They were not robbed. The competition was well run with over 900 teams! A team is robbed when they don't get announced in the right place then their moment is stolen. I feel really bad for the kids who didn't get their jacket immediately but they WILL get a jacket. If there is one thing in life I have learned it is that someone will always find something to complain about. While the feelings are justified it is not the last time a child will be disappointed.
I feel the jacket situation was inexcusable. The competition was well run, Cheersport is my favorite competition of the season, we look forward to it. That isn't my complaint. My complaint is that the team my kids are on has had their eyes on the prize all year long. They have pushed themselves and pushed themselves to win Cheersport. They won Cheersport, it may never happen for them again, it won't happen for some because they are seniors. Part of the Cheersport experience is strutting around that convention center in your national champion jacket. My kids got jackets, but they only had youth medium, adult medium, and adult large (we were at 7:30 awards session). There are 5 kids on my team of 35 who have the proper sized jacket. Those girls took the wrong sized jackets because they wanted to strut around in them.
As I told the gentleman in charge backstage, this is ridiculous. The significance of the event is lost by the end of March, when we were told the jackets would be sent to our homes if we ordered them. Does Cheersport not realize how prestigious their event is, how every single one of those 20,000 cheerleaders has the same dream, to win their division and feel that jacket on their back and take pictures with their team in the jacket, then walk around the competition in the jacket. Not getting jackets until the end of March is ridiculous.
Saying that at least they won, and at least they are getting jackets when a lot of teams didn't win is minimizing what the kids who won didn't get, they WON Cheersport and they want everyone to know it, right now. The kids who won and didn't get jackets had an experience taken away from them. They got the awesome and amazing experience of getting called first place in awards. But they lost the experience of wearing their jackets around the convention center, home, and to school the next day.
Cheersport should have more jackets than they need. They give out the same jackets every year, so it's better to have too many than not enough. They can store the extras. If I told Cheersport I ran out of money and couldn't pay my admission fee, but I could send it to them when I got home, I doubt they would let me in the competition on an IOU.