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)