High School Pros/cons Of Small Comp Team

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Mar 30, 2011
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This year, the head coach and I were thinking about doing things differently. Everyone who tried out, makes the varsity cheer team. And it seems like the new thing to do is have 12-14 girls on the mat competing. We are thinking about trying that. My only concern is that those teams that have such few girls on the mat are amazing! Full team tumbling/standing tucks/insane stunts. Our girls are nowhere at that level. We have around 8 back handsprings total. Only a couple of them have good tumbling passes. Our stunting isn't bad, although we haven't really stunted a whole lot yet. So is it really a good idea to cut the team down to such a small number when we don't really have the tumbling and mediocre stunting? There are a lot of girls that attend tumbling classes, and unfortunately it is always the case of "shes working on it and is really close" and never gets it. Just wondering everyone's thoughts about this. I feel like we can do more with a bigger team, but is that worth it too?
 
I saw one team in my state compete with 7 girls on the floor. 7. They had about 15 other girls who were fully dressed and just sat in front of the mat instead of competing. Can you imagine letting 22 girls onto a competitive team, then only competing 7?!??! I cannot imagine how disappointed those girls must have felt after what I'm sure was an entire season of hard work and effort. Hmph. Just doesn't seem fair to me.
Sorry. Rant over.
 
Well a pro of a large team is it's more physically appealing, you can do cooler formations and such. Also you never know why is going to just get it and learn things very quickly. That was the case for so many of our girls. We have a girl who can triple down with no problem and a lot of girls who got tucks within weeks of learning how to backhandspring. Overall, I think it's better to stay as large as possible :)
 
I think a pro of the small team is that it is easier to get everyone together on motions, dances, jumps, etc. And there will only be two or three stunt groups, which isn't always good, but there's less people to help/watch in practice, so your coach can really concentrate on helping everyone! My high school team was cut down to small this year, and the most tumbling we had was roundoffs:p Our stunting wasn't great either, but I think we grew as a team (in mature-ness and skill) because we had fewer "less dedicated" individuals, and we learned more from our coach because she had time to concentrate on helping us individually because we were so small of a team:)
I must admit, I agree that bigger teams are cool to watch, but small teams can be equally as visually appealing:)
 
With some of the new rules I think Bigger teams will help in the pyramid department, however, I personally like smaller if you have the skills to do so.

When I was choosing my team, to take more then 16 on varsity for competition would have not made sense. 1: I would have had a JV who would have not been competititve at all and 2: minus about 4 girls on JV that could have broken through and held their own on varsity, it just made no sense to move them this year.

Next season, we are losing 8 seniors and I am confident this way having the larger JV to really work on basics and skills will make a simple transition to varsity.

I know a little off topic, BUT my point being, I think people need to look at the make-up of their team and decide what is best for them. If in the case above that you only have 8 tumblers and you know small teams really are pushing the envelope in the tumbling, I would go larger, use the girls and really emphasize the stunting!
 
I saw one team in my state compete with 7 girls on the floor. 7. They had about 15 other girls who were fully dressed and just sat in front of the mat instead of competing. Can you imagine letting 22 girls onto a competitive team, then only competing 7?!??! I cannot imagine how disappointed those girls must have felt after what I'm sure was an entire season of hard work and effort. Hmph. Just doesn't seem fair to me.
Sorry. Rant over.

I obviously wasn't there, but maybe only those 7 girls met the requirements to compete? I'm sure the coach had some reasoning behind it!

Anyways, I think the more girls you have the more you can do with stunts and visual effects. And since you don't have team tumbling, that will probably be in your favor at a competition. Having 5 stunt groups on the floor instead of 4 can make a huge difference IMO. I think you'd be better off focusing on some really creative stunts and pyramids, then maybe in the future you could do just the 12-14 girls.

Also, I would suggest a team tumbling practice. Make it a requirement or if you can't do that, make all the girls that do take classes take the same one so that way it feels more like a practice. If girls are taking tumbling classes with their best friend, I can't imagine they're getting a whole lot done!
 
I don't think small is that bad of an idea for you. With only 8 that can tumble that's over half of the team tumbling, small varsity is usually up to 12 girls and if you were a large team of about 24 then that's only a third of the team that can tumble.
 
Depending on where you're competing, a small team can be an advantage or disadvantage. If I competed NCA, I'd much rather take 8-12 girls with tumbling and/or strong stunting to make a good novice team and then take the rest to make a JV non-tumbling team, rather than try to go large novice with less than half the team tumbling (won't max out on the scoresheet: 1/2 team + 1 = majority). If I was competing UCA where there is only 1 level, I may think differently since I'd know the top placing small teams would have squad tucks,etc. (plus stunting and cleanliness are such a big part of that scoresheet).

In your case, I'd put the girls that have tumbling in one list and then look at where you stand. Do you have enough flyers/bases/backspots,etc. with these 8? (we all know the kids that have tumbling but just for the life of them can't seem to pick up basing,etc.).......While tumbling is important, there may be some holes that need to be filled to max score sheets out. Can't emphasize enough to accommodate whatever score sheet your team will be competing with!
 
Such good advice! Thanks for your input everyone! I definitely agree about being able to do more with a larger team. Maxing out stunts and jumps the best we can, may be able to compensate with the lack of tumbling. Now I just have to convince the head coach that this idea is better!
 
This year, the head coach and I were thinking about doing things differently. Everyone who tried out, makes the varsity cheer team. And it seems like the new thing to do is have 12-14 girls on the mat competing. We are thinking about trying that. My only concern is that those teams that have such few girls on the mat are amazing! Full team tumbling/standing tucks/insane stunts. Our girls are nowhere at that level. We have around 8 back handsprings total. Only a couple of them have good tumbling passes. Our stunting isn't bad, although we haven't really stunted a whole lot yet. So is it really a good idea to cut the team down to such a small number when we don't really have the tumbling and mediocre stunting? There are a lot of girls that attend tumbling classes, and unfortunately it is always the case of "shes working on it and is really close" and never gets it. Just wondering everyone's thoughts about this. I feel like we can do more with a bigger team, but is that worth it too?
I can relate. We've been throwing the idea around all season. Ultimately we decided to go large because of pyramids. We also felt like we may be cutting the legs out from underneath us type thing. Some of our non-tumblers are our best stunters. Last year we did alternates. I will say the work ethic of everyone was the best it had ever been, they all knew there was someone there ready for their spot if they got lazy. A team near us however didn't go so well, it backfired for them and their alternates quit. I think it depends on the make-up of the team. Whatever you do, decide at the beginning and lay it out for them, don't just spring it on them. I will agree with the difficulty of small though. This season a nationally well known team near me has full team triple toe backs and the stunt sequence I saw last month was ridiculously hard and it was only May! That division is tough!
 
Something that I have noticed at the college and high school level: The bigger the team, the less clean they seem to be.
For example, at one competition there was a huge team, like 36 girls, and in general they were pretty good. They had a high skill level and about half the team could tumble. However, they were a hot mess - probably the sloppiest routine I have ever seen. While they could do cool stunts and awesome visual effects, they got dead last.
Other teams had a lower skill level, not-so-amazing stunts, but hit cleanly.

Just something to take in to consideration.
 
Depending on how many people have the skills, you can do just fine with a small team. In order to credit for squad tumbling only a certain percentage of your squad has to throw it, so you can get the same points as a larger team. And if you do as many stunts as you can with how many people you have, you can also score the same as a large team.
 
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