The Final Farewell

“You are on a team. It’s a family, regardless if you like all of them or none of them. You can’t choose your family, just like you can’t choose your team. Even through all the drama, your team will always be there for you, and you should be there for them. You compete as one not as individuals. Everyone should try harder every practice. Win or lose as a team. Rise and fall as a team.” Throughout the years, I have had to say goodbye to some of my best friends on the cheer squad because they were seniors. It would always be bittersweet knowing that I’d never get the chance to cheer with them again.  Now that I’m the senior and it’s my turn to walk away, I can’t help but to look back on all the memories I’ve made over the last four years.

When I think back to my freshman year on varsity, I remember thinking how nervous and shy I was to actually be on a high school varsity cheer squad. I didn’t talk to anybody except for the other freshman that were on the squad with me. To be honest, I don’t think I started to come out of my shell until the very end of the season. By then it was to late to really get to know the seniors. The only senior that I was really close with that year was our captain, Chelsea Rasnic.

Sophomore and junior year, I was more confident about cheering knowing that I had several new freshman looking up to me and asking for help. I had to be able to help teach them what I knew and help calm their nerves for the first game. We only had one group of seniors out of those two years, so I had longer to get to know them. When it came time for their senior night, I remember bawling my eyes knowing that I would never cheer with them again.

As much as I had been looking forward to when I was a senior so that I could walk across the field on senior night, for some reason I didn’t cry. I think the reason why is because I knew that I shouldn’t be sad because I would soon be graduating. Instead, I was thankful for the years that I had the opportunity to cheer. Now I look onward to the journey ahead as I make plans to go to ETSU next fall.

Playoff Memories

Last year our football team had the opportunity to travel to not one, but two different playoff games. I was filled with mixed emotions about being able to keep on cheering. I was excited that I would be able to cheer another game game, but also nervous because I knew that if we were to lose, then the season would be over and I wouldn’t be able to cheer until the next season.

On Thursday night I packed my things and was ready to leave on Friday. When I finally made it to school, most of the girls had already put their luggage into the cafeteria. After I put my bags into the cafeteria, I went to first period. After that, some of us went into Kelly Halls’ moms room until it was time to load the bus. Usually when we're alone,that's when we  tell each other all different kinds of random, silly stories about ourselves.

Once we loaded the bus, we travel to both the middle schools for a send off on our way to Appomattox. After that it was time to try to get comfortable for the long road ahead of us. Most of the girls went to sleep as soon as the bus started rolling down the road. Me on the other hand couldn't fall asleep, because I just couldn’t get comfortable. That and I was sitting next to the smelly bathroom on the bus. At least I was sitting next to a phone charger so my phone wouldn’t die.

After what seemed like forever, we had finally made it to the hotel. After we had unloaded our luggage into our rooms, it was time to load the bus again and go to Golden Corral. Then it was back to the hotel to get well rested for the game the next day. If I remember correctly, we had to get up at 6:30-7 in the morning to get ready in time and make it over to the football players hotel for breakfast. Once we finished eating, it was off to the football stadium to play the first round of the playoffs.

As everybody knows, we won the first round of playoffs 20-14 against Appomattox. This was the first time Lee High had won a playoff game in years. The next week we traveled to Giles to play the number one ranked team. Sadly we lost that game and that was the end of our season. I remember all of us cried because our season had run its course. I think I was mainly sad because we had to say goodbye to our seniors, knowing that they would never cheer/play ball again. Even though we ended our season on a sad note, I will always remember the pride we had when we won that first playoff game. (472)

Senior Night

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll also miss the person you are now at this time and place because you’ll never be this way ever again.” As the season comes to an end, it just now hits me that my high school cheerleading career is almost over. For someone that has cheered since I was a little girl, it’s a sad moment because cheerleading has been a huge chunk of my life since I was in kindergarten. Knowing that I’ll never have another opportunity to put on my uniform and cheer/perform for my school again gives me mixed emotions.

