Nice to see you again. Follow me, @SydneyOwen. Thanks for being here!
Okay I really thought that I would leave Dallas and want to open my own cheerleading gym as soon as I returned to Chicago. I fully anticipated wanting to find a choreographer, find a whole bunch of cheerleaders and breed National Champion teams.
I don’t. At all.
The scene had changed so much since I’ve been out of the game. I went to my last national competition in 2003 and it’s totally different. Since my last two and a half minutes on the mat, teams are no longer required to have a cheer portion of the routine. They have spring floors. They wear skimpy outfits. They have maximized the glitter usage.
The energy is gone.
All Star powerhouses like Cheer Athletics, Top Gun and Twist & Shout were known for their cheers. The entire arena knew the words to the chant and even if you didn’t train at those gyms, you silently mouthed the words when they were on the floor. Gyms like that commanded attention and respect. They were intimidating because the ENTIRE arena knew that chant. And those gyms usually brought anywhere from 7-15 teams. That’s a lot of volume support on finals day.
The realization that I had that was a real eye-opener: when I was a cheerleader, I was lazy. Sure, I had great jumps, was a good enough dancer and when it came time to compete, I left it all on the mat. But at the end of the day, if I had an ounce of the drive I have today, I could have easily thrown a full. I could have been a powerhouse and gone on to cheer in college and been NCA staff someday.
But I was lazy.
Which begs the question, what makes me so driven today? I bet my mom knows. She remembers stuff like that.
All I wanted was to get back to Dallas. And I did. I saw the routines. I felt the nerves for the teams about to take the mat. I gushed to CA moms that all I wanted when I was 17 was to grow up, get married, have babies and have them train at Cheer Athletics. I even saw my old coaches.
And now I’m over it. Chapter closed.