All-Star Article On Panthers

[TNT-EXPLOSION_Jadie (:]

The article was awful. Plain and simple. Put too much emphasis on the social and stereotypical aspect of the sport.. And not near enough on the amazing things the team accomplished. It made the gym (and the sport in general) look terrible. When in reality, CA is probably one of the classiest gyms with the best sportsmanship out there. At least from what I've heard. The pictures were great, and I'm still a HUGE panther fan

 

[proudcheermomma]

The upcoming issue of D Magazine has a cover story on the 2011-12 Cheer Athletics Panthers.

How_the_Plano_Panthers_Cheer_Squad_Became_World_Champions

Our feelings on the article are mixed. It isn't entirely bad, but there are definitely things in there that we would never have approved if we had any editorial control over what was being said.

The reporter had followed Panthers throughout the season last year and was given access to practices and behind the scenes at performances. After the season, and in talking to him, we were really excited about the possibilities of the article. He had been given the opportunity to follow what was arguably the best cheerleading team in the world through an undefeated and historical season. Unfortunately, the type of article that the cheer world would want to see isn't the same as what they feel they need to do to sell magazines.

The biggest disappointment we have is that there was the potential for such a great story about the athleticism and grace of the sport. It is simply sad to me that he chose to spend 12 paragraphs on a teenage slumber party and 1 sentence on them actually winning the World Championship. That was not at all what we were led to believe.

There was also some vulgar language that makes it inappropriate for many of our younger athletes. I don't envy the parents of the youngsters having to explain what some of the words mean. That is not language that we allow in our facility for the precise reason that we don't want the younger athletes to hear that.

The athletes themselves often come up with team "slogans" that they use for bonding purposes. BABS can actually stand for multiple things, but the crudest one, and the most popular one on Twitter, was the one they chose to print. We may now have to re-visit allowing our athletes to come up with their own sayings. It is worth noting that the reporter was unable to discover what the letters stood for until someone from Fierce Board, a coach from another program, told him. It's not like the athletes walk around saying those words at the gym.

On a positive note: the pictures were great.


PS

There are several flat-out factual errors, and several misleading things taken out of context that give you a false impression about the team and some of the athletes. They did send Brad a fact-check sheet that listed several items to confirm and he made corrections. Some of the those corrections did not get changed in the final article.

a partial list of errors:

Plano Panthers Cheer Squad - I don't recall anyone ever calling the Cheer Athletics Panthers that. One of the high schools in Plano is also Panthers, so there is likely to be much confusion locally.

"You know this competition isn't that big a deal. There aren't any big squads here anyway." If memory serves correctly, Panthers were the only team in their division. That was what Brad was referring to. The overall event itself WAS a big deal with 2 paid bids at stake. There were multiple reigning World Champion teams and something like 12-14 teams who had medalled in the last couple of years all competing for 2 paid bids. There were definitely "big squads" there - in fact there were a surprisingly high number of VERY strong Worlds teams.

Just after a Herkie, Victoria lands flat ​

Perhaps minor point, but they were not doing Herkies anywhere in their routine.​

Panthers lost at Spirit Celebration. They did not get a paid bid, which was one of their goals. However, they did not "lose" as was described in the article. The two paid bids went to two eventual World Champions - CA Cheetahs and SOT Medium Coed. Panthers (I think) were in 3rd for the two bids.

They would have loved your stunts if you had them.​

Again, a minor point - but it should have read "if you had HIT them."​

A month at Cheer Athletics, with dues and private lessons, costs about $500 Technically, this could be true IF you did lots of optional private lessons every month, but actual tuition is about half of that. ​

Habermel turns back to his assistant coaches ​

We do not have head coaches or assistant coaches. Everyone is at the exact same level when it comes to coaching - whether you are an owner or not.​

just plain hate this article!!

 

[newcheerdad]

Was it perfect? DEFINITELY not. The focus should have been more about worlds with out a doubt... but I still liked the article overall, and I don't think it was as terrible as yall are making it out to be.

