High School High School Tryouts

[CheerBank]

Wow! I know that there are issues in other sports and parents complaining/suing but I have never seen a "ball sport" with a judging panel. Ever.

A couple of friends just experienced it with Lacrosse 2 weeks ago. It wasn't a panel like you see in cheer, with them sitting behind a table, but there were 5 people there with clip boards as the kids did drills in small groups and played a scrimmage.
Edit(hit enter too soon). Last fall I was watching something similar happen with soccer tryouts at a local middle school.

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That's how my son's soccer tryouts are conducted (travel not school). The trainers rated the kids on their skills with recommendations from current coaches (not just regarding skill but attendance, if they were coachable, etc).

 

[cheer25mom]

Choosing the best team is not as subjective as one would think. Ex: A hit stunt is a hit stunt, and good quality jumps are good quality jumps.

I am also pretty excited that my panel this year is down to one outside judge and that we have decided to DO AWAY WITH TEACHER RECS, but everyone's opinion of that is different.

But WHO decides what "good quality jumps" means?? Who decides what good crowd appeal looks like, clean motions, ect. In football, either you catch the ball or you don't, you make the tackle or he gets by you. There is SO much more grey area and interpretation in cheer. Add to that the fact that cheer teams only compete a couple times a year in a format that is subjectively judged by a panel of people wit things like "overall impression" on the scoresheet, and it is much easier to take a girl that is not as strong and to justify a loss. It's also a lot easier to let your opinion of a child color your view of their performance because measuring performance is much less objective than in other sports.

 

[Doctorcheer]

Jumps, motions, tumbling, and to a certain existent stunting are all objective. Really the only thing that is subjective is their ability to sell it.

 

[Official OWECheer]

I think a lot of the decision on who should judge tryouts depends on how competitive the cheer squad is. If the squad competes at Nationals and has a winning reputation to uphold, then that behooves the coach to select the highest skilled girls for the squad, regardless of her personal feelings. Same goes for football, basketball, soccer, etc. I am sure there are tons of football players that are highly skilled that the head football coach doesn't necessarily like personally, but they are a 4-star receiver so it doesn't matter. If the cheer squad does only sideline cheer, then then that is where having outside judges may come in handy. That takes away the cheer coaches bias which could be as petty as not liking the girl's aunt who stole her boyfriend in high school so she's going to punish her niece.

This shouldn't be as funny as it is. LMAO.

There are really people THAT bitter walking around.

 

[Official OWECheer]

I'm also not a fan of "take everyone so that you do not have to cut one or two girls."

Ex: When a school has 19 going for 18 spots and ends up with a team of 19 simply to avoid cutting one person.

Same; but I wonder how easy it would be for me as a coach to actually do that. I think if the girls all know that only one of them will be cut, then I'd be able to do it. However, If during tryouts the coaching staff decides that they want to take 18 out of 19, but the kids trying out are all under the assumption that at least a few will get cut... then it'll be hard for all parties.

 

[cheermommaRN]

In the tryout packet it states the team will be 20-30 athletes. I have a feeling if she decides to cut down to 12 there will be parents beating down the district athletic director's door. This is a non-competing freshman only team so it's not like NCA is at stake or something.
I can understand if you state ahead of time "hey we are only taking this score or higher" and then cut one kid. Our district doesn't have middle school cheer so for the vast majority of kids, this is their first crack at doing it. Personally? With a non-compete, majority 1st year squad it should be more "how many uniforms do we have?" instead of pushing kids out that could eventually be amazing.

 

[amy1k]

Our high school advertised a no-cut, non-competing JV last year. Then they cut kids. DRAMA.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

Our high school advertised a no-cut, non-competing JV last year. Then they cut kids. DRAMA.

Oh man. That is not cool.

I don't coach our JV (Varsity only) but I know that they don't compete, but there is still a min score. Only difference between JV and Varsity tryout is that tumbling is bonus (whereas for my Varsity squad, you have to meet the tumbling requirement.) Even with it being bonus, most of JV tumbles (RO BHS or standing BHS) so even making JV can be competitive if you have never cheered. They had something like 20 trying out last year and took 16.

Sodenote: Something that is a side-effect of building a competitive Varsity and structuring JV to be a good "feeder" for that is that there isn't a good place for girls with NO CHEER EXPERIENCE to get involved. We are looking at how we might do that. Our middle school is good at taking girls from zero to JV ready, but we don't have the equivalent at the HS.

