Like football this season was bitter sweet for cheer. It would be our last with optimist, we missed cheer camp and jamboree and we had to do our stunt with masks on.

I was really hoping Jaelee would take on a leadership role being the oldest but she is not mature as some her age and she was just fine rolling in the sand and playing with all the 8 and 9 year olds. She had her moments where she helped with cheers and the dance but I had to keep reminding her to be the captain.

This year was super tough for me as a coach. I had a girl on my team who did not want to be there. She resisted learning the cheers and the dance. Claiming a lot of the time she knew them when she didn’t. She really struggled with a lot of the cheers and the dance. The girls on the team were frustrated we had to keep doing things over and over for her to get them. I tried all kinds of incentives to make it fun while still learning but nothing seemed to help.

I also had 3 returning cheerleaders and 3 new cheerleaders. The returning of course got the cheers really quickly some they already and knew and it was a refresh, some were new but they caught on quick. They at times would get bored going over the cheers again and again. So I would teach the cheer go over it a few times and then pair everyone up, my bigs as I called them would teach the littles. It really helped everyone.

I also had a really rough time and major frustrations with the cheer director. Our uniforms were mega late, we didn’t even have them for our first game. I one night at practice was waiting for her to come take measurements of the girls for the uniform and she was 1 1/2 hours late. I had been standing there with the kids and parents for that long! I only ever had an email address for her and no cell # so all I could do was email her. Each time she would say she was close so we kept waiting. It was very unprofessional. Communication of important events and changes were almost non existent. I learned more about what was going on from the football coach.

Luckily for the first game one of the moms made all the girls some shirts to wear – they turned out really cute. She did a great job! The girls were excited for the first game and did a great job overall. We had just learned to do our dance at practice a few nights before so we didn’t perform it that game. Thank you to my cousin Shayla for again creating our dance and coming to practice to teach us it!