All-Star Retired allstar cheerleader and why I quit.

[Thinkpositivethoughts]

So after a lot of thought and time, and just debating on rather or not I should even share why I quit allstar cheerleading and i realized why not. It’s honestly not good to just keep things bottled up.

I would also like to add in that I am on my older sister’s account . She doesn’t use it anymore so why not…lol

Sooooo anyways….

I started cheerleading at a very young age. In a way I guess you could say I was “destined and meant” to be a cheerleader. By that I mean, I came from a family of cheerleaders…school and competitive. At first I loved it..it was my first love and well what made me happy.
**I did go to a very well known power house gym, but I will not disclose the name. I don’t want anyone to think I am slandering the gym.*
But as I got older and started making more advanced teams, and going to more competitions I started to realize how toxic the sport was. I honestly realized it while I was on my junior 6 coed team (This was after a team mom from another team we beat at summit, made a post hoping my team wrecked or were in an accident going home.) But as I grew older and was on a worlds teams, I really started to realize how toxic the sport is, not necessarily from my coaches or the gym owners…but the fans/stans.

Yes in reality your team or gym having “fans/stans” sounds like an amazing thing until you have a tumbling bust or if you were a flyer like myself and your stunt drops. Sadly, this was part of why I ended up quitting…allstar cheer fans can be very hateful and mean…especially when given a keyboard and a anonymous user name. I know that not all are like this, but on any given day a mass majority of them are. Making a worlds team…and my dream team at that ended up being what broke me and made me fall out of love with the sport of cheerleading. I stuck it out for 5 years on my dream team. But after the 2020-2021 season I realized that I just couldn’t take the cyber bullying and such anymore. After my final season and just hearing some of the fans complaining and being just down right rude and mean because we won worlds over their favorites. I just couldn’t take it and deal with it anymore. By this point I had already deleted twitter…but that didn’t stop people from finding my instagram and my teammates accounts and telling them how we didn’t deserve to win and how we cheated and robbed the team who took 2nd. My coaches and teammates completely understood where I was coming from, and they honestly supported my decision.

I still show my support for my former gym, teammates, and other teams at my gym. At the end of the day they are still my sisters and extra sets of parents. I have still been in the gym doing privates to keep up my tumbling and stunting skills…as I have decided maybe college cheerleading won’t be that bad and will give me a much different experience.

I am now in my senior year and honestly I got to experience so much stuff the past couple of years that allstar would have unfortunately caused me to miss out on.

Now to just narrow down my top 5 universities to just one.

 

[Lizzy]

Good for you for deciding to be done with all-star and noticing that is was no longer a healthy environment for you.
My DD participated in all-star for one season, her senior year. Because my dd and myself came from a position of not 'growing up in the sport' we were in a unique position to really see things from a different perspective. There were many times throughout the season that I was disappointed, shocked, outraged by the things we saw and experienced, but we were told over and over 'that is just the way it is' and it really made me sad to see not just cheerleaders, but whole families so used to this unhealthy environment that they just accept it as normal. I didn't even know cheer twitter was a thing until competitions started and even putting aside all the social media, just the experience at the competitions was awful. People pushing their way through, running to be up front, standing on chairs to see 'famous' teams blocking everyone else's view and ignoring the directions from the officials to get off the chairs (and these are adults, not just the cheerleaders!). While running up front and standing on chairs blocking other's view may not seem like a big deal, it is the mentality behind it that is significant, 'I am more important than anyone else- I don't care how my actions affect anyone else' (And this is what carries over into the social media and fans the criticizing young girls not thinking about how it affects them)
Parents on the team getting 'giddy' when another team falls because that means their team will beat them. The coaches and parents complaining that the judging was bad- and coaches even saying out loud in a parent meeting 'I don't know if X team had a friend judging or what.'
And then there is the over-the top celebrations for 1st place with the jackets and all the stuff along with a bajillion made up divisions so that you can post on social media that your team are the 'champions' (never mind the fact that you may have been competing against only one team or even just yourselves).
As the season continued, it made me sick to my stomach to pay $70 a weekend to experience these competitions.
I am so glad that you have found life outside of cheer, there is so much more to this great big wide world- and best wishes to you in your college adventures!

