Here's what's spinning regarding competitive cheerleading in The Locker Room.
Why don't the judges announce the score for each team immediately after the routine.
That would build suspense as you are watching your team and trying to see if it can top, let's say an 88.0 that was scored earlier. The announcer could say, Team A needs an 87.2 to take the lead. Ladies you may take the floor! Then, the fans in the stands can try to determine in their own mind if the routine is worth 87.2 or 77.2.
Here's the other thing. We need to allow raucous cheering in the stands. The idea of staying quiet during a cheer/dance routine is silly. Having the bleachers packed with energized student-fans who are screaming their lungs out for their BFF's on the mat would bring an entirely different dynamic to the competition.
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While Stevenson, Antioch, Wauconda & Lake Zurich have pretty much dominated the North Suburban Conferennce in the sport of competitive cheerleading of late, three schools that might vault their way into the upper echlon this coming school year are Warren, Zion-Benton and Libertyville.
The guess here is that when the NSC holds its annual competition in January, that different teams are going to be walking off with the top honors.
Just a feeling.
While it's true that Libertyville High finished fifth in the coed division at the IHSA state tournament, there are a couple of things to remember:
1) The one time last year that The Locker Room had its eyes peeled on cheer competitions, it was the North Suburban Conference meet, and Libertyville's performance was ordinary, at best. Stevenson, Lake Zurich, Antioch & Wauconda were all vastly better that day. That wasn't just the opinion in The Locker Room, it was also the opinion of the judges.
2) Do not criticize the efforts of Stevenson High's cheer squad, which didn't come up with a big number at state. No cheer squad in our area took more chances and had more difficulty in their routines than did the Patriots. That the girls didn't hit at state does not diminish the fact that the girls challenged themselves to be excellent and should be prasied for that.
You probably don't have to look any further than Libertyville High, where the dynamic duo coaching team of Tiffany Taylor (head) and Laura Allen (assistant) has recently taken over.
The two have spent the last couple of years coaching cheerleading at Round Lake High, where they've been fighting a losing battle on a couple of fronts.
The change to Libertyville should energize them as well, plus they will now have the numbers to work with that they couldn't get at Round Lake.
Also, with Stevenson's longtime coach now retired, there is an opportunity for Libertyville to step up and join the ranks of the elite cheer programs in the North Suburban Conference.
The guess is that is exactly what will happen.
There are no finer coaches and no finer people in charge of our young people around here than the cheerleading coaches at Stevenson (Jill Freitag) and Antioch (Robin Gwinn) high schools.
Apparently, we have armies of cheerleader types out there upset with a recent article that appeared in The News-Sun about cheerleading, claiming that the cheer judges were being bashed. Nowhere in that article was anything said that was critical of how the judges scored the meet. If fact, quite the opposite was true!
Something was missing from Sunday morning’s North Suburban Conference Cheerleading Championships. And we’re not talking about Round Lake High’s squad, which forfeited its right to compete when half the squad quit during the holiday break. No, what was missing was the energy.
It is the ultimate team sport. It basically is the only sport around in which all team members are created equal. There is no “right field” in cheerleading and nobody to lead the team in scoring.
Saw this at a prep cheerleading competition, and it happened TWICE, so let’s assume it’s true. When a team is performing on the mat and one of the team members falls from the top of the pyramid and gets hurt, not only does the performance stop, but, -- now get this – the team gets to come back later in the day and finish its performance.
