<p>Competitive Cheer is a separate sport here and they have different spirit squads for different sports…bball cheerleaders, football cheeerleaders, soccer cheerleaders, etc. So there are a bunch of cheerleaders!</p>
<p>Heading out for some shopping to get ready for Florida trip. Modadunn…think we can sneak you past security??? ;)</p>
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<p>That would be SUCH a good idea. At our school, the team travels to Florida every year to compete. The booster club “pays for it all” meaning loads and loads of fundraising. Only not every cheerleader makes one of the two competition teams…so some of those parents end up doing loads and loads of fundraising for a trip their Ds can’t go on.</p>
<p>At the basketball games, it is painfully obvious that the cheerleaders SO don’t want to be there.</p>
<p>Missypie three cheers for covered bellies!</p>
<p>My 8 y/0 niece is on a competitive cheer team and they have the same policy</p>
<p>I don’t remember who the woman was but it was on 20.20 or something a couple years back and she said: If we want our cheerleaders to be taken seriously for the athletes that they are we must stop trivializing them by dressing them like tarts and sexualizing their routines. Not a direct quote but that was her message. I wanted to stand up and cheer myself.</p>
<p>bblfraser It sounds like you were justified in feeling unsettled, I’d have been right there.
with you. Little girls look cute enough in pleated skirts, demure sweaters and pony tails.</p>
<p>ETA: I did threaten my D that if she didn’t take care of certain pressing academic related issues this week that I would come down there unshaven in a bikini and uggs and introduce myself to all of her friends and do my best to make her some new ones. :D</p>
<p>My D, who is 14 and came to cheer after retiring from gymnastics, said yesterday, “I wonder if it would lower our scores if we just wore ponytails, no bow and regular makeup.” I would love it if a group of our older girls would go into a competion that way, just to see if they were scored down for it.</p>
<p>Better yet… have them recruit the newspaper or other media outlet to cover the story. I am sure there is at least one woman journalist who would love to see if “looks” were a defining factor over talent. Sadly, however, you’d have to have a team with the exact same routine perform in full makeup to see if it makes a difference (unless of course, their scores are routinely scored about the same).</p>
<p>Our little independent school hasnt had cheerleaders since the early 70’s or something close to that, let alone competitive ones. Too small and if you’re athletic, you’re playing for the most part. But the big public has all different kinds of teams - cheer, dance, etc etc… plus cheerleaders that are for the sidelines during sports for different sports and different squads for girls vs boys sports… right down to hockey. Amazing. But at least if you want to be involved, there are all kinds of ways to do it. </p>
<p>Airport: My take on MSP airport security and TSA is that there is a special school they go to in order to be the biggest jerks you can possibly be. I try very hard to kill them with kindness but when we went out west in November and were so incredibly rude to my daughter, for the first time I spoke right up and said, “Is it in your job description to pick on teenage girls and make them feel stupid or as bad about themselves as humanly possible?” The only reason I felt ok in saying this is I had no carry on luggage and so if they decided to strip search me it would be to their own horror of having to see it. 
So… sneaking me through security is probs not an option. :)</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, a boy at D’s school lost a bet and had to try out for cheerleading. He was a great kid, rough and tumble kind of guy. Well, he made the team, totally got into it and could really nail those flips! So much fun to see at the football games. He loved tossing those girls around!</p>
<p>Re: airport screeners. My H must have an invisible tattoo on his forehead that only screeners can see. Good lord, I though we would be arrested in Puerto Rico a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>Remember the SNL sketch where they are training new TSA employees? “Congratulations. You are over 18 and have not been convicted of a felony. You are the cream of the crop.”</p>
<p>Competitive cheering and school cheering are separate sports in high school here as well but not necessarily in college. One of S2’s classmates had always done competitive only in high school; never cheered for the school. She made the competitive cheerleading squad at Virginia Tech, but was told that she would be required to cheer for the football team at Tech in order to be on the competitive squad. She declined to go to school there as a result. JMU apparently allows her to do competitive cheering without cheering for the football team, so that is where she now attends.</p>
<p>Just a question: If you’re not cheering FOR someone… what are you cheering for in competitive cheering?</p>
<p>I have never watched their competitions. I assumed it was like a gymnastics and dance team combination.</p>
