Tryouts. This is the place where everything began. The place where a team was formed that would almost be champions. On this very day seventeen young ladies of different personalities came together and formed a team. This team was made up of rookies and veterans, from the freshman to the seniors each member of this team was valuable in their own way. It was no longer about individual skill, it was about combining this skill in just the right way. This team would no longer be separate bodies, but it would become one. One that would learn throughout the season what it takes to succeed. Through faith in God these young ladies would learn to love each other as God loved them. They would grow together and become more than just a team, but a family. The would learn something that no book could ever teach them, love. A love for their teammates that no trophy could ever come between.

School’s finally out and these girls are headed to the beach, but not for any ordinary vacation. They’re stepping in the sand, but more importantly they’re stepping into three days of cheer camp. In just three days these young ladies would learn their entire routine for the season. With the leadership of their outstanding coach these girls would create one of the most difficult routines the state had ever seen. Along with all this hard work these girls, their coaches, and a few silly moms would have some fun. The fun began back home in McDonough when four moms loaded up the girls in each car by their stunt group. What the girls didn’t know was this wasn’t going to be a normal ride to the beach. Their would be no phones or sleeping! The girls were in shock, but they would soon find out it would make the trip much more exciting and not to mention entertaining! The girls would make three stops along the way to Panama City. With each stop the girls would have an assignment to complete and they would have to share with the team. After all the assignments were presented to the team the moms placed the girls in new cars. By the end of the trip each girl will have seen each one of her teammates at least once. As the girls and the moms make their journey to the beach their coach awaits them at the beach with more surprises!

Beach bound! And the girls are off! The girls are now riding with their stunt group and headed to their first stop. The girls read their first assignment card and it reads “create a cheerleading product (anything that can be used in cheerleading to enhance performance) and a commercial to sell your product...at the first stop you must perform your commercial for the team.” Each car came up with some very interesting items, although most were very unrealistic, that made it even more entertaining for the team and the awesome teams of moms, which included Shelly, Jennifer, Christina, and Tracey. In Shelly’s car, better known as “Betsy”, Aleigha, Taylor, Megan, and myself created the Facial Stick. This was a lipstick that gave you instant facials! Something every cheerleader needed! We could barely get through our “commercial” due to all our laughter. It was such a great way to get to know each other better. Other crazy cheer inventions included The Magic Cheer Bow, The Skills Robot, and The Tumble Brace! The girls were use to assignments in the classroom being difficult and stressful, for the first time these young ladies were looking forward to their next assignment. After all the groups performed the moms gathered together their new groups and hit the road. The next assignment awaited the girls in their new car. Wonder what it will be?

On the road again! The girls were now in new cars with new teammates and best of all a new assignment. The second assignment card read “create a cheerleading rap...get creative!”. Now we would see who had the mad rhymes and who should just stick to cheerleading! This time I was in Mrs.Jennifer’s car, who became known for her signature phrase. I was joined by teammates Britney, Bailey, and Caroline. We struggled at first due to the fact that Bailey only new one rap song haha well more like one line of a rap song! At that point Mrs.Jennifer knew she had to help. She dropped the beat and the lyrics started to flow! After we finished our rap we practiced it until we reached our stop. Even Mrs.Jennifer had it memorized. Our second stop was in a mall in Dothan, Alabama. Right in the middle of the mall we performed our cheer raps. The lyrics from each group had the team, the moms, and the mall rolling on the floor laughing. From “gonna get that state ring ring and Imma be like ring ring” to “oh my God Becky look at her tuck it’s so bad” we realized that we should all probably stick to cheerleading. Now that all the groups had shown their thug side, it was time to get back on the road.

Time to regroup and head to our final stop...Panama City! I would spend the rest of the trip with Christina, the dancing queen, along with teammates Rehannah, Sierra, and Bailey. Our final assignment card read “great a cheer about our upcoming season.” Our group didn’t want to make an ordinary cheer, because we knew our season would be anything but ordinary. We incorporated stunting into our cheer to show the we were ready for all the season had in store for us. By the time our cheer and completed we spotted the Welcome to Florida sign so we had to make an unofficial stop to take a picture with it! As you probably know by now we’re not a very normal group of people, so you can guess that we didn’t take a normal picture. So what did we do? A crazy pose? No, that would have been too original. So we put up stunts right there on the side of the interstate! As you can imagine we got a few stares, but were having so much fun it didn’t even phase us. Aftering taking our picture we got back in the cars and hopped back on the interstate. We now only had one hour until we reached Suntan City! Each group went over their cheer during the next hour to make sure it was perfect by the time they reached their final destination. The excitement in each of us made that hour fly by. Before we knew it we were pulling in the parking lot at The Summit. We got out of our cars and ran to the elevator where we would ride all the way to the top of the building. As we walked out of the elevator paw prints led us to our penthouse suite! We knocked on the door and we were greeted by our coach Kelli, who doubles as my mom. She had decorated the entire condo in true cheerleader fashion. We were all so excited for what was to come. After everyone got settled in we hit the beach to perform our cheers. Each group’s cheer was so inspiring for an awesome season. Watching our teammates perform made us want to hit the gym at that very moment. After everyone performed we headed back up to the condo where the moms awaited us with even more surprises.

