High School Does Anyone Know What Happened To The Memphis Teams?

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Apr 28, 2017
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I fell into Dan Gymnast's YouTube channel after a suggestion on the crops thread, and there used to be a ton more competitive teams out of the Memphis area in the late 90's/00's. Was this a national trend, or did it just fall apart here? The only one I can account for is Germantown, where the district split seemingly gave Houston all the athletes and Germantown all the actors and musicians (it is now an IB/Fine arts magnet). And it seems to have been private schools, too.
 
I fell into Dan Gymnast's YouTube channel after a suggestion on the crops thread, and there used to be a ton more competitive teams out of the Memphis area in the late 90's/00's. Was this a national trend, or did it just fall apart here? The only one I can account for is Germantown, where the district split seemingly gave Houston all the athletes and Germantown all the actors and musicians (it is now an IB/Fine arts magnet). And it seems to have been private schools, too.

Some of the following information was obtained second hand from a fairly sketch source and is being regurgitated nearly 15 years after digestion...take it for what it’s worth:

Raleigh Egypt - won back to back NHSCC in coed division. I have no clue what happened to their program

Craigmont HS - apparently in a not too nice neighborhood down there. Eventually just died out and/or had some troubles

Christian Brothers HS - the “Brothers” who ran the all-male catholic school never really supported the NHSCC thing, except they kept winning. Allegedly they had some trouble within the program, and the “Brothers” put the big kabosh on them. They’ve been back sporadically with minimal success in all girl (they get athletes from other local parochial schools thanks to a loophole in UCA’s rules).

Westview...Martin TN is farther north, but could be considered Memphis region for all practical purposes. Their HS was fed by their middle school and a badass coach. She went on to coach at UT-Martin, never had a great deal of success at that level, and the middle school and HS teams fizzled out like a bad fart

In the mean time, the Morehead State was dominating Div I college coed and the early years of college all girl; and UK rattled off about eleventy billion national championships in a row, which skyrocketed the level of interest in cheerleading in KY. Compound that with the storied traditions of Greenup Co (the only school to compete at NHSCC every year since is inception), Dunbar, and some others who have caught hold along the way, and KY took the reigns from TN.

To be honest, I think a great deal of the shift could be attributed to our UCA state director, Hank Light. A true service-oriented professional.

That’s a few of them
 
I can see where White flight and redistricting might have gotten Craigmont and Raleigh-Egypt. Both were suburban schools that are now more urban. I did find it a little surprising to see Bartlett and Bolton in NHSCC-I think those schools account more more than half of our high school age all Star girls-and their cheer teams (or lack thereof) is one reason my CP chose to go the early college high school route.
 
I can see where White flight and redistricting might have gotten Craigmont and Raleigh-Egypt. Both were suburban schools that are now more urban. I did find it a little surprising to see Bartlett and Bolton in NHSCC-I think those schools account more more than half of our high school age all Star girls-and their cheer teams (or lack thereof) is one reason my CP chose to go the early college high school route.

I remember when Bolton was bad booty. I had forgotten about that. They came on after I graduated high school and fizzled our before I started taking teams to NHSCC.
 
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