 

[catlady]

You summed up the toxic environment in youth sports eloquently and I'm not sure it's going to get better any time soon. Kudos for identifying a situation that wasn't healthy for you and leaving.

Cost, Social Media, Drama
Cost- Parents are paying out thousands yearly, and the mental financial investment has risen with each dollar paid. "If I'm paying this much, I expect pro like results not only from my child, but everyone else's child, as well." <<<The first sign they can't afford, nor should they be spending, the money for their child to participate.
Social Media- The perfect place for the undisciplined and simple minded to spew whatever venom pops into their, otherwise, empty heads. The most cowardly do it anonymously, the idiots do it as themselves. People should be blocking them, but instead, parents and fans continue to follow and repost the drama at the cost of children. The only response they should get, if any, is "Block."
Drama-Until we acknowledge drama exists only to divide, anger, and in most cases, entertain others, we will continue down this path solely at the expense of others. Pic any topic these days and you'll notice there's a lot of manufactured drama on social media that prevents true progression.

Again, good for you for getting out of an environment that wasn't good for you.

 

[Oscar Stern]

Maybe in a year the environment will improve & you could consider returning to Cheer Squad. Remember Katerina Kohel's 3 former teammates who quit for personal reasons? They actually told me that they're thinking about returning to Cheerleading next year.

 

[Oscar Stern]

So after a lot of thought and time, and just debating on rather or not I should even share why I quit allstar cheerleading and i realized why not. It’s honestly not good to just keep things bottled up.

I would also like to add in that I am on my older sister’s account . She doesn’t use it anymore so why not…lol

Sooooo anyways….

I started cheerleading at a very young age. In a way I guess you could say I was “destined and meant” to be a cheerleader. By that I mean, I came from a family of cheerleaders…school and competitive. At first I loved it..it was my first love and well what made me happy.
**I did go to a very well known power house gym, but I will not disclose the name. I don’t want anyone to think I am slandering the gym.*
But as I got older and started making more advanced teams, and going to more competitions I started to realize how toxic the sport was. I honestly realized it while I was on my junior 6 coed team (This was after a team mom from another team we beat at summit, made a post hoping my team wrecked or were in an accident going home.) But as I grew older and was on a worlds teams, I really started to realize how toxic the sport is, not necessarily from my coaches or the gym owners…but the fans/stans.

Yes in reality your team or gym having “fans/stans” sounds like an amazing thing until you have a tumbling bust or if you were a flyer like myself and your stunt drops. Sadly, this was part of why I ended up quitting…allstar cheer fans can be very hateful and mean…especially when given a keyboard and a anonymous user name. I know that not all are like this, but on any given day a mass majority of them are. Making a worlds team…and my dream team at that ended up being what broke me and made me fall out of love with the sport of cheerleading. I stuck it out for 5 years on my dream team. But after the 2020-2021 season I realized that I just couldn’t take the cyber bullying and such anymore. After my final season and just hearing some of the fans complaining and being just down right rude and mean because we won worlds over their favorites. I just couldn’t take it and deal with it anymore. By this point I had already deleted twitter…but that didn’t stop people from finding my instagram and my teammates accounts and telling them how we didn’t deserve to win and how we cheated and robbed the team who took 2nd. My coaches and teammates completely understood where I was coming from, and they honestly supported my decision.

I still show my support for my former gym, teammates, and other teams at my gym. At the end of the day they are still my sisters and extra sets of parents. I have still been in the gym doing privates to keep up my tumbling and stunting skills…as I have decided maybe college cheerleading won’t be that bad and will give me a much different experience.

I am now in my senior year and honestly I got to experience so much stuff the past couple of years that allstar would have unfortunately caused me to miss out on.

Now to just narrow down my top 5 universities to just one.

Maybe when you go to College you can return to cheer

 

[Oscar Stern]

So after a lot of thought and time, and just debating on rather or not I should even share why I quit allstar cheerleading and i realized why not. It’s honestly not good to just keep things bottled up.

I would also like to add in that I am on my older sister’s account . She doesn’t use it anymore so why not…lol

Sooooo anyways….