Mmm! Something smells good! As we walked back into the condo all the moms had prepared spaghetti for dinner. After being in the car all day, we were eager to eat. After dinner we were all told to grab our kitchen utensil that was listed on our packing list and meet in the living room. We all did as we were told, but we were still quite confused as to why we were told to pack such a random item. Our coach met us living room with bowls of ice cream for each of us. She then instructed us to use our utensil to eat our ice cream. Well that was only successful for the two girls who actually brought spoons, the rest of us were in a bit of a pickle. As our coach looked at our lost faces she said “you can’t do it, can you?” and we replied with “well not safely, that’s for sure.” We all got quite the laugh out of that one. After all our giggles were out our coach began to talk to us about how this related to our team. She said “you can’t accomplish the goal of eating your ice cream without the proper tool, right?”, we all shook our head in agreement and she then went to say “it’s a lot like a team, we can’t perform to our full ability without the right skills and the right mindset.” At that very moment this group of girls knew that their skill was only half of their victory, they realized in order to achieve their goals they would have to have a positive mindset. Now that the girls had learned what it took to succeed they now had to create their goals for the season. Each of us received a piece of scrapbook paper and was instructed to personalize it with their goals for the season. When everyone completed their page our coach put them all together to form a scrapbook, kind of like she put all of us together at tryouts to form our team. Now that our skills were ready, our minds were positive, and our goals were set we were ready for the hard work that the next day would hold.

Rise and shine! It was a new day and we were ready to get to work. After having a delicious breakfast made by our awesome moms we headed to the gym, it was time to get down to business. We arrived at the gym and got right to work. In just three hours we created our opening cheer, standing tumbling sequence, basket tosses, and running tumbling formations...that’s half of the routine right there! We couldn’t believe how much we had accomplished in one day. The best part about it was we were getting to help create it, which was a first for most of us. In the past someone has always come in and taught us a routine, this time the ball was in our court. It benefitted us so much in the long run because it brought personal creativity to our routine, the judges loved it! After three long, hot hours in the gym we were ready to hit the beach. We jetted back to the condo, ate some lunch, and before you could say “5,6,7,8” we were floatin’ in the ocean. While our coaches and moms relaxed in the lounge chairs we all made our way to the water to ride the waves. What we didn’t know was our coach had yet another surprise for us...beach challenges! Today’s challenge was to build a human sand castle out of our stunt groups. Now one might wonder what is a human sand castle? And most of us would answer with uncomfortable! Each member of the group must completely cover their body in sand and then you must make a human pyramid, which ever group completes the challenge the fastest is the winner. I will pridefully say that my group won this challenge, and I’ll add that it took me three showers to get all the sand out of my hair! After each group completed their human sand castle we all sprinted into the water to rinse the sand from our bodies. Although it was uncomfortable we were all laughing too much to notice. When the laughter stopped we all used the rest of our beach time to talk with our teammates and enjoy the sunshine. As it got later we all made our way up to the condo to get ready for team dinner. As you can imagine it was a little difficult for twenty two women to all get ready at the same time, but we managed it pretty well. After about two hours of getting ready we were ready. The stunt groups reunited and made their way to Sharkey’s in their original cars. My group was back with Shelly in good ole Betsy. We all made it safely to Sharkey’s and while we waited for a table we went to the beach to take some group shots. We expected our table to be ready by the time we finished our little photoshoot, but we were wrong. While we continued to wait everyone found something to do. For KT it was taking “selfies” in the giftshop and for Britney and Coach Kelli it was dancing to the live music on the deck. We were finally seated and just like the night before we were ready to eat. The food was wonderful and we all enjoyed each other’s company at dinner. When everyone had cleared their plate we made our way back to the condo where we would have our second night of team time. On this night we were instructed to wear our plain white t-shirts that were included on the packing list. This nights team discussion was on labels. We talked about how we all have bad labels for others and ourselves. We decided that this season wasn’t going to be negative so it was time to removed the bad labels and replace them with positive and encouraging labels. Our coach brought out several different colored Sharpie markers and told us to go to each person and write a positive label on the back of their shirt. By the end of the night everyone’s shirts were beautiful and bright with their colors and their words. It made each team member feel more confident in her own skin and assured her that she was a valuable member of the team.