Being able to cheer with two other seniors from the original five that made it my freshman year is something that makes me smile. Abbie and Rachel have been my cheer sisters for four years now, and knowing that we’ll never cheer together again makes me appreciate the good and bad times that we’ve had over the years. From all the laughs and the tears, there are so many memories we share together such as the long bus rides, painting signs, the long practices that we dread going to, and being around each other all the time.

Emily has cheered with us for two years and I couldn’t be happier that I’ve been able to cheer my senior year with her. She has become my best friend since we started cheering together on varsity sophomore year. Some of my favorite memories of cheerleading usually involve her. When I think about never cheering with her again, it doesn’t make me sad because I know that I’ll be at her house all the time regardless if cheerleading is over.

What a life of cheerleading has taught me is to be more patient with others and to try not to get so frustrated so easily. It’s okay if things don’t always go according to plan. Sometimes you have to just wing it and hope for the best. Those are what make the best memories. “At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.” (381)

Stereotypes

“It’s blood sweat and tears, it’s bruises sprains and even breaks, it's days weeks and even years of training. It’s knowing there's no glory without the pain. It’s going again fifteen times after the “last one.” It’s going to your limit and pushing yourself past it. It’s not being able to walk for days after one practice. It’s dancing until you can’t breathe and tumbling until our legs ache. It’s one of the hardest “not a sport” sports, with one of the highest injury statistics. It’s cheerleading, and we love every minute of it.” (Anonymous) A lot of people just associate cheerleaders with the many stereotypes that are said about us. For instance people think cheerleaders are girls who like to run around in short skirts and yell “Go Team,” for everything that is done in a game. What many people don’t understand is that we spends hours and hours trying to perfect every detail about a cheer or dance that we are performing. Even when our coach says, “Okay girls let’s run through that just one more time,” it usually translates into five more times instead of just the one. We get short notice practices and have to show up at 6:30 p.m. and usually stay till about 8:30 p.m.. During that time, we are perfecting our stunts, back flips, cradles, dances, cheers, and also working on our stamina to make sure we don’t get tired during a performance.

Behind closed doors away from everyone is where we prove that we aren’t the stereotypes that everyone thinks we are. The field is where we make everything we do look easy when it really isn’t. Everyday I hear the words “cheerleading isn’t a real sport.” Meanwhile, we working nonstop to impress our crowd and work on chants to get the crowd involved while trying to defend our reputation and not let everyone think of us as stereotypes. No cheerleading may not be the hardest sport in the world to be involved with, but it definitely not the easiest. We may not be the best cheer squad that there is, but we cheer on our school the best way that we can and are behind them 100%. (370)

Summer Practice

Trying to transition from middle school cheerleading to high school cheerleading was one of the toughest things I've ever had to endure. From always getting an actual summer vacation, to having to be at the football field at seven o'clock every morning. Being a freshman surrounded by so many underclassmen, I was intimidated by how little I knew compared to them. They already knew the 100 or more cheers and 15 hundred dances (this is of course an exaggeration). I never in my life thought it was possible for me to remember every cheer and dance on the cheer list. I remember having to go home everyday after practice and try to refresh my memory of what was taught to us in the two hours we were all together. Madison and I would meet at the Leeman Field Park just to try and stay ahead of the game and prove that we actually practiced what we were supposed to.

One of the bad things about having practice so early in the morning is when you first arrive at the field it feels like it’s ten degrees, but by the end of practice you’re wishing you had a pool to jump in just to cool off. The worst part about the heat was definitely the running part. For the first several practices, I was so out of shape I felt like I was gonna pass out from exhaustion and dehydration. Eventually I was able to run the full two laps without stopping, but believe me I definitely didn’t want to. The only time I’ve had to run that much and actually enjoyed doing it, is when I played basketball (but that’s a different story).

I guess you could say that in the end, every drop of sweat that was shed over the long months of summer finally paid off. I was able to execute every move in a cheer or dance that was required of me. Actually able to do stunts that I never thought was possible for a fourteen year old to master. I guess in a way I grew up just a little bit over the summer, and actually performed what was expected of me. Being able to cheer on Friday nights was my reward. (376)

Lee vs. Union - Freshman Year

My first game as a Lee High General will be one that I will remember possibly for the rest of my life. We were scheduled to play Union and I was a nervous wreck. I had never cheered on a High School football field before, never been in front of a huge crowd, and never had to deal with the kind of pressure of trying to prove that I belonged on the Varsity Squad.

