One Vision

My face was burning hot, I felt as if I had a 100 degree fever. My stomach was in my throat. I'd never felt this kind of nervousness. We'd worked our whole season for these next few minutes. If I screwed up, I would have seventeen girls to answer to, the majority of them being seniors who this day was their last chance. One Vision. We'd all said it many times, but it never had as much meaning as it did now. We were one; one school, one team. All together finally at the third round of the Competitive Cheerleading state championships. We'd made it, just like we'd planned. As trivial as it seems, the outcome of this day would change us all forever. We'd either leave here satisfied, or leave wishing that we'd done more. All I knew was that we were going to leave here with something.

It all started with a goal. It was the middle of the summer and we were all sitting on the dirty floor of our quaint little cabin we'd been calling home for the past few days. Cheerleading camp was in full swing, and each team there talked about their aspirations for the season. "Jones," my newly married, tough, inspiring, and loveable cheerleading coach asked us all where we wanted to be at the end of the season in March. I'm almost positive that she asked us, but for some reason I don't remember having a choice. It was decided for me that at the end of the season, we wouldn't be state finalists, but we were going to win the whole thing. I was perfectly fine with the goal set for me, partially because I wanted it too, and partially because I was afraid. I got this vibe from the seniors that my goal had to match theirs because they were not going to tolerate being held back by a lowly junior. As camp came to a close, we went back to practice with a fiery purpose in our hearts. We knew we had a lot of work to do, but we were very optimistic that we'd get it done. The sideline season flew by. We hadn't won anything yet to get us to the Delta Plex, but we knew that as a team we'd made the necessary improvements to give us an edge on the competition.

Going into the competitive season tryouts our team goal was starting to become my own. I wanted it for my senior teammates, but I was beginning to want it for myself. I was still afraid of them, and probably still am to this day, but it had a little more meaning to me. I wasn't just sitting back and soaking in everything. I was contributing to the team and our drams. As we inched closer to March our practice environment intensified. We knew that we needed to leave practice each day feeling like we accomplished something that would get us closer to the finish line. We pushed through each weekend picking up many well-earned 1st place finishes. Even after that many wins, we never let up. Even if we thought we could win with our eyes closed, we still gave it everything we had, building our reputation, and proving that we were one of the best.

Some competitions before “play-off” time were really just formal practices. They meant a lot to us when we won, but they still didn’t count towards the final goal. When we did come to the competitions that counted, we all felt the pressure. We fought our way through conference finals sweeping all four meets just as we’d planned. The next weekend was the regional competition. We stormed out way to number one that day too, finally earning our spot amongst the top ten Class B competitive cheerleading teams in the state of Michigan.

The week of practice in between Regional and State was so exciting. All 18 of us were engulfed with thoughts of the coming weekend—it was all we could talk about. No one could concentrate at school, it filled our lunch conversations; the more I heard my senior teammates talk about how they felt in years past at the state finals, the more excited I became about it. I can recall one day during that week, where I really felt like our team goal to win state finally became totally mine. I wanted it so bad—it’s like everything finally clicked. Everything we’d been working for was finally here, and I was finally living everything that before, I’d just heard about.

Throughout the season, we’d formulated quite a bit of a rivalry between two other class B schools. The girls of "Not to be mentioned" High School were a totally different breed of cheerleader than we were. Whenever they stormed into a room, everyone around them felt a mixture of intimidation and intense annoyance. Their demeanor read so arrogant that you couldn’t help but not like them. (I realize now, that our perception of them was probably totally blinded by competitiveness) But it didn’t matter what we thought of them. We didn’t have the space in our brains to hate them. We were trained to concentrate on ourselves and no one else mattered. We had to have the best performance we’ve ever had. On Saturday, we a had to beat ourselves.