I started cheerleading at a very young age. In a way I guess you could say I was “destined and meant” to be a cheerleader. By that I mean, I came from a family of cheerleaders…school and competitive. At first I loved it..it was my first love and well what made me happy.
**I did go to a very well known power house gym, but I will not disclose the name. I don’t want anyone to think I am slandering the gym.*
But as I got older and started making more advanced teams, and going to more competitions I started to realize how toxic the sport was. I honestly realized it while I was on my junior 6 coed team (This was after a team mom from another team we beat at summit, made a post hoping my team wrecked or were in an accident going home.) But as I grew older and was on a worlds teams, I really started to realize how toxic the sport is, not necessarily from my coaches or the gym owners…but the fans/stans.

Yes in reality your team or gym having “fans/stans” sounds like an amazing thing until you have a tumbling bust or if you were a flyer like myself and your stunt drops. Sadly, this was part of why I ended up quitting…allstar cheer fans can be very hateful and mean…especially when given a keyboard and a anonymous user name. I know that not all are like this, but on any given day a mass majority of them are. Making a worlds team…and my dream team at that ended up being what broke me and made me fall out of love with the sport of cheerleading. I stuck it out for 5 years on my dream team. But after the 2020-2021 season I realized that I just couldn’t take the cyber bullying and such anymore. After my final season and just hearing some of the fans complaining and being just down right rude and mean because we won worlds over their favorites. I just couldn’t take it and deal with it anymore. By this point I had already deleted twitter…but that didn’t stop people from finding my instagram and my teammates accounts and telling them how we didn’t deserve to win and how we cheated and robbed the team who took 2nd. My coaches and teammates completely understood where I was coming from, and they honestly supported my decision.

I still show my support for my former gym, teammates, and other teams at my gym. At the end of the day they are still my sisters and extra sets of parents. I have still been in the gym doing privates to keep up my tumbling and stunting skills…as I have decided maybe college cheerleading won’t be that bad and will give me a much different experience.

I am now in my senior year and honestly I got to experience so much stuff the past couple of years that allstar would have unfortunately caused me to miss out on.

Now to just narrow down my top 5 universities to just one.

Perhaps you'll consider returning to Cheer someday.

 

[LittleMissA17]

Yeah I was hearing a lot of the toxic competition behavior that was occurring at the major competitions this past year. I remember seeing a clip of everyone trying to rush the front of the stage when Top Gun was about to go on at I think Cheersport! I think (and as much discussion as it brought,) Cheer brought in a lot of new cheer fans that have zero clue on competition etiquette or to not harass minors because they fell at a major competition. I really think everyone being locked up the last few year brought everyone online to such a high degree that people forgot how to act in public. They also grew much nastier online.

 

[Oscar Stern]

Yeah I was hearing a lot of the toxic competition behavior that was occurring at the major competitions this past year. I remember seeing a clip of everyone trying to rush the front of the stage when Top Gun was about to go on at I think Cheersport! I think (and as much discussion as it brought,) Cheer brought in a lot of new cheer fans that have zero clue on competition etiquette or to not harass minors because they fell at a major competition. I really think everyone being locked up the last few year brought everyone online to such a high degree that people forgot how to act in public. They also grew much nastier online.

None of those Cheerleaders are supposed to be toxic these days so they have to improve if you ever wanna make a comeback.

 

[Oscar Stern]

So after a lot of thought and time, and just debating on rather or not I should even share why I quit allstar cheerleading and i realized why not. It’s honestly not good to just keep things bottled up.

I would also like to add in that I am on my older sister’s account . She doesn’t use it anymore so why not…lol

Sooooo anyways….

I started cheerleading at a very young age. In a way I guess you could say I was “destined and meant” to be a cheerleader. By that I mean, I came from a family of cheerleaders…school and competitive. At first I loved it..it was my first love and well what made me happy.
*I did go to a very well known power house gym, but I will not disclose the name. I don’t want anyone to think I am slandering the gym.
But as I got older and started making more advanced teams, and going to more competitions I started to realize how toxic the sport was. I honestly realized it while I was on my junior 6 coed team (This was after a team mom from another team we beat at summit, made a post hoping my team wrecked or were in an accident going home.) But as I grew older and was on a worlds teams, I really started to realize how toxic the sport is, not necessarily from my coaches or the gym owners…but the fans/stans.

