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Lisa Welsh
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By Lisa D. Welsh
www.CHEERMaD.com
Gym owner, coach, cheer mom: Courtney Pope is all of these and more. Most recently, she was Cheer Extreme Allstars’ Celebratory-in-Chief of Senior Elite’s Cheerleading Worlds gold medal outcome, which she generously shares with CHEERMaD:
On Frozen Moments…
Friday night my husband and Cheer Extreme Allstar partner Ben and I hosted Cheer Extreme Allstars’ Senior Elite in our home to commemorate its Cheerleading Worlds championship. Representing the medals they received, the girls dressed in gold from head to toe and came together one last time to celebrate, remember, and cherish this most precious victory.
A poignant ending to a season straight out of a story book.
Lights turned down, my girls assembled~ youngest to oldest~ on the staircase and passed their beloved trophy down to one another, followed by a trail of light as they touched each other’s candles one-by-one, while “Long Live” played in the background, almost but not entirely hiding the sound of muffled tears. As the trophy descended I took one last look into the eyes of the girls who literally “clawed with their fingernails” to the finish line of their dream.
I shake my head in astonishment as I remember what this room full of believers accomplished. I can barely speak as the final candle is lit and it’s my turn to open the brand new glass case where their globe will forever remain. Inside is a solitary candle that simply reads “happiness.”
I light this candle as I fight back the tears. Turning to my girls who now surround the globe and its new home, I say “Here’s to my eskimos” and the lights went out.
When the Alaskan Pipeline was built, there were many people who went to Alaska to work on the pipeline. The Texans could only work a few hours in the frigid weather, yet the Eskimos; the native Alaskans, could work in the cold indefinitely. A study was conducted to find out why the Eskimos could withstand the weather and found there were no physiological differences between the Eskimos and the Texans.
There was nothing in skin thickness, blood, or any physical trait that would explain the differences in the Eskimos ability to withstand the temperatures.
The solution came when a psychological study was conducted. The difference was, they found, that the Eskimo said he “knew it was cold but there was a job to be done.” In other words, his focus was on the job and obtaining results rather than on the weather. The Texan focused on the weather which kept him from focusing on the job at hand.
In the grueling days of back-to-back practices leading up to our big test at Worlds, this story became our mantra. We made the decision to work harder than anyone thought possible. Even after Worlds’ prelims both CoEd Elite and Sr Elite were set on being Eskimo’s and insisted we find a nearby gym and continue to fight to be its best.
As I blew out my flame and thought about my Eskimos, I smiled. The moments of this legendary season are burned in my memory forever. Those breathless instances where no sound lives and time is frozen…Eskimo style.
No. 1
There was so much noise when Senior Elite took the stage at the Cheerleading Worlds finals it was almost deafening. It’s a surreal moment when everyone is thinking the same thing but no one is saying it out loud.
An absolutely packed, wall-to-wall crowd was getting ready for a few surprises: the new three-trick-basket we made-up the night before; a couple of changes in tumbling and baskets; and a drastically cleaned-up dance.
I made myself stop, close my eyes and just listen…all the sleepless nights…all the “one more times”…all the mind games…all the worry and the revisions…all for now. No matter what, that bone chilling, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-rising feeling that a whole arena wants you to succeed cannot be measured…only felt with the heart.
And that’s when I knew…
Ashley Hobbs, who arguably has one of the hardest routines ~start-to-finish~ in the history of our gym, nodded her head, grinned out of one side of her mouth and turned to give a final “We got this” to her sister…it would be the last time they would compete together.
In the crowd there were strangers -yet fans- from every country imaginable, all chanting “C-E-A.” Some like Marty” from South America. If you look to the left of Ashley (photo to left), Marty’s hands cover her eyes and she’s trembling…I posted this shot on Instagram and Marty messaged that she was “crying and praying and just hoping against all hope that this would work out for her team.”….A moment frozen for me forever.
No. 2 ~This “Frozen Moment” includes reflections from one of Courtney’s longtime athlete Molly
“For a moment Mom, there was no one in the Milkhouse but just Courtney and Me… just like old times late night in the gym…it was just the two of us like we were having a conversation…I couldn’t hear anything…all I could see was her smiling, reassuring me…telling me to pull up and that I could do it..and all I had to say was ‘O.K.’”
“Mom, she believed in me,” Molly said through her tears. “She wasn’t even worried…it was my favorite moment in cheerleading.”
Molly is in her 13th year with me. She was the flower girl in our wedding. She knows just as much about this sport as anyone lucky enough to call it their career. She has competed at Worlds ever since 2007 when this picture of us was taken.
We practice making mistakes on purpose in the gym to see if we can make it work, just like the astronauts do when they train for missions in outer space. They only get one shot to get it right or people end up orbiting the earth…and if it doesn’t hit, that’s how it will feel on this day of a cheerleader’s life.
I pushed play not twelve feet directly in front of her stunt group…Their timing off a little from the start Senior Elite’s stunt sequence depends on every single moment being perfect; once you get off track there is barely anytime to recover.
Unless you’re Molly.