I don't think it was bad in the "OMG THEY'RE OUT TO GET CHEERLEADING" sense, which you can argue has been the case in other mainstream articles about all-star. I think the issue here was that the author had an idea about taking people inside the subculture of all-star cheerleading, started the story, but never really finished it and it read worse than it was probably intended to. That's not an excuse, mind you, but I didn't sense with this article that there was some attempt to do a hatchet job on CA or anything like that.

 

[King]

Was it perfect? DEFINITELY not. The focus should have been more about worlds with out a doubt... but I still liked the article overall, and I don't think it was as terrible as yall are making it out to be.

We might be alone on this island. I agree with you.

 

[Nothanks]

We might be alone on this island. I agree with you.

I don't disagree--from a journalism stance, it started off with a good lead that could have the ability to pull a lot of readers in. (I'm not saying his journalism ethics were good, however). I have to agree with whoever said it sounded like he just got tired of writing or lost his focus/angle and just tried to finish it as fast as possible. If he put as much effort and detail into The Majors and Worlds as he did the fire, it would have been done nicely (if he got his facts correct).

 

[King]

I don't disagree--from a journalism stance, it started off with a good lead that could have the ability to pull a lot of readers in. (I'm not saying his journalism ethics were good, however). I have to agree with whoever said it sounded like he just got tired of writing or lost his focus/angle and just tried to finish it as fast as possible. If he put as much effort and detail into The Majors and Worlds as he did the fire, it would have been done nicely (if he got his facts correct).

I felt like he needed twice the space or more. I was engaged the entire time. I followed along and enjoyed the journey I read.

 

[Nothanks]

I felt like he needed twice the space or more. I was engaged the entire time. I followed along and enjoyed the journey I read.

and that's the key to good writing.

 

[ScottyB]

We might be alone on this island. I agree with you.

The only reason he didn't focus on Worlds and stayed specific to NCA is because it was a Dallas magazine for a dallas audience, so focusing on the biggest cheer event in Dallas makes a little more sense.

To us a worlds feature would have made a lot more sense though

 

[The Sixth]

I felt like he needed twice the space or more. I was engaged the entire time. I followed along and enjoyed the journey I read.

And then a horrible ending, that turned it into a literary M. Night Shyamalan piece of work.

The only reason he didn't focus on Worlds and stayed specific to NCA is because it was a Dallas magazine for a dallas audience, so focusing on the biggest cheer event in Dallas makes a little more sense.

To us a worlds feature would have made a lot more sense though

Not sure if I agree. If that were the case, why not title it how they won NCA not Worlds? They were Grand Champs, so in some respects, that may have been an even bigger accomplishment.

Regardless of whether it was Worlds or NCA, minus the erroneous data, the title had little to do with the article. I could see only a *very thin* correlation with the fire incident that gave them their "fire" theme, as actually having anything to do with *winning* Worlds. Thankfully they didn't pick water....right??? Lol...

Not that it still would have been flattering to CA, but he might as well have titled it "Meet Some Bad A** Bitc*** Who Are Good While Being Bad". He could gloss over all the competition details and hard work, and just simply say they won this, won that, and then talked all he wanted about how "bad" they are

 

[King]

And then a horrible ending, that turned it into a literary M. Night Shyamalan piece of work.


Not sure if I agree. If that were the case, why not title it how they won NCA not Worlds? They were Grand Champs, so in some respects, that may have been an even bigger accomplishment.

Regardless of whether it was Worlds or NCA, minus the erroneous data, the title had little to do with the article. I could see only a *very thin* correlation with the fire incident that gave them their "fire" theme, as actually having anything to do with *winning* Worlds. Thankfully they didn't pick water....right??? Lol...