It's a common issue as HS cheer becomes more competitive.

 

[amy1k]

We don't have middle school cheer anymore. My son is a senior, and I think they last had it when he was in 8th grade. So...high school cheer is complicated. There's a mix of girls (no boys at our school yet) who cheered for youth football programs and Allstar and some who have zero experience. The youth cheer program had a competition team until a few years ago, but just sideline now.

 

[cheermommaRN]

@amy1k That is how our school district is. I think we are only one of a few districts that cut middle school cheer years ago. The girls had put together a non-official squad and went to all the football games this year. They did basic cheers and some prep level stunting. I hated it because there was no one monitoring them. This means freshman squad ends up being mostly kids with no experience or they cheered for Optimists until 6th grade. I think my cp was the only AS cheerleader.
They did end up taking all 15 girls and according to the coach there was no break, all 15 were around the same score. The only drama we had was cp was only one of three girls to tryout from her middle school, the other 12 are from the other MS that feeds into our high school. After teams were announced a mom said "let's get a pic of the freshman team!" So cp and her 2 classmates run over just to have the mom say "oh no sweetie I just want x middle school in the picture!" Then she posted the pic basically saying that was the freshman squad.

 

[Official OWECheer]

@amy1k That is how our school district is. I think we are only one of a few districts that cut middle school cheer years ago. The girls had put together a non-official squad and went to all the football games this year. They did basic cheers and some prep level stunting. I hated it because there was no one monitoring them. This means freshman squad ends up being mostly kids with no experience or they cheered for Optimists until 6th grade. I think my cp was the only AS cheerleader.
They did end up taking all 15 girls and according to the coach there was no break, all 15 were around the same score. The only drama we had was cp was only one of three girls to tryout from her middle school, the other 12 are from the other MS that feeds into our high school. After teams were announced a mom said "let's get a pic of the freshman team!" So cp and her 2 classmates run over just to have the mom say "oh no sweetie I just want x middle school in the picture!" Then she posted the pic basically saying that was the freshman squad.

That's really shady.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

@amy1kThe only drama we had was cp was only one of three girls to tryout from her middle school, the other 12 are from the other MS that feeds into our high school. After teams were announced a mom said "let's get a pic of the freshman team!" So cp and her 2 classmates run over just to have the mom say "oh no sweetie I just want x middle school in the picture!" Then she posted the pic basically saying that was the freshman squad.

Kids can be really petty and mean. Sorry that happened to her!

 

[Official OWECheer]

Last spring was the first tryout I conducted at the school where I am coaching. Not only did we not use judges. We didn't have a traditional clinic/tryout. We scored the girls on tumbling the first day, a chant the second. Our fight song the third, and evaluated their stunting potential on the 4th.

Having outside cheer judges is the biggest cop out in athletics. Combine it with the traditional "closed tryout session," and you've got a recipe for shady coaching. Got a girl you don't want with exceptional skills? Just don't let anyone see her tryout, don't let anyone see the scores, don't put her on the team, and blame it on the judges' "final" decision. I stopped judging other people's tryouts when I would hand coaches the scores, watch them throw them away without looking, and hang up their own results. I knew I was taking the heat for their shadiness.

As a coach, I refuse to have other people on which I can place the blame, I don't need a scape goat because I have the guts to stand behind and defend my decisions. They're pretty easy to defend, as we line up the scores from top to bottom and put the top scores on the team. There's little to argue, as the girls were all in the gym and watched Betty Sue do her full compared to Julie Lou and her front walkover. When we get to the bottom three or four slots, we will take a hard look at kids who's scores are all close together, comparing things like "seniors who haven't improved vs freshmen with potential," etc.

The idea that cheerleading needs outside judges is archaic and ridiculous.

I know that this is kind of old, but could you maybe go into more detail about how you ran your tryout process? How exactly were you able to prevent inconsistent skills from slipping through on a stroke of luck?

 

[Twinklestars]

I am against using a known fight song dance for try-outs -- unless the returners are going to be judged harder. Same with cheers that are routinely used.

New cheers and a new dance should be presented.

A returning senior who has cheered the previous three years should perform at a significantly higher level on known material.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

I always use a new cheer and a completely new dance.