<p>Isn’t competitive cheer just a group tumbling/dance routine? I’ve never seen it in person, only on TV, but that’s what I see. I like to watch, but it doesn’t seem to have much to do with standing on the sidelines at football games.</p>
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<p>With all apologies to everyone who is cursing me for introducing the topic of cheer into this thread, let me explain:</p>
<p>The first half of the weekend’s competition was for school cheer teams and the second half was for all star teams. The school teams danced/cheered to music BUT, there was also an element where the music stopped and they actually did a cheer for their school (“The blue, gold and white, fight Broncos fight, etc.”) That’s the part that requires real stamina because the girls are actually yelling while doing back handprings, lifting other girls in the air, etc. In contrast, the all star teams make no pretense of cheering for anyone. Their song will have the name of their gym and team dubbed into it, but there is no verbal cheering (some gyms have cheers that the girls and all the team parents do during the routine, however.)</p>
<p>If anyone really cares to see what it looks like, one of the gyms has actually posted video of themselves at this weekend’s competition. If you look on you tube, search under
Champion Cheer ACA 2010 and you can see where I actually was this weekend. Their level 3 jr team was the high point winner yesterday.</p>
<p>It’s funny that they post online because we’re always told not to post on you tube lest another gym steal our routine.</p>
<p>The parents too? Sad if you have bumps on a log for parents.</p>
<p>No apologies necessary from my point of view. I learn all kinds of interesting tidbits through this thread. The only problem per say is if in repeating it in general conversation I have to say… my friend, Missypie told me that… and Fang responded with… so it makes for some strange looks.</p>
<p>Didn’t know anything about cheerleading and now I know a bit. I could tell it was work but with runners and crew being the sports my kids did it wasn’t like we were exposed to it. Nice to find out some information. We never did go to the football/basketball games because we were typically at either a regatta or a meet… Few times we weren’t I tried to get some housework done. Great info.</p>
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[quote]
Remember the SNL sketch where they are training new TSA employees? “Congratulations. You are over 18 and have not been convicted of a felony. You are the cream of the crop.”<a href=“Forgive%20me%20while%20I%20learn%20how%20to%20quote%20;”>/quote</a>
Too funny. And toooooo true!
Speaking of Travelatrocity, if it weren’t possibly defamatory in nature I’d share with you all one of the funniest customer service stories in the history of globalized outsourcing (if you’re not me trapped in a Beckett play). However, I believe that in order to get my refund, I must say nice things and release ownership of TravelAtrocity.com (just kidding – I didn’t buy the domain, but I considered it, the same way I once bought mipodsucks.com, and then released it, or glennbecketthazstupid.com, which I will not release for less than a cool million).</p>
<p>So, I have decided to get along with ‘the rest of the world’ for the rest of the week, which finds me here reading your threads and avoiding RL, to which I must now return. Thanks for the break guys n’ gals ;)</p>
<p>S1’s flight is scheduled to depart Rio to Sao Paulo in half an hour. Weather appears to be 91 degrees and thunderstorms. I assume he will let us know if he misses his flight for any reason so no news will be good news. The same plane continues on to DC so I don’t think there is risk of missing his flight in Sao Paulo even if there are delays. I wish I could go to the airport to see him tomorrow, but I am absolutely buried in work (which isn’t something I should complain about). H will pick him up and I will see him this week-end. I’m very excited since I haven’t seen him since early June.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s a long time to go without seeing your kid! So glad you’ll see him soon.</p>
<p>Oh how wonderful for you, TheAnalyst! Get that work done and have fun! Is he here for long?</p>
<p>S1 is going straight to his school from the airport and graduates the end of May. His plan right now is to return to Rio in July so he will have a month break after school to have some fun before entering the real world (which for him will likely be more much more fun than college has been). I doubt he will choose to spend much if any of that month of June with us but his college is only an hour away so we will see him a few times this spring. I will plan to visit him in Rio probably fall of 2010. I think this one has pretty much flown the nest beyond a once a year or so visit, most likely with us needing to go to him. He writes an email about once a week, so we do stay in touch. </p>
<p>S1 hasn’t been home for more than short visits since he left for college and S2 looks like he will follow in his footsteps, moving into a rental house as soon as the spring semester ends. He doesn’t expect to be home except for a few days to go to his brother’s graduation. Luckily, he is good about writing as well. </p>
<p>I think the kids like us, but we live fairly boring lives compared to the alternatives they set up on their own.</p>