High School Confessions Of A High School Cheerleader

[Olivia Gelard]

This is my fourth year cheering, and my second season as a captain.

-do NOT ask me where your spot is every practice. I totally understand if you're not sure the day after we assigned formations, but there is no reason you shouldn't know your spot after you've known the routine for a month.
-please don't come to practice in converse. especially if you're a flyer.
-I don't really care if you don't like being in the back of the routine. we put everyone in their spots for a reason, and your next stunt is in the back of the mat, so you need to be where you can get to your stunts in time.
-please, PLEASE try and save your stunts. I flew for 9th, 10th, and 11th grade, and I base now, and I know that you can save almost every single stunt. so flyers: do not stick your butt out and bail, and bases: try and push the stunt up even if you think it'll crumble!
-I know the competition makeup is a little scary up close-it's supposed to be! We wear a lot of blush and mascara so that we look good from far away. don't try and put on less so that you look good for your selfies.
-please remember your bow, uniform, warm ups, etc. Yes, I do have extra spanks and bows, but I don't want to lose all of my extras because some people have problems remembering their stuff.
-if you're out for a competition: please don't try and make me do your makeup before I've even done mine, you're not competing today!

Wow, that sounded like a hell of a rant. In defense of my team, we all get along really well together, and we're like a big cheer family! One thing we've never had to deal with is drama with each other, which makes practices so much easier (there's no fighting when stunts don't hit perfectly). We've also only started competing a few years ago, but everyone has been working really hard to try and get our routine on-par with the other teams in our division, which makes leading the girls SO much easier.

 

[pvcheerclauds5]

This is my fourth year cheering, and my second season as a captain.
Wow, that sounded like a hell of a rant. In defense of my team, we all get along really well together, and we're like a big cheer family! One thing we've never had to deal with is drama with each other, which makes practices so much easier (there's no fighting when stunts don't hit perfectly). We've also only started competing a few years ago, but everyone has been working really hard to try and get our routine on-par with the other teams in our division, which makes leading the girls SO much easier.

Sometimes I would love to kill my teammates because somethings they do annoy me, but at the end of the day they are my family and I love them all

 

[Gymguurl_dreeew]

See our coaches told us that a little extra weight doesn't matter. We are a bunch of big girls on the team, so an extra 12lbs is nothing. Some 90lb girls aren't the best flyers so we do it mostly on talent instead of weight.

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Wow I wish my coach did that. All our flyers are based on weight... Figures...

 

[pvcheerclauds5]

Wow I wish my coach did that. All our flyers are based on weight... Figures...

My coach does it on varsity by experience

 

[Ashley Pearl]

- I can't stand the early morning practices, getting up at five is not my thing especially during summer break.
- I hate my student section during basketball season. They don't like us and we don't like them, so they barely participate in crowd cheers.
- I hate our uniforms. they're so uncomfortable it digs in when ever I do motions.
- I hate how some people don't take it seriously.
- I hate how my school doesn't compete.
- I hate the people who whine and complain when we have to do jumps. THEY'RE NOT THAT BAD PEOPLE!
- I hate that in my school we don't work on tumbling.
- I can't stand when people wonder why I curl my ponytail for one game and not another. (MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR ONE GAME!)
- I can't stand when people the crowd mock us.
- I can't stand when all of the varsity girls basketball team, the varsity boys basketball team, and the varsity cheer squad all have to share a bus home from an away game. The bus smells like sweat and everyone is loud and obnoxious.
- I am probably the only one who enjoys jumps on my squad.
- I hate when everyone knows that we're going to start learning new stunts so some bases and flyers don't show up.
- I love when we do the little tiger cheer clinic and the little girls are just so adorable.
- There's this little girl who comes to the cames and always watches us and is so mesmerized when we stunt and when she comes to say hi. She's my favorite part of games, she too adorable.

I know it may sound like my squad yes a lot of them get on my nerves, for bailing in a stunt and being loud and some just don't get along with each other and a lot of the times I want to strangle some but they're family and I love them all. I'm just glad the drama isn't as bad as last year.

 

[ilikebigbows]

This is my first year doing basketball cheer since like 7th grade (I'm a senior) and I'm quickly realizing how much I hated football cheer...basketball is so much more fun.


