UCA College Nationals were this past weekend. I can’t remember if this is the third or the fourth year that I’ve been out, but its been a long time and I miss it. I still like to check in after the competition to see how my old team did. This year the routine looked awesome. I caught a couple of little mistakes, but the team finished 7, which is a very strong showing....
In college I studied social networks. This was a few years before Facebook really took off. I was convinced that the world was a small network from books like Six Degrees and Linked. There were events in my life that convinced me of this, but nothing like what happened on Wednesday night. I have become friendly with the owner of Rebel’s Elite. I saw her the other week at a competition and was asking her if there was any way I could help coach....
Yesterday went through my second AACCA certification class. This time my instructor was Mike Burgess, my last instructor was Lisa Moscow (former regional director for UCA in the northeast). Lisa was great, she was very experienced in the sport, and made sure to get the key points across. Mike had a lot to live up to, but I can say with assurance that he thrashed my expectations. I’m not sure what factor contributed most to my learning this time around:...
I was driving my friend Mike home from a bike ride, when he asked me if I thought that I had learned anything unique from cheerleading. Whether that sport in and of itself was unique enough that I felt I had learned things that I might not have learned from a different sport. This is a really great question. Now, I chose cheerleading because it captured my interest with the gymnastics and throwing people around, not to mention the great seats for football and basketball games, but I do feel I have taken some unique things from the sport that might be hard to find in total in any other sport....
For some reason I try to keep myself objective when I coach. I don’t want to play favorites; I want to be fair; I want to have logical reasons for why I do everything I do. This is one way to coach, but the more I think about it, the more I dislike this method. I’m not getting closer to the kids, I’m not learning about them, and I’m keeping them from learning about me....