Not that it still would have been flattering to CA, but he might as well have titled it "Meet Some Bad A** Bitc*** Who Are Good While Being Bad". He could gloss over all the competition details and hard work, and just simply say they won this, won that, and then talked all he wanted about how "bad" they are

One interesting thought I had was this person spent a year with them and this is what they came up with. Is it weird what things they picked up on and was important?

 

[ScottyB]

And then a horrible ending, that turned it into a literary M. Night Shyamalan piece of work.


Not sure if I agree. If that were the case, why not title it how they won NCA not Worlds? They were Grand Champs, so in some respects, that may have been an even bigger accomplishment.

Regardless of whether it was Worlds or NCA, minus the erroneous data, the title had little to do with the article. I could see only a *very thin* correlation with the fire incident that gave them their "fire" theme, as actually having anything to do with *winning* Worlds. Thankfully they didn't pick water....right??? Lol...

Not that it still would have been flattering to CA, but he might as well have titled it "Meet Some Bad A** Bitc*** Who Are Good While Being Bad". He could gloss over all the competition details and hard work, and just simply say they won this, won that, and then talked all he wanted about how "bad" they are

agreed!!

 

[The Sixth]

One interesting thought I had was this person spent a year with them and this is what they came up with. Is it weird what things they picked up on and was important?

Weird to us. Maybe not to the *writer*? I guess that would depend on what angle he was shooting for. Which at least from what Bluecat seems to say is NOT the angle CA expected. I'm not the writer, nor am I the CA staff, so clearly I wasn't a part of the discussions. But either there was a huge miscommunication or there was a blatant lie about what was going to be written about.

Since you were a reference for the article, did he ever mention what his goal or idea was to you? Or just generically mention writing an article and asking questions?

 

[King]

Weird to us. Maybe not to the *writer*? I guess that would depend on what angle he was shooting for. Which at least from what Bluecat seems to say is NOT the angle CA expected. I'm not the writer, nor am I the CA staff, so clearly I wasn't a part of the discussions. But either there was a huge miscommunication or there was a blatant lie about what was going to be written about.

Since you were a reference for the article, did he ever mention what his goal or idea was to you? Or just generically mention writing an article and asking questions?

Actually the article itself surprised me. We talked for 1-2 hours (it was a few months ago so I don't remember the exactly amount). Only 15 minutes was on CA. How people thought about them on Fierce, who was their cheerlebrities (outside of the girl with the bob haircut I didn't know anyone on the team... and I didn't even know her name), and what I knew of their program. I was very complementary and overall kinda boring when talking about them... I didn't have much to offer. We spent a ton of time talking about cheerleading in general. A lot about our world, how it kinkda works, how it works in for different areas, what happens as people get older and how it started and just about everything. I had no idea how the article would actually end up but I can't say the author seemed to be looking for anything malicious. Some of the ways he described things he was able to put a positive spin on things I did not think were so positive. And I still, at the end of it all, really enjoyed the article that was published. I was surprised by the content but really enjoyed it. Probably over a lot more boring saccharine articles. People at CA may disagree with me but I don't think any less of them or their kids because of it. I think it was a slice of reality on how people act sometimes. When it comes to having to be respectful and how to act in public CA is fantastic and they are by far one of my favorite programs.

 

[King]

Let me clarify. Positive spin on things in Cheerleading I don't like, not something at CA. Reread that part and realized I was confusing.

 

[newcheerdad]

I don't disagree--from a journalism stance, it started off with a good lead that could have the ability to pull a lot of readers in. (I'm not saying his journalism ethics were good, however). I have to agree with whoever said it sounded like he just got tired of writing or lost his focus/angle and just tried to finish it as fast as possible. If he put as much effort and detail into The Majors and Worlds as he did the fire, it would have been done nicely (if he got his facts correct).

I agree with this 100%. I was disappointed with the article because the premise teased at the start of it wasn't followed through. I was expecting to see a kind of in-depth look into the lives of elite, all-star cheerleaders who happen to be teenagers. But after the first few paragraphs it just devolved the usual "expose" on all-star cheer.