For The (debbie) Love Of Cheering

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Lisa Welsh

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By Lisa D. Welsh
www.CHEERMaD.com
This interview with Debbie Love is one of my favorite demonstrations of graciousness within the cheer world. Sometimes it’s fun to look back to gain perspective which is what this Cheer Mom did. This post originally ran July 18, 2011 a month after CHEERMaD launched and soon became the No. 1 site for cheer moms and cheer dads.

Whitney, father Marcus, Britni, Coach and CHEERMaD Debbie Love
As the mother of six All Stars and a tumbling coach for 40 years, Debbie Love of Premiere Athletics’ Kentucky All Stars is a unique CHEERMaD.
“It depends on which hat I’m wearing at the time,” Mrs. Love said during our phone interview yesterday while she was preparing to fly to San Francisco for one of her For the Love of Tumbling camps.
“In the gym I’m definitely a coach. But I’m also a very hands mom, I’ve home-schooled all of my children” she continued. With husband Marcus, “We’re a very close family and very involved in each other’s lives.”
But she admits that with the dual positions, sometimes Coach Debbie and CHEERMaD Debbie meet.
“As a mom, there have been differences of opinions as to what my child should be doing,” she said. “As a coach I should have known better, it wasn’t my place to ask.”
At the urging of someone who heard her address parents at a For the Love of Tumbling clinic, Debbie wrote “Help! I’m a Cheer Parent.”
http://www.fortheloveoftumbling.com...ntries/2010/7/4_Help!_Im_A_Cheer_Parent!.html
It offers kind and humorous examples of the proper ways a cheer parent should behave, some of which lines she says she has crossed herself.
“It helps parents understand their roles and I think it’s one of the better things that I’ve done,” she said.
“I want parents to understand that this is a process. Kids are developing, not only as an athlete but their character. Sometimes the mental part is slower than the physical where they gain the skill but mentally haven’t gotten there,” she said.
Parents in a rush to “make them better, to be as good as the next person” have to understand that tumbling is a developmental process done in the proper progression she said.
“They need to be positive with their kids, teaching with a positive attitude yields far better results and far better kids.”
Combining coaching and parenting, Debbie’s children all have gymnastics, cheer and dance backgrounds and some join Debbie as she crisscrosses the country conducting her tumble camps. A week ago she was in Massachusetts at Cheer Factor All Stars.
She has also worked with World Cup in New Jersey, ACE All Stars in Alabama, Top Gun in Florida, the University of Kentucky and Dunbar High School in Lexington, Kentucky, the subject of the Lifetime Channel’s “Cheerleader Nation.”
Jon, 29, also cheered for the University of Kentucky for two years and was a coach for Georgia All Stars for six years. He is currently a is a rep for a knee and hip replacement company.
In addition to cheering, Marci, 27, was also a level 10 gymnast who reached the national qualifiers. She’s pregnant and Mrs. Love says they are expecting “a new tumbler in December.”
Christi, 24, works for a jeweler and was an All Star for a couple of years before aging out. Tiffany, 21, is in her junior year at Western Kentucky University where she also currently cheers.

Whitney during the First Place World Cheerleading Championship routine 2010
Whitney, 18, one of Varsity All Star Cheerlebrities, will begin her freshman year at Oklahoma State University in the fall where she will be a member of the large coed cheerleading team. In April of 2010, her team, Kentucky All Stars – CATS, won the Cheerleading World Championships in the Level 5 – Small Senior Limited Coed division.
Britni, 14, will be the only one home this fall and continue to cheer as a flyer on senior 5 and a base on junior 5 for Premier Athletics, Kentucky All Stars where Debbie is also the Director of Tumbling.
“This year has been incredible,” CHEERMaD Debbie said of her daughter Whitney’s Cheerlebrity selection and the development of her online site where cheerleaders can post videos on FormSpring ( http://www.formspring.me/WhitneyyLovee ). Whitney has nearly 8,000 FormSpring followers and so many Facebook friends that she had to establish a second page.
“It’s really good tumblers putting it all out there for all to see,” Debbie said. “It encourages them to get better and really pushes them to go to their limit and say ‘We can do this.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGYphmhCe0w
Coach Debbie specializes in strength and conditioning, flexibility techniques and injury prevention. She also has extensive experience in sports psychology and, after many years of research, wrote “Breaking Free” a nine point system for breaking mental blocks
“What feels really exciting to me is those kinds of kids who are learning how to overcome obstacles because that’s a good life lesson,” she said. “I had a mental block when I was in college and learned how to deal with it. There are very few times when you don’t have obstacles in life.”
After being diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis three years ago, Debbie tells her athletes that it’s all a matter of how you look at things.
“When I talk with kids I tell them ‘I can get through it, you can too,” she said. “I kind of consider these obstacles to be gifts in disguise because it helps them get better,” she said.
More about Debbie Love:
2010 Hall of Fame recipient for coaching excellence and for service to the US All Star Federation, that year Debbie Love also received the Cheer.com Pinnacle Award as well as SITA Hall of Fame industry award, she serves on the boards of The National All-Star Cheerleading Coaches Congress and USASF’s National Advisory Board, and is a credentialing instructor staff member. She was a level 10 gymnastics instructor and USA Gymnastics chief safety certifier for the state of Kentucky. She is currently in contention for Whose Who in American Cheerleading and is near completion of her fourth book: The Abilities-Stability, Mobility and Flexibility.
In celebration of CHEERMaD’s one year anniversary on June 19, we’re posting fan favorite blogs like this one. Original post date was July 18, 2011.
 
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