High School Tryout Season

[tojofasho]

I hate this, but it is nice to see that other sports have these issues.

I know this happens with male coaches also, but does it happen as often?

ETA: nice isn't the right word. Can't think of the correct one at the moment

"comforting" might be the word you're looking for here - I saw this and was relieved to see it wasn't just cheer.

 

[CheerItFullOut]

"comforting" might be the word you're looking for here - I saw this and was relieved to see it wasn't just cheer.

What is with the whole "senior" thing?! I just don't get it... it's only your last year of High School...
It's like a switch is flipped and parents/kids think that because it's SENIOR YEAR you're automatically afforded a license to loose your mind?!

 

[SparkleSpankies]

What is with the whole "senior" thing?! I just don't get it... it's only your last year of High School...
It's like a switch is flipped and parents/kids think that because it's SENIOR YEAR you're automatically afforded a license to loose your mind?!

OMG and why do seniors think their last cheer practice "ever" need to be a celebration of rainbows and butterflies.. it's practice.....

 

[Twinklestars]

What is with the whole "senior" thing?! I just don't get it... it's only your last year of High School...
It's like a switch is flipped and parents/kids think that because it's SENIOR YEAR you're automatically afforded a license to loose your mind?!

OMG and why do seniors think their last cheer practice "ever" need to be a celebration of rainbows and butterflies.. it's practice.....

My cp is the only senior this year. She has hated how in the past years everything was all about the seniors. They get two senior nights to celebrate being seniors. They don't need homecoming and every "special" occasion too

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

My cp is the only senior this year. She has hated how in the past years everything was all about the seniors. They get two senior nights to celebrate being seniors. They don't need homecoming and every "special" occasion too

I cut that BS out completely my first year at this particular school. Have slowly allowed some things to come back, but will likely pull the reigns again this year. The 16-17 seniors were a little too uppity for my taste.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

My cp is the only senior this year. She has hated how in the past years everything was all about the seniors. They get two senior nights to celebrate being seniors. They don't need homecoming and every "special" occasion too

I had a parent a few seasons ago ask if the seniors were getting anything special for their last practice and suggested that we do Senior bows and practice wear.

If your kid doesn't feel special enough with:

*Prom.
*Fall and Winter Senior Night.
*Senior recognition at the banquet.
*Senior Sports Banquet (all sports.)

I don't know what to tell you.

Also, poor senior behavior is usually linked to how they're treated. If you make them queens, they'll act like it.

I read on this forum once that a team's seniors pick the practicewear for practice and are allowed to bench girls for not wearing it.

Stunned.

 

[Official OWECheer]

I had a parent a few seasons ago ask if the seniors were getting anything special for their last practice and suggested that we do Senior bows and practice wear.

If your kid doesn't feel special enough with:

*Prom.
*Fall and Winter Senior Night.
*Senior recognition at the banquet.
*Senior Sports Banquet (all sports.)

I don't know what to tell you.

Also, poor senior behavior is usually linked to how they're treated. If you make them queens, they'll act like it.

I read on this forum once that a team's seniors pick the practicewear for practice and are allowed to bench girls for not wearing it.

Stunned.

Besides, isn't the normalcy of your last practice supposed to make it all the more sentimental?

 

[CheerBank]

I had a parent a few seasons ago ask if the seniors were getting anything special for their last practice and suggested that we do Senior bows and practice wear.

If your kid doesn't feel special enough with:

*Prom.
*Fall and Winter Senior Night.
*Senior recognition at the banquet.
*Senior Sports Banquet (all sports.)

I don't know what to tell you.

Also, poor senior behavior is usually linked to how they're treated. If you make them queens, they'll act like it.

I read on this forum once that a team's seniors pick the practicewear for practice and are allowed to bench girls for not wearing it.

Stunned.

The special things our seniors get: recognition at the Homecoming game where they and their parents get flowers from the booster club; only having to decorate one football player locker instead of two; calling the cheers at the game football games. That is about it.

 

[RileyElizabeth99]

I was a senior this past school year and I think my team had a happy medium of recognition and not making us queens or anything. There were 8 of us this year.

