... When someone else outlined those steps and there were no repercussions, but I mentioned and repeated them I was told that is not WC stand for, I don't get it.....I merely verbalized what I noticed as a new person in this cheer world... We do not live in a perfect world and even if things are not said out loud, as a newcomer , I judge based on what goes on.... Again, I want to reiterate I've only been at this gym for 1 year, so I was surprised by seeing how a group of young athletes(all aging out) that did not appear to be burnt out, but appeared to be unsure and afraid of their futures in the sport...and I was curious to know how often this happen...is this a yearly event? I pondered this, because I was at another gym and I did not witnessed this mass exodus of aging out athletes on this level...
PS: This is only my daughter's second team since starting AS, so maybe this is not unusual...

Instead of debating whether you are pondering or inquiring..why don't you LISTEN to people here? STJ shared her experiences from the gym that your cp is at and gave you some valuable info about the questions you had. Others from your gym also replied and so did other parents of elite Level 5 kids (some who have Worlds rings) also tried to talk to you. Why don't you focus on what they said instead of twisting it to try to show us yet again that your kid is a cheer prodigy?

Now, I know that you don't want to hear what I have to say, because you have made it clear in previous threads that my child should quit AS because she is still in level 1--- for ...the....third.....year!!!--- but I am still going to try to speak.

The truth is that all gyms have a system and way that they move their kids through the ranks. The most successful gyms tailor the system differently for each gym and child. Placement will sometimes be dictated by the team's needs, sometimes by our cp's skills (or lack of), or in the case of smaller gyms, by the limited amount of team available.

You seem to only want to talk about WC - so let's.

I am the first person to state that WCSS is one of the legendary teams in this sport. CPs from gyms all over the world fantasize about someday wearing that uniform. We know from several threads , that you think your kid will eventually be fasttracked to the best team- so go you! Yea! I am thrilled for you and your CP.

You have made your expectations clear in past threads that she must move up levels according to your time frame, I certainly hope that she will for her sake. I would hate to see that you SMness will cause her to feel like she is a failure when she finds out her placement at the end of next season.(Again please read 12step's note to SMs) . Your daughter obviously is talented. Your coaches (and not you) will know what will be the best way there.

She maybe placed on S4 or an S5R. Probable reasons are that she might need a year (or two!) to refine her skills. Since your cp was a gymnast first, I am guessing that she has great tumbling skills, so that might not be the thing that she needs to work on. Maybe they will feel that she needs to put in more time basing (or flying); or maybe it will be dance that they feel needs improvement. You need to remember that by next season, she will only have 4 years experience total in cheer. We all know that she has been on very successful teams in that short time, but the WC coaches might want her to get more experience and that is NOT a bad thing, It will only make her stronger when she gets to a Worlds team. You have to remember that many of her teammates have been cheering since they were mini and have more experience. You have also said in other threads that you cp can be lazy at times. They might want to see her prove that she is truly a team player and not just an extremely talented youth athlete.

Another option is that she might also be placed on a different Worlds team than WCSS. You pissed off a lot of people earlier acting like that would be a bad thing. The other WC Level 5 teams have a storied history all of their own! Most cps would be thrilled to be on them, and I hope that your cp would embrace her coaches' decision and rock it.

Reasons might vary on why your cp would be placed on these teams. Maybe she would excel on a coed team. Maybe the coaches feel that she would do better on a team that has slightly less stress than WCSS. (I am in no way minimizing these teams; but let's face it, there are only a few teams across the nation that have such high expectations and pressure upon them, when they put on their unis!). Maybe they feel she would be best matched up with a coach on these teams and not WCSS.

I am also going to bet that coaches will take into consideration dedication and past history when they make placements. That includes factoring in how a child has dealt with challenges and team placements, and how the child and their families represent their teams along the way.

My final words of advice.
1. You never know who reads these pages...or who is really behind an avatar. You signed a social media contract, so you might want to watch your actions and words.

2.There are a lot of talented cps and there are also a lot of ones who works their asses off to be the best teammates that they can be. You child is not anymore more special than any of ours are. Level and Program really do not matter. Be proud of what your child has accomplished in a very short time-- but never forget that several others have similar stories. Remain humble.

