Involvement and Commitmentrelationships and responsibility

Thank you for coming out for Football Cheer at Boyer Valley this Fall. I appreciate your interest and commend you for your "moxie."

Our job is to get the crowd to make some noise. We're supposed to promote school spirit and pride.

Psychiatry tells us that besides food, clothing, and shelter, everyone has just a few major needs; meaningful involvement with someone else and to feel like we're worthwhile to ourselves and each other. People who learn how to meet these needs without depriving others of opportunities to have their needs met are considered responsible. If you either can't get these needs met at all, or are constantly tying to meet your own needs with no regard for anybody else's are pretty much "irresponsible."

Cheerleading offers you an opportunity to meet these needs, learn how you can meet these needs for yourselves once you leave high school, and as a bonus- an it gives you a chance to help fill these needs for the whole school and community!

Meaningful involvement and contributing something worthwhile, making a difference.

This may sound far fetched, but I mean every word of it. Everyone likes to feel like they're a part of someting bigger than just themselves. That's why schools have mascots and school colors. You're not just a girl or a guy, a Smith or a Jones- you are a Bulldog and it's the cheer squad's job to make everyone feel proud to be a Bulldog too!

Meaningful involvement- being part of something and contributing something worthwhile, making a difference. These take effort and committment. It's a big responsibility, but it's very rewarding.

This isn't just about school spirit. Remember, it's about meaningful involvment- interpersonal skills, and it's about feeling worthwhile because you contribute something.

If you let me, I want to help you become responsible members of a team. I can be a tutor, an advisor, and even a mentor. Someone who will care about you and yet hold you accountable for being more than you thought you could be.

But this isn't just about athletes and their coach. Remember, it's about involvement and commitment, relationships and responsibility. You are no longer just another kid, you are part of the cheer squad.

It didn't seem to work to get everyone together for tryout practices this week. It doesn't look like there will be any inexpensive cheer camps around our area this summer, and between Volleyball, Cross Country, and jobs, it may not look like we'll get a lot of practices in between football games next Fall. So communication and flexiblitiy are going to be important.

Once or twice a week this summer, I'll send you a note like this talking about some of the things that make people a leader and what makes a team. If you read them and take them to heart, it should help us be able to work together better when we do get together next Fall. I hope that it might even end up helping you some in the rest of life too, not just cheerleading.

I really believe that cheerleading can make a positive difference in each of your lives, just like a good cheer squad makes a positive difference in their school.

(Posted on Facebook, 2010 Football Squad members were tagged in the note)

Purpose

I've been writing something between class sessions (writing xhtml code- very dry)
It isn't done, but if it works out, I may try submitting it to some magazines. Let me know what you think-

Purpose Driven Cheerleading

A few years ago an upstart pastor from California, Rick Warren wrote a record breaking book called 'A purpose Driven Life.His preface is that everyone's life has meaning and he believes that both individuals and the Church can find mission and direction in Scriptural principles.In much the same way, Cheerleaders can be vitally important and have an enormous impact for the teams they cheer for, their schools, and their communities.Even at a public school, with the separation of church and state, squads and coaches can emphasize 5 simple purposes, even without tying them to any religion.Although, cheerleaders who's personal faith is important to them can certainly integrate these Cheer purposes with Warren's origional 5 Christian purposes.I think that if cheerleaders keep these 5 in mind, they'll be practicing "intentedness" which is one of the bricks in Coach John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success."Intentedness means being goal-oriented, having a target to strive for.

The purposes of cheerleading:

Purpose 1: Spirit

Lets face it, cheerleading was invented to support sports.It may now be a sport in it's own right, but even with all the all-star squads and competitions, we should never lose sight of our primary function-to cheer on the ball teams. "Fan" is short for "Fanatic." This doesn't mean you worship football or the team. It does mean that you support, cheer for, draw attention to, and encourage the team that's playing.
THAT is Cheerleadings #1 role.