Now back to business! The sun’s out and we’re up! As we eat the breakfast of a champion we are reminding that that is what we are striving to be. Soon after breakfast we get right back in our cars and head to the gym. Today we would add in our stunt sequence and our pyramid. We would spend most of the time making sure we maxed out the difficulty level on the score sheet and being positive that we could execute every move perfectly. Bases would determine whether they needed to lift some weights and flyers would see how flexible they really were. By the end of our three hours each stunt group had hit the sequence and the pyramid was coming together very nicely. All there was left to do was create our dance and that was the fun part! We knew that what we had accomplished in two days was huge and we were all very proud of ourselves and our teammates. We could see right then and there that this team could truly make history for our school. We left the gym that day with the mindset that we were going to be state champions, and we never gave up on that dream. As we made our way back to the condo we all couldn’t stop talking about how excited we were for the season. When we arrived back to the condo we repeated our same routine from yesterday and rushed to the beach. Sadly before it was time for our challenge it started raining so we had to go back to the condo, but that sure didn’t stop us. That day’s challenge was an ice cream eating contest. Each stunt group competed against themselves and whoever won that round went to compete against the others who won in their stunt group. This girl would be the ultimate ice cream eating champion, I mean we do strive to be champions right? As we all dove our faces into ice cream most of us could barely finish because we were laughing so hard. It ended up being one of our favorite team memories and it made some “attractive” pictures. After our ice cream eating contest we all went to clean ourselves up for dinner. That night we ate dinner in the condo and later branched out into the streets of Panama City on a scavenger hunt set up by our coach. Each girl was assigned to a random group with one of the moms. Each group had a list of items that they had to be photographed with. It all led up to the final destination of Pier Park where we would get to laugh at our silly scavenger hunting pictures and get some shopping done. By the time my group reaches Pier Park just about everyone is there, except Shelly’s group. Everyone’s asking where are they? Where are they? But no one knew. Finally we get a call that says good ole Betsy broke down and they’ve been dancing on the side of the road for the past twenty minutes! No one could believe it! While it was a bad situation everyone kept a positive attitude and found the humor in it, poor Shelly who had been stuck on the side of the road. That was a night no one would ever forget. After a long night we made our way back home and went straight to bed that night. This was the one night everyone actually went right to sleep. I guess stunting, eating ice cream, and going on crazy scavenger hunts makes you pretty exhausted!

It was now our last day to finish our routine and we all wanted to make it count. We went into the gym that day and reviewed everything we had learned in the past two days. Our coach asked us if we wanted to continue to perfect our stunts or if we wanted to create our dance. We all agreed that we needed to take advantage of the time we have in the gym and work on our stunts, we could save the dance for back home. It was the easy part anyway! Our last hours in the gym were long and hot, but they were full of hard work. Everyone left that day knowing that we were capable of achieving greatness this season. We then made our way back to the condo and used this day on the beach for relaxation. After a couple hours riding the waves and soaking up the sun we all made our way to the condo where we would clean up and put our new competition uniforms on and take team pictures on the beach. Everyone loved the new uniform. To our team it was more than just a new uniform, it was a new start. We knew that we would make a name for ourselves in that uniform and people would get just a little scared when they saw it. After our beach pictures we gathered up, ate dinner, and spent that night in relaxing with our teammates. This is the night that we were introduced to Champ, who would become known as “the critter”. Champ was a stuffed animal wolverine that our coach used to name a wolverine of the week with. Each week a different girl would be selected and she would have to add something to champ that represented the team and have a devotion ready to share with the team. We decided at camp that we were going to be a team that led God’s light shine through us in all we did. Whether we were on or off the matt we all committed to living for Him. This brought us closer together than you could ever imagine, because now we were not just a team, we were a family in Christ.

Woah! That went by fast! In just three days we had created our routine and made memories that would last a lifetime. I have never seen a group of people who loved each other the way we all did. Our team’s relationship with God created a love within each of us and it gave us the ability to be more open minded to other’s ideas and more considerate of their thoughts. It created a unity amongst us and we knew from that day forward that we would rise together and fall together. We packed our things and made our way back to Georgia. When we arrived at home we all went our separate ways, but we’d be back together in just a couple short weeks to begin practicing like champions.

Just as camp went by fast so did that two week break! It is now July and we were all had our game faces on. We came into each practice for the rest of the summer ready to work. Our first practice back was spent creating our dance, but after that it was more stunting than you could ever imagine. Don’t be fooled we worked on everything else too, but we wanted to perfect our stunts by the time school started. We knew that was our weakest area so that is why we invested so much time in it. Before we knew it summer was over. It was time to go back to reality, but reality was exactly what our team needed to keep its competitive edge.

