I stand on the sidelines with them and give them reminders and instruction as necessary. After the first game, the AD told me that someone told him how impressed they were by that since the cheerleading coach and past pom coaches would just sit in the stand. So that was nice to hear, but hello?! Where do you see the coach stand in every other sport? Anyways, our first game was not our best just because it was our first and the majority of us didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't a big deal.
Our second game was at home and it was a close one. Our sideline routines were a lot better and this time we got to do our halftime dance. (We only do halftime performances at our home games). So the girls run out onto the field and I'm kneeling on the sidelines, ready to video tape it when the music comes on, but its already like 25 seconds into the song. So it goes off again and we're waiting for them to restart it at the beginning of the song... and we're waiting, and waiting, and waiting. So after about 1.5 -2 minutes of silence, Coach Baker had to take matter into her own hands. So I ran from the sideline over to the permanent bleachers, climbed up on the rods, climbed over the railing, jogged up the stairs into the media booth and helped them figure out how to play the song. So it eventually played, but by that point, the girls were all frazzled and it was our first dance performance, so it was not as impressive as it could have been. But hopefully everyone realized it was just our first dance. It was a pretty nice dramatic entrance though. Luckily I was wearing pants to that game, because I was wearing a skirt to our first one. (We also did that dance at the pep rally before our first game and that performance was really great. So thats good, but honestly, I felt like there were more people participating in the pep rally on the court than in the stands...)
Then last night the Redskins (us) went to play the Chieftains for an Indian battle. Because our first game was only like 15 minutes away from McLoud, this was also our first bus trip. Its a pretty intense entourage. We took 5 buses to the game and it was about 45 minutes away. Our two, cute team buses (white school bus with "Redskins" painted on in red along the side of the bus) took the football team, then our band took 2 buses plus their horse trailer filled with instruments (again, painted cute and school spirited), and then cheer and pom shared the last bus. Blaine even rode on the bus with us. He made friends with the guy who drove the bus - he is the high school guidance counselor who I had only met once, but liked. Apparently he used to be the McLoud football coach for about 20 years and coached many of the current coaches. Last night he also had a biological son and a foster son playing on the team. There was lots of people at the game and even traffic leaving afterward. It almost brought me back to my days at Miami when we would ride in the 5 buses through all the fans, except we had a police escort then. Once we got away from the school the roads were fine. On our 45 minute drive back to the school, it was fun to see other high school football lights on from the freeway. (On the way over, I also saw a mama cow nursing her baby)
By the way, check out this sunset progression. It was incredible. It looked like the earth was being cleansed by fire!! (all these pictures are unedited and taken on my phone)
They were Seminole High School, so they did FSU's arm chopping chant thing. And it was their homecoming so they were really into it. Apparently we don't like each other very much. There was a lot of pre-game festivities and a lot of smack talking posters tied around the fences (though, some made sense, others did not).
The first half was good, but then we just lost it in the second. The final was 40-13. As usual, we cheer and dance when the band plays during the 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, and 4th quarter. The band takes a break during the 3rd quarter, so we do, too, since we can't dance without music. Last night was our coldest night so far. We don't have our team sweats yet, so we had to stay in our uniforms (well, they did) and then just bundle up during the 3rd quarter. I even broke out my beloved Olympics jacket.
I went to sit with Blaine during the 3rd quarter (who was sitting with his new bus driving friend and his family). It was funny because he said something that I was thinking, which was such a Craig A. comment. They had this superstar kid named "Poppy White" and other players that they would call like "Doc Harvey" and stuff like that. So we're sitting there getting whooped and Blaine says, "Use their names. There's no way his real name is Poppy. And no one in high school is nicknamed Doc." :)
Seriously, that Poppy kid was their only offense, defense, and kicker. He, as you can imagine, had an attitude problem. One of the senior transfers on my team said that he had gone to 3 other high schools--one of which was her last one. According to her, he'll be a hot shot (or else his dad will ride him) and then once the coach gets sick of his attitude, he'll transfer. The way he kicks the PAT is he takes one step and kicks straight on. Ridiculous. Want to know whats more ridiculous? Airballing a PAT. Thats right - air balling. Like in basketball. The football barely sailed pass the goal line. If I was his coach, I would give him a piece of my mind about taking the game seriously and quit being arrogant. Anyways, who know if that background story is true or not, but it very well could be.
Back to pom, we've had a couple commitment issues this week and a couple reports of bad attitudes, so I am not very happy with some of them. We definitely need to discuss that Monday morning. I had to enforce our missed practice consequences for the first time a couple days ago.
I don't know if I've clarified, but we have pom practice everyday during 1st period, then after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and when we need to, Thursdays after school as well. One of the moms thinks she's my assistant coach. And one of the moms has 2 daughters on my squad (a senior and a sophomore) whose dad died a while ago and last night they told me that they want her to date the single, early 40s, attractive for his age head football coach, which is a cute idea. Their mom is pretty and 38 and for some reason thats all I could think about on the bus drive home--I will never be a pretty 38 year old mom with a sophomore and a senior. At the earliest, I could be a 43 year old mom (hopefully pretty, but 30s has a much younger ring to it than 40s) with a senior and a sophomore. Anyways, doesn't matter. I ordered us some new pom poms on Thursday so I'm very excited for them to come in. They will be a mixture of holographic red and holographic silver, which means super sparkly!!!
Enough of pom for now. I wish I knew how to put a video on here, but I'll work on it.
Oh one last thing, last Tuesday we had the annual McLoud Football Cook Out, where the food was blessed by a local pastor. It was a pretty good BBQ in the endzone of our field for the football team, pom team, cheer team, and band. A well loved and respected teacher had a stroke last year and made an appearance at that event, which made a lot of people emotional. The football coach presented him with a team ball, so the teacher then went on to talk for 20 minutes about meeting the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, her bringing him to God, and encouraging all the kids to accept Jesus into their hearts while they're young.
Go Redskins!
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