All-Star Cheer Athletics (questions/rumors)

[BlueCat]

I know the Kansas City one started with the 1992-93 season. That coach is the one that told me there was a Pro Cheer that started in Georgia the same year with the same colors. That's what I based my prior statement on.

Ahhh, I did not know that. He would know.

 

[cacheerin4u]

Have y'all named level 6 AG yet? Are there options? How does the gym feel about going head to head with Spirit in 3 level 5 divisions this upcoming season? Another question I was wondering IF or WHEN there is ever another CA gym. Where would this location be located or what major city would it be pulling from?? Fort worth, Arlington, Denton?

 

[BlueCat]

Have y'all named level 6 AG yet? Are there options? How does the gym feel about going head to head with Spirit in 3 level 5 divisions this upcoming season? Another question I was wondering IF or WHEN there is ever another CA gym. Where would this location be located or what major city would it be pulling from?? Fort worth, Arlington, Denton?

As far as I know, there is no official name yet. I think the athletes didn't care too much for "ExtremeKatz" which was the tentative one the staff liked. I think they liked "Hellcats" as it kind of went along with FierceKatz "fire" theme. We werent sure if any parents of the young ones would have an issue with that - even though we certainly don't mean anything religious/sacrilegious by it.

A "Ice" themed name had been kicked around a bit too, also to compliment their "sister" squad. Maybe Snow Leopards, Ice Katz, or Artic Cats? At this point, we are still open to suggestions.

Going against SOT is always a huge challenge, but we feel that they make us better. (hopefully, they feel the same) Besides, having competition is basically the point of the whole sport isn't it? The two divisions they added against us (JC5, IAG5) we were often the only teams in our divisions last year, so it will be nice to have someone to go against.

As I mentioned before, if we were to open an additional gym, it would be primarily to develop younger athletes and strengthen the class and dance programs. The main goal would not be to try to take away all star athletes from other gyms. With that in mind, we would try to find areas (whether DFW area or not) that would be ripe for that kind of thing. We would also be open to buying out an existing gym if the situation were right.

 

[yojaehs]

As far as I know, there is no official name yet. I think the athletes didn't care too much for "ExtremeKatz" which was the tentative one the staff liked. I think they liked "Hellcats" as it kind of went along with FierceKatz "fire" theme. We werent sure if any parents of the young ones would have an issue with that - even though we certainly don't mean anything religious/sacrilegious by it.

A "Ice" themed name had been kicked around a bit too, also to compliment their "sister" squad. Maybe Snow Leopards, Ice Katz, or Artic Cats? At this point, we are still open to suggestions.

Going against SOT is always a huge challenge, but we feel that they make us better. (hopefully, they feel the same) Besides, having competition is basically the point of the whole sport isn't it? The two divisions they added against us (JC5, IAG5) we were often the only teams in our divisions last year, so it will be nice to have someone to go against.

As I mentioned before, if we were to open an additional gym, it would be primarily to develop younger athletes and strengthen the class and dance programs. The main goal would not be to try to take away all star athletes from other gyms. With that in mind, we would try to find areas (whether DFW area or not) that would be ripe for that kind of thing. We would also be open to buying out an existing gym if the situation were right.

I thought you were going with "AppleCats" LOL

 

[BlueCat]

I thought you were going with "AppleCats" LOL

Still waiting on all of those IPads to roll in before that becomes official.

 

[ShoWStoppeR]

I suppose this is really a question for any gym with level 5 teams, for a gym that fields so many of them, i think you could answer it well How do you pick your teams? like, how do you pick who makes panthers, cheetahs, what makes a kid cut out for one team over another? does that make sense? lol I just always wanted to know how teams with so much talent divide it up

ps, im very forgetful, if you could quote me when you respond, i would be ever so grateful!

 

[cacheerin4u]

I suppose this is really a question for any gym with level 5 teams, for a gym that fields so many of them, i think you could answer it well How do you pick your teams? like, how do you pick who makes panthers, cheetahs, what makes a kid cut out for one team over another? does that make sense? lol I just always wanted to know how teams with so much talent divide it up

ps, im very forgetful, if you could quote me when you respond, i would be ever so grateful!

From my experience at CA, they have always IMO been somewhat less particular about where they place kids unlike other gyms where you walk in with a double and you are automatically on "so and so". At try outs they started allowing us about 2 or 3 years ago to pick our top three teams we wanted to be on, and from my experience they usually don't steer to far off of that. At one point at though you could kind of tell though, what team a girl will be on and obviously a boy with one senior coed team. There was a time when a "Wildcat" girl walked in the gym and you kind of just knew, also the same with Panthers in the 05-08 era. Now that there are 6 + Level 5 teams, I personally think CA is the one of the FEW programs that DO NOT fill team A, then fill team B, and so on. I always loved the way that they spread the talent! I obviously cannot answer the question like @BlueCat but thats what I noticed from my years at CA. I could be wrong though I never sat in the coaches room, But i will say this! I ALWAYS new I was going to be on Wildcats! Although I would pray for the call from Brad about panthers!

 

[newcheerdad]

I thought you were going with "AppleCats" LOL

If you can't score the Apple tie-in, there's always SNL.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/laser-cats/2925/

 

[yojaehs]

If you can't score the Apple tie-in, there's always SNL.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/laser-cats/2925/

Hilarious!!!

 

[BlueCat]

I suppose this is really a question for any gym with level 5 teams, for a gym that fields so many of them, i think you could answer it well How do you pick your teams? like, how do you pick who makes panthers, cheetahs, what makes a kid cut out for one team over another? does that make sense? lol I just always wanted to know how teams with so much talent divide it up

ps, im very forgetful, if you could quote me when you respond, i would be ever so grateful!