Purpose 2: Community (aka: having unity in common)

If there's anything adolescent psychologists think that teenagers are looking for it's identity, in particular- group identity. A mascot and school colors go a long way to do this. Regardless of race, gender, creed, socio-economic status, grades, cliques...whatever usually separates students, they all belong to one group- your school, and cheerleaders need not only to be a symbol of that group, but should constantly be trying to help kids feel included and valued in that community.Inclusion, not exclusion- As the school secretary listed them in Ferris Bueller; "The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies..." they all should feel like they belong, and it's yourjob to help them feel that way.

If you are fullfilling the negative stereotype of the snobby, preppie, popular- basically either supperior or "clique-y," you're being exclusive instead of inclusive. In other words, you're not making people feel a part of something, you're making them feel even more alienated and unvalued. Cheerleaders are supposed to make people feel valued as part of the team, part of the school, part of the team.

The irony is that if you're being what so many people THINK cheerleaders are like, you're being the antithesis of what a cheerleader is SUPPOSED to be.

I think that building community fulfills America's motto; "E Pluribus Unum; from many, one." Baseball may call itself "America's Pastime," football, basketball and NASCAR may all vie for being the most popular sport, but only cheerleading has the deliberate duty to create a sense of oneness. All other sports may do that, but that's just being on the bandwagon. The cheerleaders are the people offering a hand to get you up onto that wagon.

Purpose 3: Discipline

You can't be an athlete without it. It never ceases to amaze me when cheerleaders are frustrated that football, volleyball and basketball "jocks" don't think of cheerleading as a sport or cheerleaders as athletes, but then the cheerleaders don't want to work very hard during practice.Coach Wooden's Pyramid calls this "Conditioning." Although, it certainly requires more of Wooden's bricks, on the first tier, it takes work-ethic or "industriusness.." On the second tier it takes discipline to develop self control, alertness, and initiative. On the third tier, it takes discipline to develop skill. But it takes personal and squad discipline to develop and maintain friendships, loyalty and cooperation- which help make up the foundation of the Pyramid of success. A discipline is either something you study, like Science, History, or Art. A disciplined scientist uses the scientific method, so does a disciplined historian, for that matter. A discipline may also be a regiment you follow, diet, exercise, physical or mental training. Obviously, faith traditions are disciplined. If one is a "disciple" or a follower of a religion, philosophy or a leader, you follow the teachings, principles or precepts of that tradition.Theoretically, Christians abide by Christ's teaching in the Beatitudes, Budists practice Zen, Muslums practice the 5 pillars, etc. etc.Athletes listen to their coach's guidance and the rules or guidelines of their sport and school.Like doctors "practice medicine", practice cheerleading so that you will be qualified to be a practicing cheerleader. It doesn't mean cheerleading is your religion, it means that you're working at being the best cheerleader you can be.

Purpose 4: Service

The legendary King Author had a beautiful motto: "By serving each other we become free."

Purpose 5: Be Contagious

Sounds like a disease, right? I teach my cheerleaders that there is a difference between being just another thermometer and actually being thermostat.

FYI, Warren's original 5: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry, and Evangelism

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Year's before Warren wrote his devotional, Business and motivational speaker Stephen Covey wrote a block buster best seller called '7 habits of effective people.'

7 Habits has essentially become a classic "must read" for business, civic and education leaders.

Habit 1 Be Proactive: Principles of Personal Vision

Habit 2 Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Leadership

Habit 3 Put First Things First: Principles of Personal Management

Habit 4 Think Win/Win: Principles of Interpersonal Leadership

Habit 5 Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Habit 6 Synergize Principles of Creative Communication

Habit 7 Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

Loud and proud

Loud and proud
By Coach Ted Mallory Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper Thurs. March 10, 2005

March 7-13, 2005 is National Cheerleading Week. According to USA Today. There are about 3 million cheerleaders in the US today. Varsity Spirit, largest of about 50 cheerleading companies, made almost $150 million last year. American Cheerleader magazine debuted in 1994 and now has a circulation over 200,000.

Tommy Lee Jones recently stared in “Man of the House,” a movie where he plays a Texas Ranger charged with protecting members of the University of Texas cheer squad who had witnessed a murder. Its cheesy, contrived and predictable, but still cute. Of course, I may appreciate it more than most. I’ve been coaching Cheer since 1993. I know what its like to be trapped in a van with six giggling teenage girls for hours at a time.