3. There is so much knowledge here. If you stop touting your agenda long enough, you might actually learn something and enjoy it.

 

[Pebbles49]

Hi Mamabear,
Thank you for this advice... I definitely plan to address these questions with Ms. Pascale instead of FierceBoard...Thanks again!

 

[ACEDAD]

Hi Mamabear,
Thank you for this advice... I definitely plan to address these questions with Ms. Pascale instead of FierceBoard...Thanks again!

Any chance for a pay per view?


The Fierce Board: It's probably part of the First Amendment...

 

[Pebbles49]

hahaha, nope!

 

[Pebbles49]

A few thoughts.

To the first part here... Any parent who decides to talk their kid out of high tailing it to the hills needs to read my open letter to Susie Moms thread. There's a sobering reality for what happens to young talented athletes when their SM parents can't leave well enough alone and just let them be kids first. The kids you're talking about are youth age. Cheer won't be a career. It won't be a free ticket to a college education and frankly no one outside the Allstar world even "gets" what they do when they get to high school so it's counterintuitive how SMs of young kids are so over the top about ensuring their kid is the best of the best. I know, I was one. It's why I wrote that cautionary thread.

To the second part, it did start as a discussion here. The general gist of the responses were "kids change their minds, pressure at level 5 is different etc" for whatever reason you got very defensive over most of those general discussion postings and the thread spun out of control. Not sure what you expected everyone to say and I still can't understand why you got upset over the discussion that did occur.

I didn't quote the other part about dreams deferred, but I'm curious. You said your daughter was on J2 and is now aging off Twinkles (or will be). Were there several years between those? Just wondering her skill level and if she's a level 5 athlete that was part of that very successful J2 or if she's got level 2 skills and served some other purpose (like basing or backing) on level 5? One gets us back to the GP/YE debate (or better since GP is level 3) and the other means she might need to add steps to her dream if she wants stars but as an aging up junior only has (current) level two skills.

I'm feeling like were having this general discussion about "all these other kids" when you are really interested in just talking about yours....which is fine...but let's just cut to the chase and have a discussion about what you really want to talk about and stop beating around the bush. This is a good place for advice but you have to be prepared to be objective about it as it relates to your cp.


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Hey 12stepCheermom, I came back to apologize for my rude behavior yesterday, yes, I might have been acting a little defensive because I sincerely started this thread with purest intent of conversing about questions that bothered me about seeing young athletes seeming like they were giving up and my daughter was not my focus since she has another year on a Y5 team... I was curious just how prevalent this early retirement is at other gyms... Yes, it may have come off that I was interested in my daughter, hey, she is 11 and already quit (gymnastics) one sport...I wanted to hear others thoughts about this situation, so when and if this happens to me, I will be better equipped to handle this, that was my only intent... I heard, some people thinking I was pushing my daughter to be a cheerlebrity, etc...which is absolutely false, if you read any of my posts - I never once mentioned about my daughter prowess and/or how she the greatest at this or that... So pumping her to be that cheer prodigy, this was never express by me...

Anywhoo...Please accept my apology and I will even add in with a cherry on top! Puh-Leese! Matter of fact, this apology goes out to all who felt I offended and/or slighted them in anyway...Sorry!

Well to answer some of your questions -
1. I believe when my daughter started AS from gymnastics- 3 years ago, she came in with all of the tumbling to be on a level 5 team, but she was only 8... At the time, I was so stupid and ignorant of the sport,,, my daughter was placed on a J1 team (my mistake, earlier I mentioned J2) and I thought this was a great start, I did not know that this was a beginner in AS and she would not be doing any of her advanced tumbling skills...) But I was still okay with this because the coaches at this Gym told me, my daughter needed to learn the basics of Cheerleading-Motions and Stunting without the pressure , later she crossover to this Gym's Mini1 team... I later heard that this Gym heavily stack their teams, but my daughter learned she is a strong performer-dancer and strong backspot ...So, I appreciated everything she learn at this first gym, because it set her up well for a Y5 team.