At the angle of entry for both tic-tocs in her group, it was humanly impossible to stay in the air. It was the kind of save that the entire Milkhouse crowd, already on its feet, erupted in disbelief that they made it work. Somehow, someway, through sheer mind-over-matter, this fateful, Frozen Moment when my little flower girl and I locked eyes and got each other through…just like the Eskimos.
It was the kind of save that gave new meaning to “Together we will not break.”
Watch for future CHEERMaD posts with Courtney Pope’s Frozen Moments Nos. 3–10 which reflect on CEA’s 2011-2012 season from the Majors, to NCA, to Worlds.
A glimpse of No. 3…
By Lisa D. Welsh
www.CHEERMaD.com
Gym owner, coach, cheer mom: Courtney Pope is all of these and more. Most recently, she was Cheer Extreme Allstars’ Celebratory-in-Chief of Senior Elite’s Cheerleading Worlds gold medal outcome, which she generously shares with CHEERMaD:
On Frozen Moments…
Friday night my husband and Cheer Extreme Allstar partner Ben and I hosted Cheer Extreme Allstars’ Senior Elite in our home to commemorate its Cheerleading Worlds championship. Representing the medals they received, the girls dressed in gold from head to toe and came together one last time to celebrate, remember, and cherish this most precious victory.
A poignant ending to a season straight out of a story book.
Lights turned down, my girls assembled~ youngest to oldest~ on the staircase and passed their beloved trophy down to one another, followed by a trail of light as they touched each other’s candles one-by-one, while “Long Live” played in the background, almost but not entirely hiding the sound of muffled tears. As the trophy descended I took one last look into the eyes of the girls who literally “clawed with their fingernails” to the finish line of their dream.
I light this candle as I fight back the tears. Turning to my girls who now surround the globe and its new home, I say “Here’s to my eskimos” and the lights went out.
There was nothing in skin thickness, blood, or any physical trait that would explain the differences in the Eskimos ability to withstand the temperatures.
In the grueling days of back-to-back practices leading up to our big test at Worlds, this story became our mantra. We made the decision to work harder than anyone thought possible. Even after Worlds’ prelims both CoEd Elite and Sr Elite were set on being Eskimo’s and insisted we find a nearby gym and continue to fight to be its best.
As I blew out my flame and thought about my Eskimos, I smiled. The moments of this legendary season are burned in my memory forever. Those breathless instances where no sound lives and time is frozen…Eskimo style.
No. 1
There was so much noise when Senior Elite took the stage at the Cheerleading Worlds finals it was almost deafening. It’s a surreal moment when everyone is thinking the same thing but no one is saying it out loud.
I made myself stop, close my eyes and just listen…all the sleepless nights…all the “one more times”…all the mind games…all the worry and the revisions…all for now. No matter what, that bone chilling, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-rising feeling that a whole arena wants you to succeed cannot be measured…only felt with the heart.
And that’s when I knew…Ashley Hobbs, who arguably has one of the hardest routines ~start-to-finish~ in the history of our gym, nodded her head, grinned out of one side of her mouth and turned to give a final “We got this” to her sister…it would be the last time they would compete together.
In the crowd there were strangers -yet fans- from every country imaginable, all chanting “C-E-A.” Some like Marty” from South America. If you look to the left of Ashley (photo to left), Marty’s hands cover her eyes and she’s trembling…I posted this shot on Instagram and Marty messaged that she was “crying and praying and just hoping against all hope that this would work out for her team.”….A moment frozen for me forever.
No. 2 ~This “Frozen Moment” includes reflections from one of Courtney’s longtime athlete Molly
“For a moment Mom, there was no one in the Milkhouse but just Courtney and Me… just like old times late night in the gym…it was just the two of us like we were having a conversation…I couldn’t hear anything…all I could see was her smiling, reassuring me…telling me to pull up and that I could do it..and all I had to say was ‘O.K.’”
“Mom, she believed in me,” Molly said through her tears. “She wasn’t even worried…it was my favorite moment in cheerleading.”
Molly is in her 13th year with me. She was the flower girl in our wedding. She knows just as much about this sport as anyone lucky enough to call it their career. She has competed at Worlds ever since 2007 when this picture of us was taken.
We practice making mistakes on purpose in the gym to see if we can make it work, just like the astronauts do when they train for missions in outer space. They only get one shot to get it right or people end up orbiting the earth…and if it doesn’t hit, that’s how it will feel on this day of a cheerleader’s life.
I pushed play not twelve feet directly in front of her stunt group…Their timing off a little from the start Senior Elite’s stunt sequence depends on every single moment being perfect; once you get off track there is barely anytime to recover.
Unless you’re Molly.
At the angle of entry for both tic-tocs in her group, it was humanly impossible to stay in the air. It was the kind of save that the entire Milkhouse crowd, already on its feet, erupted in disbelief that they made it work. Somehow, someway, through sheer mind-over-matter, this fateful, Frozen Moment when my little flower girl and I locked eyes and got each other through…just like the Eskimos.
It was the kind of save that gave new meaning to “Together we will not break.”
Watch for future CHEERMaD posts with Courtney Pope’s Frozen Moments Nos. 3–10 which reflect on CEA’s 2011-2012 season from the Majors, to NCA, to Worlds.
A glimpse of No. 3…
I'm so grateful for parents like you!
