High School Needs A Pre-novice Level!

[Heather Mc]

Seriously, all-star athletes, who by definition have more resources with which to work, get to start at level one, but high school teams have to start competing at Novice level, which is the same as Level 2. Why can't there be a Pre-Novice level for school teams that are just getting started?

 

[munchkinmom]

High school sports are more focused on your school versus every other school in your county/region/conference whichever, instead of your school versus others at the same level. Where all-star seems to put kids on a team where the team can max out score sheets, rec/school seems more likely to pick a level that they can work on teaching the team to safely and highlight their better group of athletes, even if this means they leave points behind because they can't throw full team standing back handsprings (or back tucks, or whichever, depending on the team). Most high schools can put together a team where even new girls can learn to fly/base 1 leg stunts at prep level by competition and have a couple people throw back handsprings.

 

[Heather Mc]

Yep, and that's what we're doing. But you get the high schools where 3/4 of the athletes also cheer all-star or take gymnastics outside of school (it's not even on our provincial curriculum anymore), against teams like ours where only about half the girls arrive with even a roundoff. I would just like to see a more level playing field, is all.

 

[GeneralsCheer]

I coach in Vermont- a state where cheerleading is still not broken into novice, intermediate, advanced, etc. Instead you compete in a division- squads with more than 12 girls are in division 1 and smaller squads in division 2. Score sheets have been broken down into novice, intermediate, and advance for skills and teams score within certain a points range for tumbling, stunts, etc based on their skills, this still leaves squads that may not have the tumbling skills, but have the numbers, to compete with squads that have full standing tucks and BHS. While I see problems with this system, it also allows teams to max their score sheets in other areas they maybe strong at such as stunting. The high school squad that I use to coach competes in division 1. There are 2 girls on the team that have BHS, but they are competing against several teams with all star level tumbling passes. However, my squads pyramids score is just as high as these other teams. I'm not sure there is a completely right answer or system for any level of cheer, but I think great strides have been made. Maybe you can find out when your states next coaches meeting is and address the issues you have there- maybe other coaches are feeling the same way. Nobody gets anywhere if everyone stays quiet. Good luck!