High School Tryout Season

[CoachTamara]

To all the high school coaches: What is your ideal cheer parent?

I want a parent that realizes they can support their child and leave the coaching to me, and supports not only the interests of their kid, but the entire team as a whole.

Much easier said than done, but these magical unicorn parents do exist... Usually the crazies just overpower them and never leave you alone long enough to appreciate the good ones.

 

[Elle B]

Well...



I had probably 15 complaints that actually reached me all year (who cares about the ones that never get to me).

Thank you! I love that you don't worry about the stuff you don't hear. You are both a cheer coach and a Zen master:)

 

[Elle B]

I always used to joke that my ideal kid was an orphan.

Ha Ha! I think that says it all right there.

 

[Elle B]

I want a parent that realizes they can support their child and leave the coaching to me, and supports not only the interests of their kid, but the entire team as a whole.

Sort of like you have to remind the parents that "A rising tide lifts all boats"?

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

I want a parent that realizes they can support their child and leave the coaching to me, and supports not only the interests of their kid, but the entire team as a whole.

Much easier said than done, but these magical unicorn parents do exist... Usually the crazies just overpower them and never leave you alone long enough to appreciate the good ones.

So true, until I started thinking about my numbers for my post above...I had thought it was a pretty bad year. If less than 25% of my parents are a problem, that means that more than 3/4 of them are good folks.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

Question: How do you all handle teaching dance during tryouts/clinics?

We have had open gyms, this is our clinic week and tryouts are this weekend.

I have had complaints from JV parents about how we do not explicitly teach every piece of the dance every day at clinics. The JV coach has them learn so much of it every day and reviews it over and over.

My system: The dance is posted to YT (private.) You are expected to learn it so that when you come to clinics, you can tweak little mistakes, get feedback, and focus on technique and getting it performance ready. Same with the cheer. We do not hold your hand and teach you every little count of it. Most of my girls have cheered long enough that cleaning it up and running it all the way through 2x or so for 30 min in clinics is enough.

Same with the cheer. The coaches and outgoing seniors are there to give feedback but we do not hold your hand every count of the dance and teach it ad nauseum every day of clinics. I'd rather you learn it outside of clinics so when you come in, we can help you get it ready.

Also, there are so many other areas of focus for clinics like stunting and time to perfect jumps and tumbling.

Email I got today.

Parent: I am concerned because Becky has not been taught the dance. When will it be taught?

Me: As noted during parent meeting, we post it to YT for girls to practice at home, giving them a chance to refine it at clinics with our seniors. It has been up since start of open gym.

Parent: Evaluations are this weekend.

Parent: I'm aware but my daughter has dance and all star cheer for the past few weeks and has not had time to look. The JV coach taught the dance to the girls piece by piece.

Me: At this level I expect girls to be being proactive and taking time to learn material outside of practice. When the season starts, should she make the team, the athletes are expected to learn cheers via DVD so we can clean them up at practice. This prepares them for that.

Parent: I understand but how is she supposed to do that with so many other things going on?

Me: She is free to contact any of the outgoing seniors for help or spend time at home with the video. Again, best of luck to her this weekend. With her dance experience, picking up choreography should be no problem.

Parent: So she basically has til Saturday to learn a dance she has not even looked at?

Me: Yes. Again, there is help with cleaning up the dance at the remaining clinics. Best of luck!

Ma'am. You really are telling me your child has cheered JV for a year, cheered all star for 4, danced since 6th grade, and can't watch a YouTube video and pick up a 60 second dance?

 

[SparkleSpankies]

Ugh, this is frustrating. You guys sound like great coaches, it's frustrating things are made so difficult for people that truly care.

It is frustrating how a principal who has no idea what is going on and who is just tired of drama is going to slap a bandaid on it. 2 of the kids that complained were asked to not help middle school this year bc all they did was yelled..... and were negative. They will tell you, I don't raise my voice. With that being said, they would come into my practice talking about how much they hated everything, and it was known... yet they are graduating and I get to go.. PEACE OUT.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

Question: How do you all handle teaching dance during tryouts/clinics?

We have had open gyms, this is our clinic week and tryouts are this weekend.

I have had complaints from JV parents about how we do not explicitly teach every piece of the dance every day at clinics. The JV coach has them learn so much of it every day and reviews it over and over.

My system: The dance is posted to YT (private.) You are expected to learn it so that when you come to clinics, you can tweak little mistakes, get feedback, and focus on technique and getting it performance ready. Same with the cheer. We do not hold your hand and teach you every little count of it. Most of my girls have cheered long enough that cleaning it up and running it all the way through 2x or so for 30 min in clinics is enough.

Same with the cheer. The coaches and outgoing seniors are there to give feedback but we do not hold your hand every count of the dance and teach it ad nauseum every day of clinics. I'd rather you learn it outside of clinics so when you come in, we can help you get it ready.

Also, there are so many other areas of focus for clinics like stunting and time to perfect jumps and tumbling.

Email I got today.

Parent: I am concerned because Becky has not been taught the dance. When will it be taught?

Me: As noted during parent meeting, we post it to YT for girls to practice at home, giving them a chance to refine it at clinics with our seniors. It has been up since start of open gym.

Parent: Evaluations are this weekend.

