50 Cheer Gyms... 50 States - Memphis Pride Allstars ( 29 of 50)

 

The twenty-ninth gym I would like to introduce you to is Memphis Pride Allstars out of Cordova, Tennessee.

Owners/Cheer Director:  

Owner-Chris Crabtree, 

Manager Lisa Pennington, 

Allstar Director- Justin Morries,

Tumbling Director- Jared Carrubba

Coaches-Justin Morries, Jared Carrubba, Lisa Pennington, Sam Pennington, Sherry Gordin, Darius Henderson, Kaylan Watson, Caitlyn Catron, Candace Nurse, Adam Amick, Bryant Carter, Emalea Morse, Luke Nowell, David Jackson

Colors: 

Red, Black, & White

Years Opened:

Memphis Pride opened in 2005.

What cheer competitions have you really enjoyed competing in the most?   
We love competing at Deep South Huntsville Big Bid Event, UCA Nationals, and WSF Nationals.

What championship or placement are you most proud of at your gym?  
We are most proud of our first ever 2018 Summit Championship in the Small Coed 5 division. 

What is something you would like our readers to know about your gym? 

Our gym is also the home to an amazing National Championship Hip Hop Dance Team! Our gym also has a huge baseball program! We have rec cheer teams, allstar elite cheer teams, dance teams, rec tumbling classes, and many high school cheer teams!

The website for this cheer gym is:

www.memphispridecheer.com

Pictures:

            

                           

                         

50 Cheer Gyms... 50 States - Cheer Tech ( 28 of 50)

 

The twenty-eighth gym I would like to introduce you to is Cheer Tech out of Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Owners/Cheer Director:  

Amanda Brandt, Hannah Freese, Carli Jordan, Annika Larsen

Colors: 
Royal Blue, Dark Grey and Silver

Years Opened: It will be 3 years this July. July 2018-Present

What cheer competitions have you really enjoyed competing in the most?   

We like the ones that are Saturday and Sundays because it gives our teams the most time to really enjoy the experience of competing, what they work so hard for, and allows for extra bonding time with dinner out between the two days or hitting the mall. There isn’t one venue that sticks out, as all the producers do such an amazing job, but the times we spend together means the most. So when we can do a long weekend competition, we love that the best.

What championship or placement are you most proud of at your gym?  

We started off with just a Tiny, Mini, and Youth team. Only two of our athletes had ever cheered before. Grand Forks does not have a big population, so we had challenges in recruiting large numbers and experience. Anytime we hit zero, it is the biggest deal for us and  we are very proud of it. This season we are most proud of starting a Prep program and seeing them perform. Our Youth Prep team went to two competitions and placed 2nd out of 9 and 2nd out of 8.  I think that is something we are really encouraged by because they were against much bigger, more established gyms and these prep programs are the foundation and future for our gym. Our Tiny Team got 2nd and 3rd as well!

What is something you would like our readers to know about your gym? 

What we would like readers to know about our gym is it takes a lot of heart and courage for our athletes to come from a small town, with little or no experience, and go compete with well-established large gyms. Each year we get better, stronger, and in 3 seasons we have gone from hoping we won’t place last to getting top 3 finishes! What people should know is we love this sport and we will take anyone who wants to be a part of it, no matter what level of experience, and turn them into the best All Star Cheerleader they want to work hard to become. Our gym is about positivity, accountability, resiliency, and family. We will continue to work hard and be a team our community can be proud of.

Interesting way our gym came about...

Our gym is in it's 3rd season. We have an interesting story about how our gym came about. Originally, Grand Forks had an All-Star program that was connected to a gymnastics gym. Out of nowhere it was announced they were cancelling the program right before the teams were scheduled to attend nationals in Chicago. This was in April of 2018. There was nowhere for these athletes to go.

Amanda Brandt, a recently retired Colonel and pilot in the Air Force, who had some cheerleading and coaching experience, could not let competitive cheer die in this town and so in April 2018 she set out to find a place to have a gym. Two weeks later she signed a lease and then ordered a full size spring floor, full size dead floor, and 60 ft tumble track with associated mats and apparatuses needed for tumbling. She invested over 80K of her own personal money to make Cheer Tech a reality. In two short months she had a fully operational cheer gym and started recruiting for season 1. She did this with no plan, no business experience, just a really big heart and hope that if you put good out there, good will come back.

Now, at the end of the 3rd season, with the gym on solid footing, she is passing the gym over to Hannah Freese, who has so much passion for this sport and love for these athletes! When Amanda started, she knew she did not want to be a long term gym owner, as she has a full time job as a Professor of Aerospace at the University of North Dakota and has two children she wants to spend more time with. Even though it is bitter sweet to walk away from something she has made, she is thrilled that she is able to do so with the confidence that Cheer Tech will continue to grow and become a premiere gym in the Mid-West region. Being able to leave this legacy in Grand Forks will truly be one of the highlights in her life.

