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)