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[Official OWECheer]

I can't stand when girls decide not to join the team because they don't think the uniform is cute (I feel like this is more likely among middle schoolers than high schoolers). I mean, I understand that a cute uniform can be motivation, but you have to be committed to cheer. Also it's frustrating when people that don't cheer diss a team's skills (or lack thereof). Do they not realize that we have to take girls (and guys, in some cases) that have never even set foot on a blue mat or a sideline, and drastically improve their strength and flexibility in a matter of months? I hate when AD's don't take us seriously. I cannot STAND when coaches order expensive uniforms and too much practice wear. I hate when the athletes that we cheer for are rude to us.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

See our coaches told us that a little extra weight doesn't matter. We are a bunch of big girls on the team, so an extra 12lbs is nothing. Some 90lb girls aren't the best flyers so we do it mostly on talent instead of weight.

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This was (and still is) pretty much my coaching philosophy while coaching school AND all star. My assistant took over for me this year and she conducts things the same way. I've NEVER put someone in the air based on how much they weighed. People generally get WAY too attached to the idea of being a flyer based on fact that they're small.

I've always reminded my girls that even if you flew during the stunting portion of tryouts and made the team, that really doesn't guarantee that you'll fly for the entire season.

I had a girl coming up from JV tryout as flyer last season. The extent of JV flying = preps (not even the extended variety) and toe touch baskets and maybe a lib or something with a simple cradle. So she managed to (don't know how) fly in an arabesque during tryouts (I didn't require them to full up or down at the time, just dismount via straight cradle no twists) and pretty much great at all other areas of cheer, so she made it. She was also teeny tiny. Like 4'11 90 lbs. So her attitude was "I was center flyer on JV, probs be center flyer on Varsity."

Cue summer camp. The Varsity team is the competitive squad so we move quicker (JV is just games.) We start to move into full ups and downs and she is flailing, bailing, everything you can think of. I think this girl may hold the record for 3 of the scariest stunt falls I've ever had to witness (her bases were all very experienced so I'm confident that it was her.) Her baskets were of the "I don't need to try, and I just want you to HEAVE me into the air because I'm 85 lbs" variety. Scary!

Come August, I decide that she is just not fit for the air at this time (I'm not competing a group that has me ready to throw up every time it goes up.) She becomes a base, at 85 lbs. Her replacement ends up being a grade above her and about 2 inches taller and about 110. She'd been basing for me for about 2 years, but had recently improved her flying technique in all stars and I was impressed enough to put her in the air. She was a little heavier, but her technique was tons better.

The best part is that she tells her MOM to tell me she HAS to fly because she's too small to do anything else. Um, if your mom saw you at 2 months of summer practice doing what you're doing now, she'd agree. Mom told me once "That girl she's holding up weighs at least 10 more pounds." My response was: "I'm aware." She ended up finishing the season as a base and going BACK DOWN to JV/non-competing so she could fly.

 

[caitlyn_the_camille]

This is just a rant for something that I hope isn't as common in other high schools:
I'm from a small town that has a small high school. Our squad my sophomore year had 14 girls on it. We had never been to a competition, had a coach that didn't know much about cheer, and captains that thought they did but didn't care about the safety of their teammates (and definitely weren't flyers, so their mentality about them was "how hard could it be?"). We had two solid libs (our flyers were based on height so none of them were flexible enough to pull anything) and a few low baskets, yet every week they had us doing any new, crazy stunts they saw on YouTube (and personally, being a base, I love doing cool, dangerous stunts. I'll try anything a flyer is willing to do!). One week for the pep rally we did double inversion with one bracer in the middle. On the gym floor without any mats. This might not sound huge, but that is something we weren't capable of. One week we did some flipping thing they found in a Lady Bullet's pyramid (I was bitter forever about that one because me and some other girl ended up with black eyes trying to catch the girl when she- inevitably- didn't flip all the way over). We literally tried the "double dragons" from the bring it on movie, although we had to water them down a bit. We did 2-2-1s and one of our flyers probably still neck problems a year after graduating from them making her base a shoulder sit while standing in an elevator (surprise: that fell too). We tried kick twist baskets, but I didn't mind those because I knew I was capable of saving them. It was amazing to me after coming to the all star world to see where these stunts went as far as legalities. I know a lot of high school teams do illegal stunts, etc., but they usually have competent coaches and are capable of it. I've never taken the time to, but I'd love to learn the rules and divisions for school cheer comps.

