What a cheer weekend it was! With so many great competitions... we were able to make it to quite a few and grabbed some great pictures. Feel free to check some of them out below. The rest were posted on our social media accounts. #Cheer4Today
The North Star Allstars recently traveled from Alaska to Texas for the Champions League. Where is the furthest place your cheer gym has traveled to for competition? Click the link below to see a glimpse into their adventure!
Cheer4Today-North Star Allstars
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!
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.
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.
Blogger Jessica