2. Yes, I can understand the pressure these young L5 athletes encounters - I remember last season, my daughter and I was running late trying to meet her team at NCA... Different groups of cheerleaders spotted the Twinkles' uni and we were stop almost every step for pictures and conversations... Of course, we were trying to be nice and not brush off anyone, so we were late and my daughter was yelled at by her coaches... I later, mentioned to her coaches what happened and we were just told to be extra early, no excuses...Okay!

 

[Cheer Dad]

[QUOTE="pebbles49, post: 906999, member: 37926"

Well to answer some of your questions -
1. I believe when my daughter started AS from gymnastics- 3 years ago, she came in with all of the tumbling to be on a level 5 team, but she was only 8... At the time, I was so stupid and ignorant of the sport,,, my daughter was placed on a J1 team (my mistake, earlier I mentioned J2) and I thought this was a great start, I did not know that this was a beginner in AS and she would not be doing any of her advanced tumbling skills...)![/QUOTE]


Wow, your cp came in with L5 tumbling (I.e. Layouts, tucks, fulls) at 8 and was put on Y1? I can understand the lower lever to help learn basics but would think maybe a Y2 or possibly 3 to utilize the advanced tumbling and learn the basics from there.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android I promise I'm not really a hat

 

[lifeoftheparty]

Biting tongue.

 

[ShoWStoppeR]

I've seen/heard kids say "It feels like a job instead of something I love doing."

Once it starts to feel like that, it may be time to be done.

I agree 100%, I hit this point. and I almost did quit, but then I realized it was the atmosphere of the gym I was at, and switched gyms and it made all the difference in the world.

For me, when I finally decided to call it quits, there were numerous reasons. Mind you, I didn't retire until my senior year of college (and as I say this I am contemplating coming out of retirement lol) but a big factor for me was school and time. I was working full time and fall of my senior year I was taking 19 credits, all pre-req course work for PA school, so extremely difficult and time consuming classes. I knew my future was more important than cheering one last season and potentially effecting my school work, so I called it quits. Another factor though was also the fact that for the first time since I started cheering, I started to get scared to do stuff. I was always fearless and they all joked and said I had the mindset of a man because I literally just didn't think about anything and went for it. But then I got to a point where I was afraid of getting hurt with essentially everything I did... baskets, pyramids, tumbling. I know the nature of my major didn't help, considering we are taught the mechanism of injury for everything and all the predisposing factors and what not, and I know that I'm a walking disaster lol so I knew that once I started to fear the thing I used to love, it was time to be done. There's no point torturing myself. That's why I am a firm believer in "those who can't do, teach" There's always a way to stay connected to what you love.

 

[Pebbles49]

[QUOTE="pebbles49, post: 906999, member: 37926"

Well to answer some of your questions -
1. I believe when my daughter started AS from gymnastics- 3 years ago, she came in with all of the tumbling to be on a level 5 team, but she was only 8... At the time, I was so stupid and ignorant of the sport,,, my daughter was placed on a J1 team (my mistake, earlier I mentioned J2) and I thought this was a great start, I did not know that this was a beginner in AS and she would not be doing any of her advanced tumbling skills...)!

Wow, your cp came in with L5 tumbling (I.e. Layouts, tucks, fulls) at 8 and was put on Y1? I can understand the lower lever to help learn basics but would think maybe a Y2 or possibly 3 to utilize the advanced tumbling and learn the basics from there.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android I promise I'm not really a hat[/QUOTE]
Hey CheerDad, Yes, no lie J1 and Mini1 - Call me ignorant! That year, I was trying to understand why the other parents on her J1 squad were upset about this placement, stupid me! did not understand that these parents had children who got push off of feature spots that were given to my daughter instead(last pass, center dancer, tripod jumping set up- which had the boy in the middle with the 2 girls on his sides, she was one of the girls on the side,... This J1 squad were highly talked about that year and won everything in sight and I believe, some of the routines can be spotted on youtube, for those who think I am trolling... The parents on the Mini1 squad - nickname her the 'front-ier', I do not know if this was a compliment or not... But this is the experience I had so far in AS and my daughter seems to be very happy still, at least today she is! lol

 

[lifeoftheparty]

Pebbles. I do not recall your daughter having LVL 5 skills on that team. I recall a ROBHST. My daughter was on that team with her. ALSO to say the Gym stacks teams is crazy. My daughter was on J5 last year without a full. That by no means is stacking. Also who was upset about the placement? Sorry for calling you out but your recollection of the events that took place are not reality. It may seem like a "MOOT" point since you are no longer with the program, but I cant continue to sit here and read your half truths.