The first organized cheers were chanted at Princeton football games in the 1880’s. The first official Yell squad was at the University of Minnesota in the 1990’s. In the roaring 20’s squads started adding pyramids and tumbling. Cheerleading was a predominantly male sport until all the men went off to war in the 1940’s.

Cheerleading is purely American. Think about it. Baseball evolved from Cricket, Football evolved from Rugby. Only Basketball and Cheerleading are purely American originals.

In High School, cheerleading is about school spirit. College cheerleading is all about stunts and athletics. Unfortunately, the cheerleaders for professional football and basketball seem to be more about glamor and swimsuit calendars. Kind of like how respectable high school and college wrestling are as sports, but Pro-Wrestling is pretty much a corny, violent soap opera.
Club squads, which are not affiliated with schools have become very popular recently.

Performing and competing against other cheer squads has become more important to these “all-star” squads as a sport in their own right then raising the spirit at football or basketball games.

The National Federation of State High School Spirit Associations’ official rules book states the first duty of Cheerleading is to “boost school spirit, promote good sportsmanship, and develop good positive crowd involvement Cheerleaders are in a position of great influence, therefore” …"high standards of conduct are essential. Cheerleaders can become the schools most effective student leaders.”

As a coach, I tend to agree with this philosophy. I take it even further. Cheerleading can be a tremendous opportunity to develop important qualities in yourself, your squad-mates and your classmates that will help you throughout your life and in every aspect of your life. The most obvious one might be fitness and fitness habits. I personally think that the most important ones are service, confidence, and positivity.

Service is vital to Cheer and to leadership. You would be amazed as a football or basketball player at the difference that a good cheer squad and crowd noise can make. We are there for them. Cheerleaders shouldn’t be self-focused, we should be focused on others. The ball-team athletes will tell you, there’s something powerful about playing with a lot of noise.

Cheerleaders can make a lot of noise, but their job is to get the crowd to make noise, to lead them in cheers. When the stands are packed and chanting in unison, its electric. It really can help the players, it literally can help determine the outcome of the game. If you’ve been to any of the Lady Bobcat basketball tournaments, you know its true.

Cheerleaders would also be amazed at how much young children watch them, imitate them, and want to be like them. Service could be small thing like picking up trash in the stands after a game, being quiet in the team bus, letting players get on and off the bus before you, or big things, like donating lots of time or money to some charity, church or community activities.

Either way, you can have a lot more influence by helping others than by ordering people around. If you take the focus off yourself and focus on helping others. You’ll be surprised and how good you feel, and how important you become. Perhaps, most importantly, you’ll have a lot less conflict with others if you’re not always trying to get your own way.

Standing in front of hundreds of people, jumping, shouting, and chanting aren’t things that come easy. Leading a pep-rally, speaking your opinion, standing up for what’s right, making new friends, engaging a stranger in conversation, holding up under peer-pressure, saying no, knowing that you have strengths and abilities to handle any situation- these are all things that you can develop by being a cheerleader. Trust in others and trust in yourself. What could Cheering offer that is more valuable than confidence?

Positivity is the next thing that Cheer offers. Think about that old saying “If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.” People who look for the good in any situation and any individual can usually find it. Once found, it can be used to make things better for everybody. Too often, too many of us tend to be critical of one another and ourselves. That kind of negativity is unproductive.

Optimism is more effective, progressive and productive. Certainly life isn’t always easy, cheerleaders don’t have to be in denial about real life, but if you’re going to encourage others, you can’t focus on what’s discouraging. Like the old saying says; “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!” Knowing that no matter how bad it gets, you can still get through it, move on, and learn, even gain from the pain- how awesome is that?

Some people think that they could never be cheerleaders, they’re not “perky” enough. Don’t think of it as being saccharine or Pollyanna, think of it as being positive. That’s part of the American character, that’s looking forward instead of feeling sorry for your self or criticizing and blaming the people around you. That’s leadership.