Personal Narrative: The Sport Of Cheerleading

With a score of 44 to 37, the Varsity Football Team won against the Midway Panthers last Friday night at Waco.

If everything was easy, then everyone could it and it wouldn’t be an accomplishment. Last year I joined an all-star cheerleading team, and that’s when I found out that this wasn’t going to easy that I have put myself out of my comfort zone. I was 17 years old and I was very shy, but I knew that you couldn’t do anything if you’re shy. Cheer was the best choice I had ever done by the second week of practice I was talking to everyone on the team they became my second family my coaches became so important to me they believed in every single one of us they pushed us to do our best and to never give up.

When I was in 3rd grade I begged my mom to sign me up for cheerleading. I had always pictured myself on the sideline of a football game. Except, that wasn't exactly what I signed up for. Actually, it wasn't even close My mom signed me up for a team named Rocket Cheer. A team that did not cheer on the sidelines at football games but instead competed in competitions nationwide throughout the whole year.This has been more than just a sport to me. Rocket Cheer has taught me commitment as well as time management, the true meaning of family, how to not give up on any goal, and taught me to be me.

Cheer Athletics in Plano is one of the most prestigious competition gyms in the country. There are other Cheer Athletics’ branches in other places like Frisco and Austin, but not one is as successful as Plano. It is the absolute best place to go for a serious cheerleader. The best and most experienced coaches work there and they are hungry to win. They expect every ounce of energy and athleticism to be left on the floor when we are finished performing. I have never had any problems with an authority figure until I started at Cheer Athletics.

Shawna Fox once said while talking about cheerleading "we make it look easy, but like all sports it takes hard work and dedication. " Just like most sports cheerleaders have to have muscle, cheerleaders have to do a lot of hard stunts and jumps and cheerleaders risk serious injuries. Cheerleading is a sport because there is a lot of hard work put into it. Just like most sports cheerleaders have to be in shape and have muscle. Cheerleading involves skills which requires the strength of football, grace of dance and the agility of gymnastics (Aacca.org).

When I was 9 years old, I started this thing called competitive or all-star cheerleading. My goal at the time was to make it on a level 5 team and compete at the World Championship. Within my first 5 seasons I had a lot of trouble with my tumbling, which prevented me from moving past level 4. Before my sixth season I switched cheer gyms. My parents believed in my goals so much that they drove me an hour and half to and from practice two to three times a week. Within my first year at Tribe which was my new gym, my tumbling issues never got resolved. That left me on a level 3 team where I never believed I was good enough. The next year I was again put on a level 3 team. Now in my eighth season I was put on a level 3 team yet again. I wanted to quit, but my coach showed me that tumbling did not define me and allowed me to fall in love with the sport all over again.

Hi, I am Arabella, a junior in high school and a varsity cheerleader at Siesta Key High School. I am four feet and eight inches tall and a flyer on the cheer team. I often dress like a nerd, and do not care what other people think. I am dating the star football player at SKHS his name is Tom. Tom was not only a star football player, but he is also very good at soccer, basketball, baseball and volleyball. He is a liar and a cheater too. Anyways, people just call me Bella. I love sports and love spending my days off at the beach. I especially love Major League Baseball; Tampa Bay Devil Rays is my favorite team. I am a happy person most of the time. Who’s dedicated to my cheerleading career; and I want to get a scholarship for Northwestern

I am at the Hillsborough Raiders Varsity Football Championship game, and the date December 6, 2015. My parents are in the stands, but I am not, I am in the football players locker room because I am the starting wide receiver on the Raiders. Everyone on my football team calls me the star of the team, but I don’t know why. I am just Vedant Chintawar, a 14-year-old Indian with brown skin, with a staggering height of 6’2. somewhat strong, glasses and with black hair, who loves football. I am the average C student, barely passing my classes. I love the New York Jets, work at Modell’s to get free items for football, and I am the best Freshman in the United States. Other people would also describe me as nice, and friendly to everyone.

It was June 11th, 2015 and the softball team was headed to Radford for the state tournament. The nerves of everyone was running wild as we all sat on the bus listening to music in our headphones. While everyone sat in silence I could see the on everyone’s face that they were trying to strategize, including myself, on how we are going to win these last two games. The previous year the softball team won the state title. This created a high bar for this team to reach. As we sat on the bus we started talking to each other about how we can remain calm and drive ourselves to do the best that we possibly can. Coach Gaines reminded us, “play every play and at bat like it is the last time you will ever play softball”. As I hear these words echoing over

Cheerleading is a sport Cheerleading started in in the 1800’s at the University of Minnesota. At first it was an all guys sport, but in the early 1900s women entered the field. There was a lot of yelling and crowd response at first but once they picked up the girls it entered a new playing field. As the years went on cheerleading became a girls sport and men were seen as “gay” if they participated.

I was an incoming freshman, two weeks prior to my first day of high school, and I was terrified. I knew that I loved the sport of football, however I had heard stories from my brother about how tough Stepinac’s freshman football coach was. Everything that I was told was true. One of the coaches great lessons that he taught me was that a hardworking disciplined team is typically more successful than a team that has all of the talent in the world, but is not disciplined and does not work hard. That summer was the hardest that I had ever worked up to that point to start in a football game. The hard work never paid off, and I left at the end of that season defeated. I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t fast enough, and I wasn’t strong enough. I had only played in two of the games, one, for a snap when

"Are you ready for this weekend?" Said my mom. It was a Friday and we were on our way to Pasco, Washington. I was thinking about how this weekend would go, setting my goals high and focusing on positive thoughts. My best friend Haleigh and I rode together, we had a fun time until we got there and that was when it all went downhill.

Well, this is my first post and to be completely honest it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to write, but I finally came to a conclusion.

I waited weary in anticipation of what name would break out of the happy-go-lucky collegiate cheerleader’s boisterous mouth as he was announcing the two lucky 2017 National Cheerleading Association All Americans out of all 4 Belton cheer squads. I replay this moment in my most vivid dreams, feeling the excitement of the halcyon moment grow greater and greater as the nerves and emotions grew stronger and stronger. A moment as imperative as this showed me in the most transparent way that hard, continuous work and growth pays off in many more ways than one.

I cheer at Midwest Cheer Elite: Toledo on a team of 30 girls. Along with my team there are also 5 more teams ranging from 20-30 girls and boys on each team. Each team wants to be the best. Each team wants to make it to “The Summit”. This is a prestigious cheer competition that has many requirements to get in. First, you have to attend a different competition months before (this is just to see if you are eligible to compete in “The Summit”). If you win (and only if you win) this eligibility competition then you are then compared to the other teams that won. If you are selected against the other winning teams of the eligibility competition then you receive a bid to the main competition in Orlando that usually takes place the first week of May.