 

[Pebbles49]

I agree 100%, I hit this point. and I almost did quit, but then I realized it was the atmosphere of the gym I was at, and switched gyms and it made all the difference in the world.

For me, when I finally decided to call it quits, there were numerous reasons. Mind you, I didn't retire until my senior year of college (and as I say this I am contemplating coming out of retirement lol) but a big factor for me was school and time. I was working full time and fall of my senior year I was taking 19 credits, all pre-req course work for PA school, so extremely difficult and time consuming classes. I knew my future was more important than cheering one last season and potentially effecting my school work, so I called it quits. Another factor though was also the fact that for the first time since I started cheering, I started to get scared to do stuff. I was always fearless and they all joked and said I had the mindset of a man because I literally just didn't think about anything and went for it. But then I got to a point where I was afraid of getting hurt with essentially everything I did... baskets, pyramids, tumbling. I know the nature of my major didn't help, considering we are taught the mechanism of injury for everything and all the predisposing factors and what not, and I know that I'm a walking disaster lol so I knew that once I started to fear the thing I used to love, it was time to be done. There's no point torturing myself. That's why I am a firm believer in "those who can't do, teach" There's always a way to stay connected to what you love.

Hey ShoWStoppeR, I was very impressed with your story and experience in the sport,,, particularly when you mentioned the fear aspects and how heavy apart it played on why you got out... That even answer some of the things I was wondering about with the retirement... I heard at this age fear does creep in a lot more...btw, These young athletes are doing some remarkable things that leave me scratching my head and jaws dropped to the floor watching it and at a young age, they do not have that fear, they just go for it... When you ask them, wow, how did you do that? Most of these young athletes, just shrug their shoulders and run off laughing about it or tell you, it was nothing, you wanted see me do it again! hahaha

PS: Thank you for telling your AS experience, I cannot tell you how much it help me better understand what is happening...

 

[Pebbles49]

Pebbles. I do not recall your daughter having LVL 5 skills on that team. I recall a ROBHST. My daughter was on that team with her. ALSO to say the Gym stacks teams is crazy. My daughter was on J5 last year without a full. That by no means is stacking. Also who was upset about the placement? Sorry for calling you out but your recollection of the events that took place are not reality. It may seem like a "MOOT" point since you are no longer with the program, but I cant continue to sit here and read your half truths.

No you are mistaking, my daughter came in with RO, multiple BHS, Tucks, Layouts, Standing Back Tucks and had a Full that she lost because she was underutilizing her tumbling skills... My daughter was only allowed to practice RO Bhs and Tucks, but when she tryout, her first year, she showed all of her skills and was placed on a LVL 1 squad and that was why many other more experienced parents left the program that year who children were placed similarly...
PS:
Additionally, when I took her to the new gym they were surprised by her placement too...Just saying!!!

 

[lifeoftheparty]

Simply not true but whatever makes you sleep better at night.

No you are mistaking, my daughter came in with RO, multiple BHS, Tucks, Layouts, Standing Back Tucks and had a Full that she lost because she was underutilizing her tumbling skills... My daughter was only allowed to practice RO Bhs and Tucks, but when she tryout, her first year, she showed all of her skills and was placed on a LVL 1 squad and that was why many other more experienced parents left the program that year who children were placed similarly...

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

Pebbles. I do not recall your daughter having LVL 5 skills on that team. I recall a ROBHST. My daughter was on that team with her. ALSO to say the Gym stacks teams is crazy. My daughter was on J5 last year without a full. That by no means is stacking. Also who was upset about the placement? Sorry for calling you out but your recollection of the events that took place are not reality. It may seem like a "MOOT" point since you are no longer with the program, but I cant continue to sit here and read your half truths.

Ooop.