High School Confessions Of A High School Cheerleader

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

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

I don't know if you're an athlete or you coach but as a coach, what helped me with this was for every minute you talk or don't do what you're supposed to do, I added a minute to practice. You'd be amazed at how the extraneous talking stops when practice was supposed to be over at 8:30 and is now extended to 8:45 due to the 15 min of my time you wasted.

 

[Official OWECheer]

I don't know if you're an athlete or you coach but as a coach, what helped me with this was for every minute you talk or don't do what you're supposed to do, I added a minute to practice. You'd be amazed at how the extraneous talking stops when practice was supposed to be over at 8:30 and is now extended to 8:45 due to the 15 min of my time you wasted.

I wish I were a coach! No, I'm a former athlete.

 

[Official OWECheer]

This is totally weird, but I love when orange poms look reddish orange.

 

[cheergirl09]

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.

I have read quite a few of your posts on here and you sound like a fabulous coach! Wish my high school coach would have been like you!


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[Official OWECheer]

Am I the only one who gets irritated when people say that cheerleaders cheer for the players in a game? We get the crowd excited so that they can do it, ugh. Do people actually think we'd be at a game if there were no crowd?

 

[Twinklestars]

Am I the only one who gets irritated when people say that cheerleaders cheer for the players in a game? We get the crowd excited so that they can do it, ugh. Do people actually think we'd be at a game if there were no crowd?

Except when the crowd doesn't cheer...I hope our new school is better, but the second half of basketball season didn't show much promise. The student section at our new school is awesome, but they don't participate in crowd cheers. That needs to be remedied.

I didn't cheer in high school, but we were a very active crowd and participated with the cheerleaders. Saturdays after big games was always a throat healing day! Maybe it is regional, I went to high school in Arizona and live in Tennessee now.


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[Official OWECheer]

Except when the crowd doesn't cheer...I hope our new school is better, but the second half of basketball season didn't show much promise. The student section at our new school is awesome, but they don't participate in crowd cheers. That needs to be remedied.

I didn't cheer in high school, but we were a very active crowd and participated with the cheerleaders. Saturdays after big games was always a throat healing day! Maybe it is regional, I went to high school in Arizona and live in Tennessee now.


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Do you guys use poms and signs?

 

[Twinklestars]

@Official OWECheer I know that the school for which my cps will be cheering next year has poms. I don't know about signs. If they had them, they didn't use them for basketball. It does help the crowd to yell if they know what and when to yell. I will find out more when they get started-- we switched schools mid-year.

 

[alexacheer2010]

Do you guys use poms and signs?

We have the same problem at our school! We have poms and signs and the crowd does not participate! They just stare at us like we have three heads!

 

[cowboycheersarah]

We have the same problem! We just for the first time cheered for basketball season and the crowd looked at us like we were idiots! Our football crowd LOVES our squad and I mean.. LOVES. But we can't seem to get the basketball crowd involved.


We are the best, of silver black and blue. Cowboys

 

[Twinklestars]

We have the same problem at our school! We have poms and signs and the crowd does not participate! They just stare at us like we have three heads!

Practically, the only people who cheer back for crowd cheers are the cheer moms. At least, the team is larger at this school!

 

[cheernerd5678]

Our crowd is pretty lame too, although the level depends on the year. My sophomore year they hated us -we threw them shirts and candy and they threw them back at us every time. This year it wasn't too bad, which I've decided is because a lot of the squad was friends with that group that leads the student section. They still hated us but the leader was just a nicer person in general, although they did move the entire student section one game to sit where the parents usually sit so they'd be behind the dancers and not us, then when we switched at halftime they followed the dancers back to their normal spot. Next year will probably be rough again, but who knows? They never cheer with us and at away games we're usually cheering to the 3 parents who made the trip. Which makes the freezing October games even more unbearable...


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[Twinklestars]

Our old school barely has a student cheering section. New school has a great one, we just need to get them to work WITH the cheerleaders.

None of our school cheer teams around here can ride the bus for football games. The cheer parents have to go to the games. The football parents have a choice not to go. Our last game was so cold. I was kind of glad that we lost to end the agony of more cold games. Basketball started the next week any way.

 

[Official OWECheer]

We have the same problem at our school! We have poms and signs and the crowd does not participate! They just stare at us like we have three heads!

There's only so much you can do.

 

[Official OWECheer]

We have the same problem! We just for the first time cheered for basketball season and the crowd looked at us like we were idiots! Our football crowd LOVES our squad and I mean.. LOVES. But we can't seem to get the basketball crowd involved.


We are the best, of silver black and blue. Cowboys

It's way easier to cheer for football, anyway. You have more room to stunt, and you can just lay your mats on the track instead of putting out small mats and having to sit for most of the game.