High School Creative Ways To Let Girls Know They Have Made The Team.

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

One issue I did notice was that when you preview email on your phone in like, the gmail app, it will have the subject in bold and a few of the first words of the email underneath it.

So if you scroll down to the tryout email on your phone it looks like:

2014-2015 AHS Cheer
Congratulations, you have been selected....

So unless you're at home on your computer (most kids are on their phones) you KNOW as soon as you even OPEN it what it's going to say (which probably isn't the best feeling if you're someone who didn't make it.)

Luckily, we've always had SEPARATE tryouts for JV and Varsity, with JV a few weeks AFTER Varsity, so you have a few weeks to chill out, get yourself together, and decide if you're going to try out for JV (which cheers for JV sports but does not compete.) There are a lot of girls who don't make Varsity, tryout for/make JV, take privates/do all stars, and try out again the next season and make it just fine.

 

[ErinS]

^^^^See I would LOVE to be able to personally phone EVERY girl. However, I can guarantee that there'd be a mom waiting to old school three-way ambush me or something.

Me: Hey, Suzie. I was just calling to tell you that you did not make the team. You just really need to work on your tum-"
Mom: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE DIDN'T MAKE IT! HER TUMBLING IS AMAZING. SHE WAS ON SENIOR 2 THIS YEAR!"

I had a mom call me while I was making the calls. She was like "Coach Erin, Susie hasn't gotten a call yet and her cousin Becky did...."

And I was like "oh. Okay."

Her kid had made it but I called her last. Hours after everyone else. I called at like 10pm on a school night.

Because I'm petty


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[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

This is just not the school to be calling folks to give out tryout results.

I can picture it:

*calls kid to inform them of rejection*
*gets 10 voicemails from mom within 5 minutes*

I don't even think I could pull this off with my previous AS teams and 80% of those parents I like (we've done emails with team/level placements as I had junior and senior kids who had emails/could read.)

I just really like to keep it as non-personal as possible with the actual announcement.

Now, as far as FEEDBACK goes, I'm MORE than willing to share score sheets for the purposes of telling you what you need to work on. But that has rules:

*Score sheets are available 2 weeks after tryouts. Ex: You will not call or email me asking for a score sheet the day after! 2 weeks.
*I will provide feedback by phone or email to THE STUDENT. Not to moms.
*Students MAY meet me after school to go over feedback but it needs to be the STUDENT ONLY (i.e. do not bring mom.) People have brought moms and I've asked them to go sit out in the car.
*The purpose of the meeting is to tell you what you can work on next year. I have a little feedback sheet that I attach to the score sheet (broken down into jumps, stunts, dance, tumbling, appearance, attendance/attitude, teacher references) for those girls who ask for feedback, so when we meet, that's what we go over.
*The purpose is not for you to roll up on me like Starsky & Hutch with your mom or whomever DEMANDING to see a scoresheet because "There must be some mistake."

It has been surprisingly civil. I've had girls tear up a little when I say things like "Your technique has just declined so much from last year and you need to condition more" but it's not because they're upset. Usually girls KNOW what sunk their tryout (ex: Being 10 min late everyday of mandatory clinics when you know that every 5 minutes impacts your attendance/attitude score.)

 

[Official OWECheer]

^^^^See I would LOVE to be able to personally phone EVERY girl. However, I can guarantee that there'd be a mom waiting to old school three-way ambush me or something.

Me: Hey, Suzie. I was just calling to tell you that you did not make the team. You just really need to work on your tum-"
Mom: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE DIDN'T MAKE IT! HER TUMBLING IS AMAZING. SHE WAS ON SENIOR 2 THIS YEAR!"

Don't forget the parents who think that Senior 2 is better than Junior 2!

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

Haha. I won't get started.

But that's really the type of commentary I get in regards to girls not making the HS team. Parents will throw out that their kid cheered Senior 2 at Such& Such Gym so they are obviously a shoo-in to make a school team, not understanding that I have coached AS and I know what Senior 2 skills are. It's really great that she has a running BHS. Really. Our JV has that. That's probably the team she should have been trying out for.

 

[GForce]

Hahahah I mean I think it says no? I haven't gotten that one and I don't know anyone that didn't make it well enough to ask lol. But the yes attachment is like a congrats letter with further instructions and then the names of the other people who made it I can't remember the subject of the email :/


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The subject of the email is Tryout Letter

 

[GForce]

At my school it's funny because they send out an email and the yay you made it one is called "yes.doc" so you already know before you open the attachment lol. I'm assuming the you didn't make it one is called "no.doc" but so far I thankfully haven't gotten that one.


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the document is called cheer-y.docx so i assume the no one would say "cheer-n.docx"

 

[BuegeSmalls]

the document is called cheer-y.docx so i assume the no one would say "cheer-n.docx"

Oops my bad.

 

[cheergirl09]

I had Suzie's mom x10 at the high school I used to coach at.

Long story short. My younger sister was on the varsity team I coached but I kept a very professional relationship at all times. We always brought in outside judges for tryouts and had someone not affiliated with the cheer program tabulate the scores that way there could be no speculation of favoritism from me towards my sister during the tryout process.

Well Suzie's daughter didn't make the team. Yes she was talented but her teacher recommendations basically flat out said do not let this girl come anywhere close to representing this school. Suzie's mom got mad and started stalking me and started taking pictures of me at public places with my sister and would send them into the school district saying I was "fraternizing" with team members. Suzie's mom did not stop at that and things got worse. It got to the point to where I had to get a lawyer and the school didn't want to back me up or do anything because they were afraid of Suzie's mom so I ended up stepping down from the coaching position.






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[ErinS]

I had Suzie's mom x10 at the high school I used to coach at.