ETA: wow... Looking at it now, that rant is so long and horrible! I'm really sorry!


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[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

^^^^Um, the skills you're describing are comparable to USASF level 6.

I don't know where you live, but that does not happen here. Unless you want to get sued, fired from my actual school job and potentially lose my coaching cert.

I also don't want to willfully risk the lives of kids I'm supposed to be coaching. That is not coaching. That's (sorry young people) a young kid "playing coach" not realizing the importance of PROGRESSIONS. (The idea that a college pyramid is the last thing kids who can barely lib need to be doing.)

In terms of school legalities, NCA's HS comp rule book is aligned to NFHS + AACCA (main school cheer governing bodies), so if you want to actually look and see, here you go:

http://nca.varsity.com/pdfs/school_cheer_rule_book.pdf

 

[Official OWECheer]

When girls know that they should quit because their laziness is holding the team back, but they stay because their friends are on the team.

When coaches yell too much, instead of also giving corrections (and what's wrong with being nice, if that's your coaching style?).

When kids won't SHUT UP when the coach is talking. It's really annoying when it's the same few kids.

When practice isn't organized, it can kill a team's morale if it happens consistently.

When athletes don't understand how RIDICULOUSLY important it is to be clean and sharp, and follow proper skill progression.

When kids bug you to let them do a crazy stunt they saw on YouTube, and don't want to listen when you say that they aren't ready for that.

When other people's parents judge our parents for letting us be cheerleaders. ("My kid plays a REAL sport! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH")

Just no. Stop talking.

 

[Twinklestars]

We didn't even have coaches. We had "sponsors" who held no certifications and no knowledge of progressions.

We had open practices until I told the coach she was doing something illegal. I was only there to drop off the run-out poster that I had had for two or so weeks. I have had to pick up all sorts of stuff that the girls had
left behind.

I am so glad to be gone!


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[CheerGlammie]

When girls know that they should quit because their laziness is holding the team back, but they stay because their friends are on the team.

Yes, at my practice the newbies and girls who are 1st time to cheer are the ones who never want to get dressed, do the 8 counts, be loud, smh etc. Then they don't understand why my coach is angry and yelling.


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[caitlyn_the_camille]

^^^^Um, the skills you're describing are comparable to USASF level 6.

I don't know where you live, but that does not happen here. Unless you want to get sued, fired from my actual school job and potentially lose my coaching cert.

I also don't want to willfully risk the lives of kids I'm supposed to be coaching. That is not coaching. That's (sorry young people) a young kid "playing coach" not realizing the importance of PROGRESSIONS. (The idea that a college pyramid is the last thing kids who can barely lib need to be doing.)

In terms of school legalities, NCA's HS comp rule book is aligned to NFHS + AACCA (main school cheer governing bodies), so if you want to actually look and see, here you go:

http://nca.varsity.com/pdfs/school_cheer_rule_book.pdf

Thank you! I didn't know enough about cheer when I was younger to realize just how dangerous what we were doing was, but a lot of girls followed all star cheer close and would speak up about it. (And I promise my mama spoke up when I came home with a black eye!) Their objections were dismissed and they were made to feel bad for "always having an opinion". I haven't been to a high school game in a long time but I hope our school isn't like that anymore. Btw, I'm pretty sure our coach never had a coaching certificate to lose. She was on her high school team in like 2003, so of course she was certified to supervise level 6 stunts (sarcasm). I know injuries happen a lot in cheer and I didn't want to come across as whining (especially since I've seen so many cases of all star girls finishing routines with blood all over them), but those injuries were a result of negligence and were unnecessary.


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[Official OWECheer]

This one is for cheer in general, but WHEN PEOPLE CLAIM THAT CHEER COMPETITIONS HAVE NO SCORE SHEET LIKE STOP TALKING YOU DON'T KNOW SQUAT ABOUT OUR SPORT, STOP ACTING LIKE YOU DO! UGH AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY THERE ARE SO MANY MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT CHEERLEADING!


AAAAAARRGHRBFLRENGVPERNGERPIGK EG

OK RANT OVER. MAYBE.