Seniors got to help pick out the camp clothes for the squad with one of our assistant coaches. She gave us some guidelines but we got to choose whether we wanted tanks or tees and spandex vs athletic shorts, etc. These clothes became our practicewear following camp and we also wore some of them to appearances and other events. We are assigned specific practice outfits for specific days and if you lost your camp clothes as long as you looked similar you wouldn't be in much trouble but our coaches were pretty lax on that anyway.

For football, we were allowed to order a senior banner that we hung on the fences at games. We had to contact and order these independently and coaches simply gave permission to do so.

We were only recognized on winter senior night and we got to wear different uniforms than the other girls and do a floor cheer that was just the seniors that we put together. It has become a tradition for us to make senior boards which are trifold boards with pictures of you in your cheer career over the years.

Finally, you are recognized at the cheer banquet. Each year you have to write an essay about why you want to be a cheerleader. Our assistant coach holds on to them and they read your essay from freshman year then they give you your alumni shirt.

Two years ago we had a group of seniors that insisted on having senior meetings with our coach once a week. They were a bit extreme with their seniorness and the group behind me is most likley going to be the same way. Both years had 12 seniors graduating that year so maybe that played into it as well.

 

[cheerisloving]

My senior year cheer perks included:

Two senior nights (one for football one for bball because not everyone cheers both seasons) We got gifts for the first one. Mind you we only had 6 seniors, one was a boy for football. The bball one was just 4 of us and our underclassmen made us a big sign with our names, we got crowns. Our last practice is dependent on how we do at districts. In my case the night before that huge comp was my last real cheerleading practice. No big deal.

Seniors did get to see the new unis and practice wear prior to others. We helped pick the songs for our music as well.

I was a captain so I got more perks, like picking out our spirit days (we didn't wear uniforms to school during football season), calling cheers and what not. My other teammates were more intense and tried the whole "not dressing up will make you condition" but I had the good sense to know that no one but our coach had that power.

I should note that me and the other two captains were 4 year vets. Our underclassmen had tremendous respect for us. We had suffered through psycho juniors/seniors our freshman and sophomore years and a coach that allowed it. I think the girls who were more brutal were the girls that lived and died about the cheerleader status. For some, cheer was their only accomplishment from HS and afforded some status in the school. Graduating really meant they weren't as sparkly as more.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

I never updated with results of my tryout.

I now have a squad of 26 with 4 alternates who will not compete. (Weird number I know.)

It is usually more like 27 + 3 or 4 but there was a clear break in scores at that point.

I had 46 try out. So obviously 16 did not make Varsity this year.

Of those 16, 10 of them went on to try out for Blue squad again (JV, does not compete) and make it. They were not awful but were just not ready for Varsity yet (needed a 2nd year of JV and a tumbling class, really.)

That leaves 4 who are on no team.

One is actually a returner who had a rough come back from an injury last year and is just not who she used to be. That was hard.

The other 3 could probably have been on Blue squad but refuse because it is "lame." They were 2 years on Blue and were of the "I quit if I'm not on Gold this year" group.

One of those three had a parent email me 5 minutes after I emailed the results link out saying:

Salty Blue Squad Parent: "I am concerned at how hard it is for Blue squad girls to make Gold. They do not have the competitive experiences of the Gold girls. Becky is a great gameday cheerleader and I feel as though the tryout did not favor her due to having been on Blue for 2 years."

Me: "Good evening. Of the athletes who made Gold this year, 5 are former Blue squad athletes. 2 have been on Blue for 2 years along with Becky. Statistics indicate that it is definitely possible to make Gold with two years of Blue squad experience. I am open to discussing Becky's scoresheet and suggesting possible areas of improvement."

No response and that was almost 2 weeks ago.

You do not want feedback. You just want to complain.

I should note that me and the other two captains were 4 year vets. Our underclassmen had tremendous respect for us. We had suffered through psycho juniors/seniors our freshman and sophomore years and a coach that allowed it. I think the girls who were more brutal were the girls that lived and died about the cheerleader status. For some, cheer was their only accomplishment from HS and afforded some status in the school. Graduating really meant they weren't as sparkly as more.