We have tried very hard over the years to treat all of the teams the same, and not have a single team that gets most of the attention or all of our best kids. There is nothing wrong with other gyms doing that, it just goes a bit against our philosophy for our gym. That being said, our goal in setting up the teams is to make them roughly equally strong for their division. (note that this is different than saying that all of the teams should have the exact same talent as each other.). Some divisions are traditionally stronger than others, so our teams in those divisions will start out with a bit stronger initial rosters.

Putting rosters together is a very difficult and time consuming process. You ideally need the right mix of bases, back spots, flyers, jumpers, tumbers, dancers, and performers on each team. Depending on the size of the team, you can also afford to have a limited number of "specialists" that are exceptional in 1 or 2 areas, but do not necessarily match up to the others' skill set in other areas.

We simply do NOT take the best 20/30 individual athletes and put them on one team, then put the next 30 on the next, etc. . . We don't feel that works with our philosophy. Also, there is often confusion/frustration from some parents because they focus almost exclusively on tumbling ability when comparing athletes, while we tend to look at a much bigger range of skills. They think that because Suzy can do a better running tumbling pass than Jane, that means that Suzy should be on a "better team" than Jane. They may be correct about the tumbling (although they are often NOT correct), but they simply do not see the overall picture. Jane may be a beast who is 11 inches taller than Suzy and the team absolutely needs another back spot to be able to stunt. That skill helps the team more than Suzy's extra tumbling would.

I compare it to (American) football. A successful football team will have a surprisingly wide variety of body types and skill sets. You may have a 6' 6 300lb kid who can't catch or run a sprint to save their life, but can absolutely bulldoze anyone on the opposing team out of the way. You may have a kid who is only 5' 8" and 175 lbs, but who can absolute blanket any wide receiver to where they never get open. Then you have your kicker, who at times could be your most valuable player, who looks like someone who should never set foot on a football field but be able to nail any field goal from 55 yards and in with no problem. If you simply put your 11 "best pure athletes" (or 11 fastests, or 11 strongest in the weight room, etc) on the field every time, you would probably get destroyed by every team you faced.

 

[CharlotteASMom]

For what it's worth....I've really enjoyed your responses. They are straightforward and I don't feel I am getting fed CA propaganda every time you post! Charlotte has been home for almost 40 years but if we were ever to find oursleves in Dallas we'd be at CA.

 

[ShoWStoppeR]

We have tried very hard over the years to treat all of the teams the same, and not have a single team that gets most of the attention or all of our best kids. There is nothing wrong with other gyms doing that, it just goes a bit against our philosophy for our gym. That being said, our goal in setting up the teams is to make them roughly equally strong for their division. (note that this is different than saying that all of the teams should have the exact same talent as each other.). Some divisions are traditionally stronger than others, so our teams in those divisions will start out with a bit stronger initial rosters.

Putting rosters together is a very difficult and time consuming process. You ideally need the right mix of bases, back spots, flyers, jumpers, tumbers, dancers, and performers on each team. Depending on the size of the team, you can also afford to have a limited number of "specialists" that are exceptional in 1 or 2 areas, but do not necessarily match up to the others' skill set in other areas.

We simply do NOT take the best 20/30 individual athletes and put them on one team, then put the next 30 on the next, etc. . . We don't feel that works with our philosophy. Also, there is often confusion/frustration from some parents because they focus almost exclusively on tumbling ability when comparing athletes, while we tend to look at a much bigger range of skills. They think that because Suzy can do a better running tumbling pass than Jane, that means that Suzy should be on a "better team" than Jane. They may be correct about the tumbling (although they are often NOT correct), but they simply do not see the overall picture. Jane may be a beast who is 11 inches taller than Suzy and the team absolutely needs another back spot to be able to stunt. That skill helps the team more than Suzy's extra tumbling would.

I compare it to (American) football. A successful football team will have a surprisingly wide variety of body types and skill sets. You may have a 6' 6 300lb kid who can't catch or run a sprint to save their life, but can absolutely bulldoze anyone on the opposing team out of the way. You may have a kid who is only 5' 8" and 175 lbs, but who can absolute blanket any wide receiver to where they never get open. Then you have your kicker, who at times could be your most valuable player, who looks like someone who should never set foot on a football field but be able to nail any field goal from 55 yards and in with no problem. If you simply put your 11 "best pure athletes" (or 11 fastests, or 11 strongest in the weight room, etc) on the field every time, you would probably get destroyed by every team you faced.

thank you!!! it's nice to see it put this way laid out in showstopper terms definitely makes sense! and sounds like a great tactic. clearly it''s working

 

[brelove4ever]

How did the dance team tryouts go? Will there be more than one team this year?

 

[BlueCat]

The dance team tryouts went grea

How did the dance team tryouts go? Will there be more than one team this year?

The dance team tryouts were great. We were actually very pleasantly surprised at the ability level of all of the dancers. We feel like we are really off to a great start. There will be several teams, including Hip Hop at basically every age level. We will have Jazz and Pom teams also, but I'm not sure which age levels they will be yet.

We will continue to take on new dancers throughout the summer on nearly all of the teams. (This is easier to do on the dance side than the cheer one.)

 

[cacheerin4u]

Why did y'all get rid of the Bluecat awards? I know that my last year of senior eligibility was after there were no
more Bluecat awards. Although I continued several more years at CA on international, it would have been nice to be apart of a banquet as a "Senior". I'll admit that my first year at CA I didn't attend the awards banquet so maybe there started to be a lack of attendance or something???