My Secret Identity

I may not be writing a weekly column for the Mapleton PRESS anymore, but I have tried to clean-up and organize six years of columns and made them easier to find on my main blog. Why not peruse through the humor, history and humus. It's full of "Sex, Politics, and Religion- not necessarily in that order." Or at least, liberal politics, the my misadventures parenting three little girls, and the joys of living in small town Iowa and good old fashioned Midwestern, down to earth common sense Lutheranism.

At least take a look at a couple of columns and give it a chance.

BEST OF TED

• Arizona Statehood Day (Feb 14)
• Book Reports
• Christmas interviews with Santa
• Economic Crisis
• Embarassed by Steve King
• Fourth of July
• History Buffs, read this
• I ♥ Iowa
• Kids say the darnedest things
• Meaningful Quotations
• Support our Vets
• Talking about Religion
• Ted's Kitchen
• Thanksgiving Treats
• The snow blower lesson
• The time I locked my keys in the car
• The war in Iraq
• Yes, I coach Cheerleading

REAL 'Old School'

Can you find Coach when HE was a cheerleader, Waaaaay back in 1988 at Concordia University in Nebraska? Clue; No goatee and no gray. Oh, and not near as fat!

A rare shot of Rena actually smiling!A rare shot of me NOT smiling...

Okay, I guess it's not THAT rare.

Yes, I was a college cheerleader

You know what, I'm not even going to tell you which one is me. This is the Spirit Squad for Concordia Teacher's College in the fall of 1988. An interesting statistic is that 50% of all collegiate cheerleaders are male.

So here's the story: As a Freshman I was looking for ways to get involved and to serve my new alma mater. I was a Senator from my dorm floor. My roommate and I were hanging out in the student union (we called it a "campus center") when these girls asked us to join the cheer squad. "We'll call you yell-leaders, not cheerleaders," they said, "we need some guys so that we can build stunts," they said.

What 18 year old guy can say "no" to a girl? The rest is history.

About this blog

Once upon a time I thought about using this blog as a jumping off point for eventually writing a book about being a male cheer coach. Never have seemed to find the time or the self-discipline.

Once upon a time I thought about using this blog as a personal journal about the trials and tribulations of being a junior high and high school cheer coach. But it seems like too many cheerleaders and occasionally parents actually read it and once in a while I'd strike a nerve or otherwise just say something that someone would take issue with. So, in the interest of good PR, I tried to totally back off of that.

Which left this blog kind of a fun photo album/scrap book for my cheer squad and a (hopefully) a means of communicating to both those cheerleaders and their parents. I'd like to hope that it is also a way for my former cheerleaders and mascots to get a glimpse of what we're going now and hopefully get back in touch with me or each other.

I coach Varsity & JrHi Cheerleading at Boyer Valley MS/HS in Dunlap, Iowa.
I used to coach at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High in Sylmar, California.

Are You a cheer alumn? Are you keeping tabs on anybody else from Boyer Valley or L.A. Lutheran cheer squads? PLEASE, let me know! At the risk of getting all kinds of spam, here's where you can reach me- ted.mallory@ gmail.com

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Disclaimer: This is not an official BVCS site. The views expressed here and the links provided here are not necessarily those of the school, it's administrators or board. This site is the sole responsibility of Coach.