My Team Is a Family

Upon receiving my topic for the blog entry I would have to write, I was dumbfounded.  "Describe how our cheerleading team is like a family", my coach said.  'My cheer team is like a family', I thought to myself.  'But how do I put it into words?'.  The connection that I have with my teammates is comparable to that of two sisters.  My teammates have seen me at my worst: miserable and crying, exhausted and pilly, and agitated and on edge.  They have been next to me during some of my proudest moments: after performing our Home Pom routine for the first time at cheer camp, when we hit our pyramid at the Bon Rally, and even just yesterday, when Mackenzie, Megan, and I did a one-man.

 

It is easy to see who is who in this big 'family' we have.  Coach is the loving but strict mother.  Always there for a concise bit of advice, an encouraging word, or a good laugh.  She scolds us if we forget to do our "chores" (study and practice the dances and cheers we've learned) by assigning some push-ups or a couple laps around the gym.  She nurtures us as a mother does.  She cares for us as a mother does; she is genuinely interested in what is going on in our lives.  She loves all of us just as much as we love her.  We, all sixteen of us, are the sixteen teenage daughters that give her her gray hairs.

 

 Mackenzie and Zia-Ne are clearly the big sisters.  They are the two who are in charge whenever Coach isn't there.  They constructively criticize us as Coach would and praise us when they see us going the extra mile.  They are always fair and everything they say or do is in the best interest of their teammates. Their sisters.  

 

I love my teammates.  When I joined the Kingston Varsity Cheerleading team as a freshman, I was pleasantly surprised to see how close the team really was.  I had come from a team where everyone wanted their own glory and would happily take an opportunity from a teammate to get it.  I wasn't used to teammates praising one other; "that was a good jump, Ha!" You never heard words of encouragement like that on my old team.  On Kingston Cheerleading, us girls truly love each other.  Sure, we bicker and sometimes we don't like each other, but haven't you ever had an altercation with your sister? And after you've made up, don't you leave the situation with a better understanding of each other and therefore an improved relationship?  My siblings are both grown up and no longer live at home, so these girls have really become part of my family.  I love them to death and I promise to keep in contact with all of them as we set out on our own paths throughout life.  Cheerleading has taught me many things: how to jump, how to hit your motions, how to back a lib; things I expected it to teach me.  But I never foresaw that it would teach me how to truly care for someone.  I'm glad it did.

Cheerfully yours,

MollyRose Gaffney