I've mentioned before that I was a cheerleader when I was in junior high and
high school. The jr high cheering was fun but high school pretty much sucked.
It was an actual class - 4th period, I think. We worked on learning new cheers
and formations and general healthiness. I know we had weekly trips to the gym
to work with weights. That was good - I needed the strength training since I
was ALWAYS on the bottom of any formation. Need a pyramid? Guess who one of
the three girls on the bottom will be? Need a base for some spry skinny
cheerleader? Get Heather. That's one of the reasons for my bad knees today -
too many people climbing on my back.

One cool thing about the JV Cheerleading squad that I was on: We were the
first squad to EVER win a trophy at the state cheerleading championships. We
went to Denver and competed with a ton of other perky chicks (& a few perky
guys) and kicked some major booty! I do remember that we were instructed to
wear banana combs in our hair - I had real short hair then, nothing that a
banana comb would fit in and the stupid sponsor women tried to put one in my
hair anyway, just so we would all be uniform! DUH!!!

I was kicked off that team, though. See, one of the rules in cheerleading was
that if you missed 3 games, you were gone. Weeellll....I didn't drive, both my
parents worked, we weren't allowed to ride on the buses with the players (even
though I did, once...football team, I think. The coach made an exception for
me) so HOW THE BLAZES WAS SUPPOSED TO GET TO PUEBLO?????? To cheer for the
dumb swimming team? Ugh!

Jr. high was MUCH more fun. A lot of my friends were on the squad, including
Billie Jo who was the only girl that could do the splits and kick so high that
one day she popped herself in the nose with her knee and about knocked herself
out! Then there was Renee who, while visiting Janitell Jr High, got smacked in
the face with a basketball so when we did the Hello Cheer, it went something
like this:

ALL: We are the Spartans and we're here to say hello!

ME: Heather! (pause...jerk my head towards Renee cuz [duh!] someone was
standing on my back) That's Renee!

All I remember is everyone laughed at that stunt!

I was talking about cheerleading a while back while going through my mom's high
school yearbooks. I told her that when I was little I thought for sure she
should have been a cheerleader. She said that, no, she was too shy and she was
sure surprised when I mentioned I was going to go out for the squad. BUT!!
She also admitted that she didn't want me to cuz she didn't want me to be
crushed when I didn't make it. Notice the use of the word "when" and not "if."
Oh, ye of little faith, Mom.


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