Back to school meant back to daily two hour practices, which was necessary to be a contender for the state title. Our first competition was at the end of September and we had to be perfect. It was the first time we would be seen. It’s important to make a good first impression with a group of judges because you were almost guaranteed to see at least one of them on the judges panel at state. Practices were more relaxed until the date of the first competition was a short two weeks away. For two weeks we had longer and harder practices. We averaged about three full outs runs per practice. At our first competition we were able to see almost every team that we would be competing against at region qualifiers. It wasn’t our best performance, but it wasn’t too bad for our first. The most important thing about this competition was that it showed us that we were in the running for the state title. When we received our score sheets we saw that the two teams who we above us didn’t score significantly higher. This put a fire under all of us and we continued to do better at each competition.

Our team continued to improve each week. Not only did our skill improve, but our attitudes became more positive. Even when injuries hit our team we continued to push through and improve. Team members getting hurt caused us to come together as a team. Two weeks before region my basing partner, Taylor, broke her finger. Her doctors told her she’d most likely be out for the rest of the reason. By the grace of God the doctors were wrong. In just a week’s time Taylor was healed. God answered our teams prayers and we gave him all the glory. By the time Taylor was back in we only had one week until region. It was crunch time! That week was spent with long, tiring practices, but they were more than worth it. We went to region and cheered our hearts out. It was our best performance yet and everyone took note. We placed runner up and qualified for state. That right there was our moment in the spotlight. It was the moment that we made a name for ourselves. People who had taken us out of the race were scared and they knew we were a contender for the state title.

The following week was the most stressful yet exciting week of my life. We practiced harder than we ever have. We ran our routine at least three times every day that week and we went all out each time. We knew that we had to put in the work but we also knew we had to put in the heart. We made a promise back at the beach that we would be all in for God and all in for our team and we weren’t about to break it. There were good things and bad things about those practices, but we thanked God for allowing us all to be at practice safely each and every day. We learned through our season and through that week leading up to state that God honors good work. Our four days of practice had come to an end and it was time to head to Columbus. In less than twenty four hours we would be competing in sectionals to qualify for the state finals. We had the skill, we had the heart, now all we had to do is believe in ourselves and believe in our God. It was our time to show the state that we deserved to be here. As we entered the area we all felt a sense of fear, but when we calmed down for just five seconds we realized that we earned our spot here and no one can take that away from us. When we arrived we were told to find and seat and wait to be called to warm ups. We waited for about two hours and then it was show time. We were then taken to the floor where we were given ten minutes to warm up. After we completed our warm up we spoke to God and asked him to watch over us through this performance. As soon as we said amen we heard the announcer call us to the floor. We ran on and got set, it was game time. Everything was going perfectly until I reached my partner stunt, my basing partner had been sick all day before we performed so we weren’t sure how her performance was going to be. We dropped the stunt, but I was able to talk her through our pyramid stunt which hit beautifully. We came off the matt and my only concern was Taylor. Our coach rushed her outside to get some fresh air because she felt like she was going to pass out. She continued to feel weak all day which worried us about her performing the next day. The next concern was if we were going to make it to the next day. The rest of that day was spent anxiously waiting for the judges to announce the top eight teams that would be continuing on to the state finals the following day. When they finally announced top eight we were all nervous. As soon as we heard our name we all began cheering and the smiles on our faces were priceless. We were all thankful for a second chance and knew that we had to be perfect the next day. After a very stressful day we went out for team dinner and took some time to relax before the next day. As soon as we reached our hotel we all bundled up in her bed and went straight to sleep.

As we woke up the next morning it became so real that this would be the last time this team every competed together. It was the last time so we had to give it everything we had. We had something to prove that day and we were ready to do it. We arrived at the arena and went through the same drill as the day before. The difference in this day and the previous day was those two hours of waiting time flew by. Before I knew it we were in warm ups. In only ten minutes we would be on the floor for the very last time. Those ten minutes flew by just as they had the day before. But there was something that was different about that day, and that something was us. This time when the announcer called us to the floor we stormed it like we owned it. The entire area roared with excitement as we came out. I was more confident than I had ever been, but in the back of my mind I was still worried about Taylor. When we reached the stunt everything had been perfect so I knew we had to nail this. And we did! But as I looked over I saw the stunt group on the other side of the matt drop. I couldn’t show my emotion of my face because it would have worried my stunt group and possibly caused another fall so I just continued to put on a show. That was the only error in our routine. We were so close to being perfect. From the second I walked off the bad I just knew that we were out of the running. The rest of the day was filled with very mixed emotions. When it was time to announce the top six teams we had all pretty much counted ourselves out because we were the only one who dropped a stunt. That is why we went absolutely crazy when we were called to the floor. We knew that we wouldn’t be top four, but we were just happy to be in the top six. As the top four teams were awarded we congratulated them and then went to review our scores with our coach. With our stunt fall we placed 5th. We were only nine points away from first place and that one stunt cost us ten points. If the stunt would have hit we would have been state champions. We were disappointed that we were so close, but when it all began in Panama City we told ourselves that we were a team and there’s no I in team. We rise together and we fall together. And together we were almost champions.