Parent: I'm aware but my daughter has dance and all star cheer for the past few weeks and has not had time to look. The JV coach taught the dance to the girls piece by piece.

Me: At this level I expect girls to be being proactive and taking time to learn material outside of practice. When the season starts, should she make the team, the athletes are expected to learn cheers via DVD so we can clean them up at practice. This prepares them for that.

Parent: I understand but how is she supposed to do that with so many other things going on?

Me: She is free to contact any of the outgoing seniors for help or spend time at home with the video. Again, best of luck to her this weekend. With her dance experience, picking up choreography should be no problem.

Parent: So she basically has til Saturday to learn a dance she has not even looked at?

Me: Yes. Again, there is help with cleaning up the dance at the remaining clinics. Best of luck!

Ma'am. You really are telling me your child has cheered JV for a year, cheered all star for 4, danced since 6th grade, and can't watch a YouTube video and pick up a 60 second dance?

All we do is our fight song, so EVERYONE except the new people know it. I do not invite outgoing seniors to help with tryouts, but I do not turn them away either. I have a stated "rule" that if someone is asked for help with fight song or our chant, and do not provide help willingly, they are jeopardizing their spot on the team. It hasn't happened that way yet. The material is so simple, though, that I can't imagine anyone not learning it.

I don't believe in making tryouts unnecessarily difficult or stressful. The kids put the stress on themselves.

 

[CoachTamara]

In all honesty I'm not looking for perfect motions or good jumps at all, especially for my sideline team. We have 4 days of clinics, and I'm looking for the kids that practiced and tried. I can teach you skills, I can't teach you the desire to practice and be better than the day before.

The kids I cut last year came in and didn't even know the dance or cheer we had spent the entire week on... To me, you aren't serious and I don't want you on my team.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

In all honesty I'm not looking for perfect motions or good jumps at all, especially for my sideline team. We have 4 days of clinics, and I'm looking for the kids that practiced and tried. I can teach you skills, I can't teach you the desire to practice and be better than the day before.

The kids I cut last year came in and didn't even know the dance or cheer we had spent the entire week on... To me, you aren't serious and I don't want you on my team.

Especially if you see zero improvement over the week.

They can not "know" it, but still have some improvement. Especially if they're brand new.

 

[AScheer]

Question: How do you all handle teaching dance during tryouts/clinics?

We teach the dance the first day at clinics. It's a new dance so everyone is on the same level. No one knows or has seen it prior to that day. A video link is shared that night so they can practice at home. The following days, we will review it as a group a few times, but we don't spend more than a minute or two on it. Once we break out into open practice, one of the stations they can go to is the dance station to clean up or get more one on one help. After the initial teaching the first day, it's on them to remember it & perfect it.

Parent: I understand but how is she supposed to do that with so many other things going on?

You responded much better to this than I would have! If this parent were emailing about my team, she basically has cut her daughter already.

 

[cheer25mom]

In all honesty I'm not looking for perfect motions or good jumps at all, especially for my sideline team. We have 4 days of clinics, and I'm looking for the kids that practiced and tried. I can teach you skills, I can't teach you the desire to practice and be better than the day before.

The kids I cut last year came in and didn't even know the dance or cheer we had spent the entire week on... To me, you aren't serious and I don't want you on my team.

I wish it were that simple here. Local Catholic high school tryouts were this week. They graduate maybe 150 kids a year. 80 girls showed up for tryouts. They took 20 Varsity and 16 JV. Some very talented girls got cut.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

I wish it were that simple here. Local Catholic high school tryouts were this week. They graduate maybe 150 kids a year. 80 girls showed up for tryouts. They took 20 Varsity and 16 JV. Some very talented girls got cut.

Wow.

I typically average about 45 athletes and end up with around 26-27 and a few alternates.

I end up cutting about 15ish. It's always tough because they are not necessarily like, awful. Just not experienced enough or in need of another year on JV and/or some tumbling classes.

@CoachTamara Your sideline is similar to our JV. JV does not compete so their coach (I do not coach JV but I work with them on choreo) tends to look for potential, as some of the girls who show up have all star experience at level 1 or 2, then some have tumbled before and have the required BHS but have never stunted before clinics. It's a mixture from "I almost have a BHS series and can base a prep" to "I have dance experience but have never cheered."

 

[cheer25mom]

Wow.

I typically average about 45 athletes and end up with around 26-27 and a few alternates.

I end up cutting about 15ish. It's always tough because they are not necessarily like, awful. Just not experienced enough or in need of another year on JV and/or some tumbling classes.

@CoachTamara Your sideline is similar to our JV. JV does not compete so their coach (I do not coach JV but I work with them on choreo) tends to look for potential, as some of the girls who show up have all star experience at level 1 or 2, then some have tumbled before and have the required BHS but have never stunted before clinics. It's a mixture from "I almost have a BHS series and can base a prep" to "I have dance experience but have never cheered."

Yes, it's typical for most high schools around here. One school has almost 3000 kids, their squad cannot build so they only compete game day at one competition a season. They had about 150 girls show up to try out. They had to throw a round off 3BHS on basketball floor to stay the first day of tryouts. All of the girls who made Varsity has a standing tuck. All of JV had running tucks. The middle school that feeds them took 2 girls without a running tuck this year.


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[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

T minus 10 days and counting....