All-Star Maryland--over Saturated With All Star Gyms?

[FamUsM0m]

Wow! How does one choose which one to join? What would be some of your criteria for picking a gym? If all of them are very well established and successful, what would be your deciding factors? (truly curious)

For our area there are really only a small handful. For me personally, there was no question at all. Once I knew who owned the other gym close to me, FAME was an obvious choice.

 

[mdcheerdiva]

I think that a lot of programs look good on paper or on their website and you dont know what to expect going in and sometimes all of the things that you dont like about a program you may not find out until the 1st competition. In my cp's cheer career I have patronized a lot of smaller programs but for reasonsthat were out of my control we moved on to the bigger gym. Most important factors are being in a program that is organized I refuse to throw money away especially in this economy I have plenty of friends who have to deal with competitions being taken away and not being replaced this is a no-no, competition schedule, will my child be happy with the coaching style and philisophy of the gym I know to many people that are unhappy and feel that they are not getting what they pay for at their current gym but do not want to leave because of the negative backlash as well as the distance and cost of a new program so they just deal with it. It is not about wins and losses for me it 's about life lessons, being a team my cp was apprehensive about the move to a larger program because she was the new kid but it turned out to make her love cheerleading even more and it put that spark in her eye. We have finally found our permanent cheer home.

 

[Nothanks]

Well locals have their purpose - they're cheap, relatively fast, and are good to take the whole gym to. But they also don't usually give out bids, do they?

i mean like local regionals...some of the bigger ones give out BATC/US Finals...but i mean like the little ones at high schools with only like three small gyms in attendance.

 

[BRIA]

I wish we had all these choices! There are only a few decent gyms in Illinois and they are all 1 hour+ away from each other!!

 

[cheerleaderforlife]

theres barely any gyms in Northern Virginia. only Legacy and Vipers.

 

[cheerchickwc]

i live in jersey !
40 mins away from just cheer and ccchamps
30 mins away from star athletics
hour from cja
and the rest are all like 2 hours

 

[retiredl5cheer]

Just FYI, Vipers just announced they are opening a fifth gym in Owings Mills.

 

[fabulousity]

Just FYI, Vipers just announced they are opening a fifth gym in Owings Mills.

is this another acquisition? what program was this?

 

[KRECCheer]

is this another acquisition? what program was this?

The were the Maryland Vipers. Now the Baltimore Vipers. Im not sure how I feel about this news.....

 

[fabulousity]

The were the Maryland Vipers. Now the Baltimore Vipers. Im not sure how I feel about this news.....

no i know Vipers, i meant the gym in Owings Mills... what program is that? I don't know of any gyms in that area.

 

[mdcheerdiva]

The program was Cheer Ignite Allstars...

 

[fabulousity]

The program was Cheer Ignite Allstars...

okay, i change my mind. we might be oversaturated with allstar gyms if i've never heard of 50% of them.

 

[retiredl5cheer]

okay, i change my mind. we might be oversaturated with allstar gyms if i've never heard of 50% of them.

Just laughed out loud. Being the cheer stalker I am, I googled the team. There's literally nothing to be found. They don't really have a website and there are no videos. The only thing I can find is competition results and it looks like they only had one team of 14 athletes.

 

[mdcheerdiva]

Well Ron has made it very clear that he wants to buy up everything around the Twisters so I guess he is succeeding in that!

 

[ctgatormom]

Perhaps everyone can look at a map of the state of Maryland and re-visit this question regarding over-saturation. Does anyone know where Hagerstown and Cumberland Maryland are on the map? Western Maryland is NOT over-saturated, or really even so much serviced for upper level athletes, and a North Baltimore location is not easy to access from Frederick. Anyone who has attempted to drive into the Baltimore area on I-70 headed east to 695 during rush hour , aka practice time, knows heading south (towards Glen Burnie) is much more desireable as far as traffic patterns are concerned.

I live in a suburb of Hagerstown,Md and although there have been many gyms in this area, I would definitly say you were on point about upper level athletes.. Then Cheer Tyme opened a gym in State Line,PA only a few miles from Hagerstown and really bought a change to our area. In a great and much needed way! The Cheer Tyme Greencastle location had about 30 girls in it's first season and now at the close of our second season we have more than tripled that and are still growing. This season we had six teams including a level 5 team!! As you can tell Im very proud of our gym