When the bus first arrived at Bullitt Park, there was already quite a few people claiming their seats in the stands. The older cheerleaders seemed to not be bothered by it and automatically went to work on taping up the signs we had painted the day before. Myself on the other hand started feeling the butterflies building up in my stomach as I slowly followed the rest of the squad. Eventually I just looked away from the crowd and focused on my sign taping.

Once the signs were taped and everything was ready for game time, the Union cheerleaders came over to talk to us. I had met them once before at cheer camp earlier in the summer, but we were “rivals” and kind of ignored each other. They started off being real nice and friendly until they asked us if they could do their “Hello” cheer. We agreed and they got into their formation. They did the cheer alright but it definitely was not a Hello cheer. It felt more like a threat in my honest opinion. They were telling us that we better watch out and to consider it a warning. After they finished I was feeling more intimidated than ever before. Our captain Chelsea told me to just ignore them and focus on the game that was starting in less than thirty minutes.

As the clock continued to countdown to game time, the pressure started to hit me like a ton of bricks. I started panicking about the cheers and was afraid to mess up in front of everybody. Thankfully our captain pulled me to the side and went through the important cheers with me. After we finished, we saw that the football players were getting lined up to run out so we went to hold up the run through sign. We got the top girls situated on the bases shoulders and waited…… and waited……. and waited some more. We waited so long that we decided to get the top girls down until the boys were ready. As soon as they were down safely, that’s when the boys decided to run through the sign. We barely was able to get the sign up fast enough for them to run through it.

Once the game started, my fear of failing
slowly disappeared as I perfectly executed every move in every dance and cheer. I wouldn’t have been able to get the blanket of pressure off my shoulders if my captain hadn’t been so supportive. Even though we didn’t win that game, I learned to not be so stressed and to stay calm and relaxed in almost everything life throws at you. To this day I still continue to look back at that first game and remind myself that it’s okay to get stressed sometimes. I just have to remember to not let the stress get to me and to tell the other members on the squad that it’ll be okay. Usually they just look at me like I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I just brush it off because I know that I looked at my captain the same way when I was in their shoes. (604)

Making Varsity as a Freshman

I remember the first day of open gym for LHS Cheerleading for the following year. I was so nervous because I was surrounded by girls that were several years older than me. Also, those of us that went to Jonesville Middle School usually didn't socialize with anyone from Pennington Middle School. We were considered county rivals. You can imagine what it felt like to be thrown together with people that you had never spoken to or met before in your life. It’s feels like there’s a hundred emotions going through you in a matter of minutes. For instance, one minute you’re feeling scared and terrified, then you’re anxious. However in my case, I felt very nauseous and it felt as if I was going to pass out because of the pressure of trying to prove myself to the coaches.

When I tried out for my Freshman year, we had the option of JV or Varsity. You had to choose which one you wanted as your first choice and which one was your second choice. At first I chose JV as my first choice and Varsity as my second. Then I got to thinking, “What if they think I’m good enough to make Varsity but don’t put me on the squad because it wasn’t my first choice?”. The day of the actual tryout, I asked one of the coaches if I could change my choice options before we started the tryouts. I switched my choices around and made Varsity my first choice.

I walked into the gym a nervous wreck, but I performed my tryout routine for the coaches and the judges. Looking back, I think what made me so nervous was the serious, strict looks I was receiving from the judges. The coaches however, made me feel at ease with their kind smiles and the occasional thumbs up. Once I walked out of the gym, I was free to go home. They wouldn’t be posting the list until that Monday after. Having to wait the entire weekend was the hardest part. It felt like I had waited a century for Monday to come. I walked into the school with the feeling of anxiousness. I looked at the list for JV and didn’t see my number. However, when I looked over at the Varsity list, I saw my number letting me know that I had made the squad. Because I had changed my choices about my first and second choice, I had been lucky enough to be able to cheer for the football team every Friday night.