When Saturday finally came, we had to get serious. Even though we’d had a lot of fun getting recognized at school for our accomplishments, when our bus pulled into the arena parking lot, we were all business. I’d never been so nervous during a warm up, but it was all too overwhelming. They were good, but we’d proved that we could hang with the best and I was confident that we would be fine. The first glimpse we had of the crowd was when we lined up for the parade. All the teams were lined up on the mat while each team’s cheering section tried to out cheer the other teams’. When the high school singer finished the national anthem, it was finally time.

There I was, huddled with my teammates absorbing the last words of wisdom before we went out onto the mat for the first time. I knew the crowd had to be loud, by the way they were all jumping and waving signs, but I couldn’t hear them. I was so focused; it was like my team and I were all in a plastic soundproof bubble. Our minds were too busy to interact with our ears. I especially, was going over every motion, every jump, every word, every movement that I remembered practicing over a trillion times. I could hear Jones and Angie’s voices in my head. I recalled all the criticism, I knew what I had to go out there and do. Even with all the self-reassurance going on inside my head, I still felt like the minute I stepped on the mat, I would forget it all.

As I performed during that first round, all I could think about was trying to convince the judges with everything I had, that we deserved their attention and high scores. When I wasn’t trying to send telepathic messages to the judges, my eyes were glued to my two coaches soaking in their silent encouragement, which pushed me to go even harder.

I was so thankful when the first round ended perfectly. We left the mat still filled with the same amount of adrenaline that we entered with. We were hungry for more, we were ready for more, the day was still young, and we were riding high.

By the second round we were feeling the pressure. We’d performed like we wanted to, but the other teams had really stepped it up. We knew we had to have a monumental third round to end the day like we hoped. It was our last chance. At the start of the third round I could feel my whole body shake with nervousness.

So there I was, standing at the mat. By now my face had reached at least to the feeling of a 110 degree fever. This was our very last chance. I couldn’t stress that enough to myself. Round three was the longest round, with a maximum of two minutes and thirty seconds, but after we were finished, I really couldn’t remember what I had just did because it went by so fast. The next thing that happened really caught my by surprise; we were all hugging each other trying to hold on to the excitement as long as we could, when suddenly, we all simultaneously started bawling. At first I really didn’t know why I was crying. I’m sure to other people, we seemed crazy, all of us standing in a huddle crying like that. But then the realization that I would never be able to work with this same group of people again, and we would never have this same exact team again, hit me like a ton of bricks. Which, of course, caused me to cry even harder, and mumble random “I’ll miss you’s” to my senior teammates who I now feared, and loved like my own sisters.

It was all over, we could do no more. We didn’t have the chance to go back home and improve more, or anything like that, it was all in the hands of the judges now. Turns out, those hands couldn’t be trusted as much as we thought, to correctly evaluate our performance and we left the arena with a fourth place finish out of ten. Finding out that we didn’t win, filled me with feelings of confusion, hurt, and betrayal by the judges that I thought I could depend on. I thought they picked up on all of the passion that we were screaming in their faces—literally, we said the word “passion” about eight times in that cheer. In my heart at that moment I was sure that we didn’t deserve fourth place. Looking back now, I know that, the whole experience was about much more than winning. I learned so much more that day and that season, about life that I ever thought I could learn from cheerleading. I learned how to really intensely go after what I wanted, holding nothing back and leaving feeling like I couldn’t have done anything different. I take this lesson with me throughout school now; I can now channel the same feeling of intensity and passion that I got from cheerleading into my schoolwork so that I can accomplish something greater. I can still recall all sorts of things that my two coaches would say to us to inspire us to be the best. Jones took a tougher approach telling us that cheerleading wasn’t fun until you started winning. Which to some people may seem harsh, but it definitely worked for us. Hearing her say that made me want to work hard so that I could experience that fun. It pushed me to be diligent, a trait that I can apply to anything.

Angie on the other hand, was more sentimental and always tugged at our heartstrings. She always told us that there was only one degree between boiling water, and just hot water. And she pushed us to think of what we would do to inch ourselves past that one degree. Now I try to strive to be boiling with everything that I do.