The website for this cheer gym is:

Website is 

www.ndcheertech.com

Pictures:

Cheer Mom Jessica- A Year of New Beginnings

 October 9, 2020

      Hello Cheer4Today Readers, It's Cheer Mom Jessica. Last season I started by telling you how "C"  made the elite team of her dreams and how I was hit with the reality of all the responsibility and costs that went along with it.  As I planned for my 2nd blog entry about our experiences flying cross country and competing at some amazing events... The Corona Virus set in and all of her other competitions were canceled. For the most part, we had no problems getting our hotel and competition fees back, but we did struggle to get our prepaid airline tickets back. To get a good price, we had to plan early and we had no idea what was going to happen with the country shutting down. it was really a tough time. Allowing my daughter to compete on a team like that costs a lot of money and I make an average salary so I really could have used a full refund on my airline tickets. ugh... Did any of you experience that? Did you get your money back or did you have to just deal with the loss like us? 

     Enough of last season, it is now a new season and after really thinking about it and weighing the options we agreed to let "C" come back and cheer this season. It didn't take long for her to get her skills dusted off and she is even working on a "specialty pass".  She's super eager to contribute to her team. Some of the kids on her team have been part of this team for many years, but  this is only her 2nd year on the team and last year really wasn't a full year. She is also a flyer this cheer season and she is a bit nervous. Last season at one of our first competitions, we heard 2 parents talking as they watch another team compete. I guess they were "rivals" and they were almost wishing that the flyer would fall. Do I think they wanted the girl to get hurt... no, but they wanted the team to lose points so their child's team would win.  My daughter heard that and asked me if they realized that she could get hurt. I think sometimes people get so into the competition that they forget that every cheerleader is somebody's child and we should support one another. You shouldn't want another team to fail, rather you should want your team to be even better. I think this is in the back of my daughter's mind as she has been working on her elite stunts. I keep reminding her to just do her best. This will be a new experience for her. 

       Although none of us really know how this season is going to play out, we have to do our best with whatever we are dealt. Whether we end up traveling like nothing happened, end up doing mostly virtual competitions, or something somewhere in the middle; we just have know that in the end, it will all be ok. 

Keep Cheering,

Blogger Jessica

Blogger Nayeli 9/11/2020

Hello! It’s Nay coming back for another cheer blog. 

In early August, "Big League Chew" had choreography for two days, which one of those days was actually my Birthday! Both days were a bit exhausting, but at least I had fun during and after choreography. I’m a little sad that "Twix" hasn’t had their choreography yet, I hope it comes soon!

Now let’s move to the middle of August. I went on a day trip  to Chicago for a GK casting call. Getting my photo taken was so much fun! I felt like a Vogue Model! (LOL!) Getting to chat with the photographer made a normal casting call photo shoot become a mini runway session. I was fantastic!

Now I will fast forward to the end of August and early September. I started school, and I was super excited to have an epic first day! I also recently got my fall cheer schedule, and I am ready for a new and totally different season! I will be at cheer for half a week.  I know I am ready for this challenge!

Hasta la pasta and see ya next time! 

Gotta go! <3 ~~~

Nayeli

Blogger Trinity 8-24-2020

 

MY TEAM TRAINING~

Hello Guys... It's me Trinity again!

Today I will be talking about my team’s training routine. To start off we do the basics warming up, then stretches, and then finally we warm up our tumbling. On some nights our team focuses on one specific subject. An example of this would be doing jumps, tumbling, stunting, and then the routine. In previous weeks, we have been focusing on stunts, jumps, and dance. We have the first half of our routine so now all is left is the dance. So dance is what we will be focusing on for the next couple of weeks.

Let me talk you into more about our training. For our jumps we do 1 set of 8 toe-touches, 8 hurdles {each leg}, and last but not least 8 pike jumps to gain our stamina.

Next would be tumbling. First, we do the basics e.g. handstands, cartwheels, and more. Then, we move into stuff like standing tumbling and running tumbling. 

You guessed it... next is stunting. Normally every night we will start with LOL’s which stands for Lot’s Of Legs. That is just another way to say we are warming up our base's legs for when we stunt. It also means we are warming up the flyer's legs and body positions as well. 

When all of that is done,  we do a big nice refreshing stretch and say a BIG thank you to our wonderful coaches! 

I hope you enjoyed my blog today,

Trinity

Cheer4Today- Stunt Stand - 8/21/2020

 Cheer4Today- Stunt Stand - 8/21/2020

Cheer4Today -Air Track 8/14/2020