Cheer is a "popular student activity" here. I will fully admit that my cheerleaders make up a significant portion of Homecoming Court, Winter Ball Court, Prom Court, Student Council. However, I am lucky in that most of the girls this year are involved in something other than cheer, so that cheer is not life for them. Ex: Honor Societies, Cotillions, Tour Guides, Quiz Bowl, Church things, etc.

I can tell you that the years I have the MOST DRAMA is when I have girls with nothing else to do except cheer and be popular.

I had a junior group that was a "cheer, have drama over football players, post to social media about it, repeat" a few years back. They targeted a freshman Varsity cheerleader who went to a dance with one of their boyfriends. I sat them down and told them they were done cheering if I heard about one more tweet. That bad.

I pretty much told them to either

 

[cheerisloving]

Cheer is a "popular student activity" here. I will fully admit that my cheerleaders make up a significant portion of Homecoming Court, Winter Ball Court, Prom Court, Student Council. However, I am lucky in that most of the girls this year are involved in something other than cheer, so that cheer is not life for them. Ex: Honor Societies, Cotillions, Tour Guides, Quiz Bowl, Church things, etc.

I can tell you that the years I have the MOST DRAMA is when I have girls with nothing else to do except cheer and be popular.

I had a junior group that was a "cheer, have drama over football players, post to social media about it, repeat" a few years back. They targeted a freshman Varsity cheerleader who went to a dance with one of their boyfriends. I sat them down and told them they were done cheering if I heard about one more tweet. That bad.

I pretty much told them to either

I put this lightly because I do not want to come off as prissy BUT my team was made up of 'popular' girls. Cheer was it for most of the girls on my team, but there were some exceptions. One of my teammates played 2 other varsity sports, and I was class VP. But most of my teammates were 'popular' because of their personal lives, and then they just ended up cheerleaders. It wasn't exclusive, we definitely had some low key girls on the team, but for the most part my teammates were notorious amongst our local high schools.

We also were 'real' friends so the team was very much a sisterhood and we're probably the closest girls team next to basketball and football. I still speak/see 90% of my Varsity squad from all 4 years.

But our closeness meant the drama was WAY crazier than average. Relationship drama was always at the forefront. I remember one bball season a girl was dating one boy, while he was cheating with her teammate. Our coach's husband is a bball coach so she always knew what was going on.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

Ended up with 22. Will probably only compete 12. I could not be happier with my bunch so far.

Had one parent ask about her daughter's tryout. She was recently removed from a traumatic injury that in all honesty she was lucky to have survived. She just wasn't ready for the pace of a varsity program yet. Conversation was very amicable. The kid had some very nice motions and was obviously a go-getter, but couldn't keep up with the physicality even as low key as our tryouts are. I sincerely hope she comes back a year from now more ready and recovered.

We are doing a "theme of the week" with occasional activities. Last week was "know your teammates." This week is "teamwork." Our practice drills and such are being structured in a way to reinforce the theme. The girls are having fun with it so far and we are getting a lot of work done.

 

[CoachTamara]

We had our first night of clinics and I had 54. Only 10 are JV, so Varsity try outs are going to be insane. We've never had numbers like this, so it's overwhelming to say the least.

 

[Chs1]

Situations like this are how I got here too. I was fresh out of high school my first year judging a tryout. To see the behind the scenes blew my naive little mind! I have judged many tryouts. NOT ONE SINGLE TIME has it been on the up and up. Every coach and program is a little different, but all are the same end goal. Judges are a front and the scoresheets do not matter. Sometimes we scored what we thought and they were thrown away. Sometimes we scored in pencil (with light pressure) so the coach could erase as they got passed down. Sometimes we were told what scores we were to give certain girls before they walked in. Last month was the most recent one, for a nationally competitive program. The scoresheets were never tallied or even looked at. It was all a formal pointless (painfully long) show.

Judges are a waste of money. Coaches should have a backbone to tell crazy mom why her daughter didn't make it. The problem is that there are a lot of coaches that won't. Bigger problem is that there are a lot of administrations that won't backup their coaches to these crazies!

We use outside judges. We've had MAJOR issues in the past where the coaches judge and little Suzie didn't make the team and the parent going straight to the administration saying the coach doesn't like her and chose favorites. Even went to the superintendent once. So we use outside judges to avoid this happening.