Last spring was the first tryout I conducted at the school where I am coaching. Not only did we not use judges. We didn't have a traditional clinic/tryout. We scored the girls on tumbling the first day, a chant the second. Our fight song the third, and evaluated their stunting potential on the 4th.
Having outside cheer judges is the biggest cop out in athletics. Combine it with the traditional "closed tryout session," and you've got a recipe for shady coaching. Got a girl you don't want with exceptional skills? Just don't let anyone see her tryout, don't let anyone see the scores, don't put her on the team, and blame it on the judges' "final" decision. I stopped judging other people's tryouts when I would hand coaches the scores, watch them throw them away without looking, and hang up their own results. I knew I was taking the heat for their shadiness.
As a coach, I refuse to have other people on which I can place the blame, I don't need a scape goat because I have the guts to stand behind and defend my decisions. They're pretty easy to defend, as we line up the scores from top to bottom and put the top scores on the team. There's little to argue, as the girls were all in the gym and watched Betty Sue do her full compared to Julie Lou and her front walkover. When we get to the bottom three or four slots, we will take a hard look at kids who's scores are all close together, comparing things like "seniors who haven't improved vs freshmen with potential," etc.
The idea that cheerleading needs outside judges is archaic and ridiculous.