Long story short. My younger sister was on the varsity team I coached but I kept a very professional relationship at all times. We always brought in outside judges for tryouts and had someone not affiliated with the cheer program tabulate the scores that way there could be no speculation of favoritism from me towards my sister during the tryout process.

Well Suzie's daughter didn't make the team. Yes she was talented but her teacher recommendations basically flat out said do not let this girl come anywhere close to representing this school. Suzie's mom got mad and started stalking me and started taking pictures of me at public places with my sister and would send them into the school district saying I was "fraternizing" with team members. Suzie's mom did not stop at that and things got worse. It got to the point to where I had to get a lawyer and the school didn't want to back me up or do anything because they were afraid of Suzie's mom so I ended up stepping down from the coaching position.






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Susie's mom was a lunatic and needed a life

I coached my sisters Middle school team when she was in 7th grade. Nobody realized we were sisters (we are 9 yrs apart in age and I'd just graduated from college and was gone 4 years) so surprisingly enough nobody connected the dots....plus this was before social networks really popped off. However our names are Teryn and Erin so......


At any rate. The middle school team wasn't competitive. Purely side line cheer. I'm a firm believer that cheerlead coaches should be allowed to pick their team the same way other hs sports are allowed to.

Long story short I will be the first to admit that my try outs were rigged to the high heavens. I had my college roommate teach the material

I had girls I'd cheered with judge. I prepped them on who to score high, who to score low and who just flat out was decent but had a bad attitude so that they could decide for themselves how to score them.

In the end I ended up with a reasonable amount of my sisters friends, kids whose parents wouldn't be a pain etc. basically a team of people I could tolerate for $2000

First practice I introduced myself as "Erin Parker" instead of Coach Erin and then everyone realized who I was....and I never heard another peep about it




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[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

I'm a firm believer that cheerlead coaches should be allowed to pick their team the same way other hs sports are allowed to.





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Shimmy x 1000.

I've always been allowed to judge my own tryout (the panel = myself along with my assistants and our tumbling coach.) I wouldn't have it any other way. The football team doesn't have outside judges and I refuse to.

If anyone has an issue with that, they already know that there are like, 20 other schools in our area who have outside judges and they are welcome to cheer there.

And oh, teacher recommendations. Each girl has to have one from every core subject teacher and one elective teacher. Each teacher rates them from a 0-3. All 5 recommendations if you get all 3s = 15 total points.

That's a nice chunk of points. When girls are AWESOME and getting full points in everything cheer related and scores are really close, you have no idea how many times those recs were the difference between making the team and not.

Ex: There was a girl who was awesome but ran her mouth in English 10 and Algebra every single day and got zeros from both teachers.

 

[CEAisstronger]

We had to get 2 recommendations (last year) and later on after I made the team, the coach told me mine were great.

When I went to go get one from one of my teachers, she told me she just filled out a bad one. Then that girl (with the bad recommendation) came back into the room to get it (it was in an envelope sealed) so I knew who it was on accident. Oops.


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[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

^^^^^I work at the school, so I drop the forms in teacher's boxes myself (with the girl's name on the envelope so they know who I'm asking about) and they return completed ones in mine. Girls never see them. There's also a space for qualitative (written commentary) about the candidate because if you're rating Suzie a zero or one, I'd like more details.

Those are the most telling parts of the recs, in my opinion.

Ex: "Suzie is always doing her make up in the back of Bio Lab."

"Jenny is not someone I'd want as a cheerleader, unless you're okay with her being late every other day like she is for my Civics class first period."

Yes, you are definitely someone I want to be dealing with all year.

Also, if you are trying out and were on JV last year, one of your 5 HAS to be from the JV coach.

Girls don't realize that I talked to this woman every day. She has told me every time you were late, every time you forgot your bow, or the time you showed up to the game at halftime. I know it already but I want it in writing.

I paid closest attention to those. If you gave HER hell all year, there's no way I'm taking it on.

If you're late for practice just for sideline cheer, I'm not dumb enough to think that you're just going to magically start being on time for me because we compete. I've sent late cheerleaders TOTALLY HOME before because ain't nobody got time for that.

 

[cheergirl09]

Shimmy x 1000.

I've always been allowed to judge my own tryout (the panel = myself along with my assistants and our tumbling coach.) I wouldn't have it any other way. The football team doesn't have outside judges and I refuse to.

If anyone has an issue with that, they already know that there are like, 20 other schools in our area who have outside judges and they are welcome to cheer there.

And oh, teacher recommendations. Each girl has to have one from every core subject teacher and one elective teacher. Each teacher rates them from a 0-3. All 5 recommendations if you get all 3s = 15 total points.

That's a nice chunk of points. When girls are AWESOME and getting full points in everything cheer related and scores are really close, you have no idea how many times those recs were the difference between making the team and not.

Ex: There was a girl who was awesome but ran her mouth in English 10 and Algebra every single day and got zeros from both teachers.

That was my biggest complaint my entire coaching career was not being able to just hand select the team!!! We were a state regulated sport yet we were the only sport in the school not allowed to do so. Needless to say our AD had no balls and was afraid of a lot of the cheer parents whose panties would get ruffled if their daughters didn't get their way.


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[cheernerd5678]

We had teacher recommendations but we couldn't see them after they were done. The teachers had to seal the envelope and sign over the seal. My teachers would just be like "yeah I gave you all 10s" but Obviously they wouldn't have told me what I got if I was a bad student. I liked it because I feel like the coach doesn't necessarily get to know everyone before tryouts and it can be very telling. Plus I listen and get good grades so it couldn't hurt me. It was worth 30% of our tryout score, so quite a bit.


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