Yes in reality your team or gym having “fans/stans” sounds like an amazing thing until you have a tumbling bust or if you were a flyer like myself and your stunt drops. Sadly, this was part of why I ended up quitting…allstar cheer fans can be very hateful and mean…especially when given a keyboard and a anonymous user name. I know that not all are like this, but on any given day a mass majority of them are. Making a worlds team…and my dream team at that ended up being what broke me and made me fall out of love with the sport of cheerleading. I stuck it out for 5 years on my dream team. But after the 2020-2021 season I realized that I just couldn’t take the cyber bullying and such anymore. After my final season and just hearing some of the fans complaining and being just down right rude and mean because we won worlds over their favorites. I just couldn’t take it and deal with it anymore. By this point I had already deleted twitter…but that didn’t stop people from finding my instagram and my teammates accounts and telling them how we didn’t deserve to win and how we cheated and robbed the team who took 2nd. My coaches and teammates completely understood where I was coming from, and they honestly supported my decision.

I still show my support for my former gym, teammates, and other teams at my gym. At the end of the day they are still my sisters and extra sets of parents. I have still been in the gym doing privates to keep up my tumbling and stunting skills…as I have decided maybe college cheerleading won’t be that bad and will give me a much different experience.

I am now in my senior year and honestly I got to experience so much stuff the past couple of years that allstar would have unfortunately caused me to miss out on.

Now to just narrow down my top 5 universities to just one.

I hope you get to do college Cheer

 

[Oscar Stern]

There's things about Cheer that do need to change.

 

[Oscar Stern]

So after a lot of thought and time, and just debating on rather or not I should even share why I quit allstar cheerleading and i realized why not. It’s honestly not good to just keep things bottled up.

I would also like to add in that I am on my older sister’s account . She doesn’t use it anymore so why not…lol

Sooooo anyways….

I started cheerleading at a very young age. In a way I guess you could say I was “destined and meant” to be a cheerleader. By that I mean, I came from a family of cheerleaders…school and competitive. At first I loved it..it was my first love and well what made me happy.
*I did go to a very well known power house gym, but I will not disclose the name. I don’t want anyone to think I am slandering the gym.
But as I got older and started making more advanced teams, and going to more competitions I started to realize how toxic the sport was. I honestly realized it while I was on my junior 6 coed team (This was after a team mom from another team we beat at summit, made a post hoping my team wrecked or were in an accident going home.) But as I grew older and was on a worlds teams, I really started to realize how toxic the sport is, not necessarily from my coaches or the gym owners…but the fans/stans.

Yes in reality your team or gym having “fans/stans” sounds like an amazing thing until you have a tumbling bust or if you were a flyer like myself and your stunt drops. Sadly, this was part of why I ended up quitting…allstar cheer fans can be very hateful and mean…especially when given a keyboard and a anonymous user name. I know that not all are like this, but on any given day a mass majority of them are. Making a worlds team…and my dream team at that ended up being what broke me and made me fall out of love with the sport of cheerleading. I stuck it out for 5 years on my dream team. But after the 2020-2021 season I realized that I just couldn’t take the cyber bullying and such anymore. After my final season and just hearing some of the fans complaining and being just down right rude and mean because we won worlds over their favorites. I just couldn’t take it and deal with it anymore. By this point I had already deleted twitter…but that didn’t stop people from finding my instagram and my teammates accounts and telling them how we didn’t deserve to win and how we cheated and robbed the team who took 2nd. My coaches and teammates completely understood where I was coming from, and they honestly supported my decision.

I still show my support for my former gym, teammates, and other teams at my gym. At the end of the day they are still my sisters and extra sets of parents. I have still been in the gym doing privates to keep up my tumbling and stunting skills…as I have decided maybe college cheerleading won’t be that bad and will give me a much different experience.

I am now in my senior year and honestly I got to experience so much stuff the past couple of years that allstar would have unfortunately caused me to miss out on.

Now to just narrow down my top 5 universities to just one.

You should give college cheerleading a go so "Fingers crossed"