prayer for strength and confidence

Disclaimers: 1) This Blog is not to an official Boyer Valley site. The views expressed here and the links provided here are not necessarily those of the Boyer Valley Community Schools, it's administrators or board. It is the sole responsibility of Coach Mallory

2) My policy is of absolute transparency. I apologize to anyone who is ever offended by anything that I write here or reveal about discussions with me and issues we deal with as a squad here. I do so so that you know what I'm thinking and how I come to the decisions that I so. That's called "metacognition," you may disagree with my decisions and my motivations may be in error, but I prefer to be absolutely open, even at the risk of being wrong or unappreciated. When error is brought to my attention, I try to correct or admit the error.

3) I genuinely believe in a separation of Church and State- I try not to force my faith/beliefs on any of my students at school as a captive audience. This blog, however, as noted above, is not an official function of Boyer Valley schools. It is a site that people are free to view or avoid. To the best of my knowledge, all of the current squad members are believers, so I'd like to encourage them with the following prayer-

"Please help me," I prayed. "Please change me. I know You can do it because I've seen You make drunkards sober and turn thieves into honest men. Please take away these inferiority feelings that are holding me back. Take away this awful shyness and self-consciousness. Let me see myself, not as a scared rabbit, but as someone who can do great things in my life because You are with me, giving me the strength and confidence I need."
~Rev.Norman Vincent Peale,
'Positive Imaging' ©1982

I share this one with everyone because it's really a prayer that any cheerleader needs to pray. It seems like every year there's someone who's quiet, shy, or insecure. I know one JrHi cheerleader who seems so meek and diminutive that you'd hardly know she was there. These may have been sweet and charming traits in young women a hundred years ago, but they're necessarily qualities you need if you're supposed to be leading a crowd in getting loud. Besides hoping to build your confidence and increase your volume, I also want to arm you all, because being a cheerleader can be a bit like living in a fishbowl. You're up front and on display, therefore you become a target of greater scrutiny and sharper criticism than less prominent students at your school. It's unfair, but it's real. See your selves as confident and able to let snide comments roll off like water off a duck's back. Picture yourself as poised, comfortable, outgoing and having fun. Let that mental image sink in until your subconscious accepts it. Ask God to help you, even pray (or at least recite) Peale's prayer and you will become what you saw yourself being.

Choose your Attitude!

"Take charge of your thoughts. You can do what you will with them."

~Plato

Weat Harrison

First "prep" at a game. Unfortunately, Coach Mallory's camera's batteries died before they got it up! Always bring extras.





We won 40-0! they called it in the 3rd Qtr!

Wow! How about Megan's Reindeer jump?

Posing for Butch Walker of the Dunlap Reporter

Sit Cujo! Sit boy, sit.

Practice can be fun

The freshmen and Rena teach Susan some "Bulldog Beat" claps

Samantha and Holly read through something (hopefully the cheer notebook, with it's informative diagrams of jumps and 8-count drills) toward the end of Junior High practice.

AAAAUGH!!! Poor Kensie is so distraught that Shasha would paint on her, instead of on the run-thru for Friday's game, that she takes out her nuk-nuk!

Car Sick?

I know it's not a fair picture to post, but Kensie wasn't really sick, she was just horsing around, so here it is. Be embarassed, deal with it.

Manning 3

Going over the chant list- "what haven't we done yet?

Is that Rena....actually SMILING? Gotha!

We had a lot of injury time outs this game.

Manning 2

See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil

Aww.... "Pound Puppies"

Manning Sep 9

Moon over Manning

Lunatics (get it? full-moon) Lunatics in a van

Purple People

They made me take it- then it turned out kinda blurry, so I monkeyed with it to make it psychedelic. Great kids that I really love. If only we could get Chrstine un grounded and get Megan to be LOUDER...

So Varsity is stabalizing. "New Christine" opted out, and Susan has been out of school. On the other hand, Cassie's Doctor told her, no more Cross Country, so she definitely wants to cheer at the next home game- I'd rather just get her on board all the time. Tomorrow night is our first away game in Manning.

Junior High, is another story. Seems my ploy to be a big mean drill sergeant to shake out the riff-raff worked a little too well. We went from 12 to 4, and 2 of those 4 have been sick the last couple of practices. Bummer. I'd like to try to get a couple of them back and I'm having the remnant 2 work on regaining or recruiting 2 more.

First time in a prep

Now, before you criticize our form and balance and technique and all that- keep in mind that Sasha, Megan and Kensie have never done this before. The most any of them have done is a double thigh stand. So all things considered, I'm pretty proud that they learned this in just one practice. NOW we need to get it down pat, cleaner, firmer, quicker, sharper...then we'll talk about cradles!

"Air Kensie!" You go girls, loud-and-proud!

A Couple of more

Rena and Cujo do their push-ups durring the Treynor game
Kensie and her pal Kelsey asked me to do this "buddy picture" for them where I make a black and white, but leave their eyes color: Here she be:

Treynor Pics

Here's some shotws from our first home game vs. Treynor- which we won 39-0!

Kensie tries to hear what Rena is saying.

Aww... Megan spies her beau and his bro in the stands


Rena revs up the crowd.

Megan makes sure she's on top of what's going on.

Sasha, Kensie, and Megan crank out the push-ups after a TD.


Sasha watches the crowd over her poms.