I know it's been forever since I've posted, and the reason is that I kind of lost my love of the sport for a while because I got caught up in the stupid politics of my community.
Update about the Y: I let my local YMCA know about my desires to coach at the beginning of March. It took MONTHS for the sports coordinator to get back with me. After TONS of emails I finally got him to set up a meeting with me and he was game, except for completely reworking my idea. Instead of a summer class he wanted to make it into a 4 day camp. You can't teach jack squat that is worth anything in 4 days. Instead of wanting to offer it to K-12, he only wanted to offer it to 1st -5th. But the worst thing that he did was not get anything in gear to hand out to people (which needed to be approved by the Y and the school board) until the last week of class and he wanted to have the class a month later. UMM by then parents have already scheduled vacations and kids already have summer activities planned. He set my idea up for failure. The week before the camp he called saying that no one signed up. I wasn't surprised but I was angry. I'm STILL angry.
Cheer is my passion and I want to share it with everyone. Especially in my community. Every year the cheerleaders get worse and worse as they focus more and more about the uniform, bow, hair, and glitter. This fall my old squad got a new coach (that's the second "new coach" since I graduated) and they went to a competition for the first time since before I was a cheerleader (over 8 years ago). I saw the fb videos of their "performance". It was so bad. I've seen 5 year old's cheer better. It was an absolute embarrassment. I would never allow my squad to publicly humiliate themselves like that if I were their coach. There is a time when the coach has to step up and tell them that they need to step up their game or they aren't going to compete. I embedded the video of their routine so you can see that I'm not being overly critical. It's really that bad.
I was talking to the last girl I cheered with who is still on the squad last week and she let me know that their grounded. Literally. The coach took away flying. Apparently the girls were being rude to each other and talking behind their backs so she took away the things they actually like about cheer, flying and competing. WAY TO GO COACH! I am much more interested in knowing if it is actually working though. My friend said that this year has made her HATE cheer because of the girls the coach let on the squad, and the coach doing nothing. They have gone through at least 2 assistant coaches since last June because the SQUAD scares them away. That is not a discipline problem, that is a personality problem and it sounds to me like some of these girls need kicked off. I really can't wait until next season to see how many of them stick it out and maybe if they get a new coach. If this one has had so many troubles with them this year I can see her quitting.
One of the girls I cheered with is now the Jr. high assistant coach. This is the same girl that I taught how to cheer. The only reason she even joined the squad is because I suggested it. I don't know how she is doing or how the squad is doing. The head coach at the Jr high is a girl who was a few years older than me and stopped cheering in jr high, so I can guarantee that she's just teaching all the old cheers from a decade ago. I'm also pretty sure she was a drug addict in high school, so I guess my school's athletic department will let anyone coach now. (They're also starting to recruit which I am highly against at the division 4 PUBLIC high school level, but that's another story).
Update about the Y: I let my local YMCA know about my desires to coach at the beginning of March. It took MONTHS for the sports coordinator to get back with me. After TONS of emails I finally got him to set up a meeting with me and he was game, except for completely reworking my idea. Instead of a summer class he wanted to make it into a 4 day camp. You can't teach jack squat that is worth anything in 4 days. Instead of wanting to offer it to K-12, he only wanted to offer it to 1st -5th. But the worst thing that he did was not get anything in gear to hand out to people (which needed to be approved by the Y and the school board) until the last week of class and he wanted to have the class a month later. UMM by then parents have already scheduled vacations and kids already have summer activities planned. He set my idea up for failure. The week before the camp he called saying that no one signed up. I wasn't surprised but I was angry. I'm STILL angry.
Cheer is my passion and I want to share it with everyone. Especially in my community. Every year the cheerleaders get worse and worse as they focus more and more about the uniform, bow, hair, and glitter. This fall my old squad got a new coach (that's the second "new coach" since I graduated) and they went to a competition for the first time since before I was a cheerleader (over 8 years ago). I saw the fb videos of their "performance". It was so bad. I've seen 5 year old's cheer better. It was an absolute embarrassment. I would never allow my squad to publicly humiliate themselves like that if I were their coach. There is a time when the coach has to step up and tell them that they need to step up their game or they aren't going to compete. I embedded the video of their routine so you can see that I'm not being overly critical. It's really that bad.
I was talking to the last girl I cheered with who is still on the squad last week and she let me know that their grounded. Literally. The coach took away flying. Apparently the girls were being rude to each other and talking behind their backs so she took away the things they actually like about cheer, flying and competing. WAY TO GO COACH! I am much more interested in knowing if it is actually working though. My friend said that this year has made her HATE cheer because of the girls the coach let on the squad, and the coach doing nothing. They have gone through at least 2 assistant coaches since last June because the SQUAD scares them away. That is not a discipline problem, that is a personality problem and it sounds to me like some of these girls need kicked off. I really can't wait until next season to see how many of them stick it out and maybe if they get a new coach. If this one has had so many troubles with them this year I can see her quitting.
One of the girls I cheered with is now the Jr. high assistant coach. This is the same girl that I taught how to cheer. The only reason she even joined the squad is because I suggested it. I don't know how she is doing or how the squad is doing. The head coach at the Jr high is a girl who was a few years older than me and stopped cheering in jr high, so I can guarantee that she's just teaching all the old cheers from a decade ago. I'm also pretty sure she was a drug addict in high school, so I guess my school's athletic department will let anyone coach now. (They're also starting to recruit which I am highly against at the division 4 PUBLIC high school level, but that's another story).
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