In a VERY long day, Savannah’s cheerleading squad earned a second place in the regional cheerleading competition. Her squad competed in the normal category. There was also an elite category where more stunts, tricks and stuff are done.
Unfortunately, this whole event seemed extremely disorganized and haphazard. It was very frustrating for Sean and I and many, many other folks that were there. They were intolerably behind schedule. We were told to be there at 12:00 for Savannah’s competition. It was 2:15 before they actually performed. The venue for the competition also was very short on parking spaces and seating spaces for folks. Quite a few folks were grumbling while we were there.
I don’t have a clue what they were thinking because each squad was given 2 and 1/2 minutes for their performances. They then put 10 – 15 minutes between each performance. There was much more down time than actual cheer time. They also gave periodic 20 minute breaks that went closer to 30 minutes. It should have been a lot easier to predict the performance times than they did. Since most of the time was down time, it should have been really easy to control and stay on schedule.
Of course, the competition wasn’t put on for me. The girls seemed to quite enjoy the downtime between performances as they played dance music and the girls all got up and danced during the breaks. In truth, it seemed more like a giant dance party for a few hundred girls than a cheerleading competition.
Savannah did really well and pulled of her stunt nicely. She smiled well and was easily heard in the crowd. The whole squad did much better than I expected. Suzanne is the coach and had some issues with a few of the girls this year. They seemed to pull together nicely for the competition. Savannah was quite content with a second place finish.
So, football and cheerleading are done for another year. We get our Saturdays back, but will miss watching the kids compete.
OK, this is why Mr. Papa had to wait around so much. Last year we were scheduled to compete around 1:30, with 10 minute time slots alloted for performance and score totaling. With each performance only 2.5 minutes and then the score totalling only taking a few minutes we ran way ahead of schedule. We were scheduled to perform at about 1:30 last year, but I told Steve and Sean to get there around 12:00 because we were running early. They got there around 12:30, just as we were walking off the floor after our performance.
So this year I saw that they had done the same thing scheduled the performances in 10 minute increments for 2.5 minute routines. I knew this was way to long and figured that we’d again be running hours ahead of time. Well wouldn’t you know it, this year they decided to stick to the schedule and have 7.5 minute breaks between each peformance. I don’t get it, but we actually went out to perform at the exact time we were scheduled, in stead of over an hour early like we were last year.
So this meant when I gave an arrival time to Mr. Papa it was two hour early rather than about 1/2 hour early. I’m sorry he had to wait around from 12:00 to 2:20, but I was there at 8:00 until 4:45 and having to attend to my team during that time as well.
The squad did do very well!!! I could only watch from behind so I didn’t get to see their faces, but every one told me that they had good expressions. Everything from a technical stand point was perfect.
Oh great, so I have you to blame? 😆 doesnt really help…
Read your Nov 2nd post, I was trying to save you the pain of driving all that way and then missing the performance completely. I just had no idea that they would actually stick to the 10 minute schedule. I think they should go to a 5 mlinute schedule. That would make more sense to me.
Cool… high tech family… we have our arguments online in comments… 😉