Tag Archives: Judging

Enjoy the Time You Have With Each Other

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Last week at about this time I was leaving UCA All*Star Nationals. This trip to UCA was a little different because instead of being on the judges stand I was in warm ups looking for rules violations. Our goal was to catch violations in warm ups so we could inform the coaches and let them make changes before they got to the main floor. Let’s just say coaches had mixed reactions to us. A few said “Thank You” and a few did not. Some coaches asked me to repeat what I said so the kids could hear, I assume because they had told the squad the same thing several times and thought they may listen if it came from someone else.

Others looked at me like I had the sign of the anti-Christ engraved in my forehead. This made me think about the example some coaches set for their staff and teams. I know how important this is to people and that it is their means of paying the bills and putting food on the table, but there is no reason for some people to act the way they do at events. Coaches need to remember they have been given the privilege of doing something they love for a living and given the opportunity to be a great example for kids. I think some of them forget this at times, but hopefully they’ll return to their senses sooner rather than later. Overall it was surprisingly enjoyable and something I’m sure I’ll do again soon.

Shortly after returning I left again to visit Marcel and his wife and meet his adorable baby girl. His wife made some homemade chicken curry that was incredible. His little girl was a giggling ball of fun and huge Dora fan. Marcel and I got a chance to work on Aneris and talked about some ideas for the future.

After that I judged a competition. It was interesting and gave a few people a new perspective on the things that go on “behind the scenes” at an event. We had upset coaches and parents cussing at the event director by the time the first team walked off the floor. After what started out as a circus of a day we ended up with few complaints about scoring or placement, aka the things people go to competitions for.

During the competition I think I had some spicy crab dip. A few of you will understand the relevance of this statement.

After the competition we went to Brio, which is one of my favorite Italian restaurants (Thanks Will), for dinner and to wind down. Most people had early flights so we didn’t stay out too late or do anything silly.

When I got picked up from the airport Miggy told me we were heading to one of the girls house for a viewing because her mom died unexpectedly the night before. Now an 8th grade girl with a love of cheerleading and roller skating is without a mom. I don’t know a whole lot about trying to help a girl that lost her mom at a young age so I really don’t know where I’m going with this. I will leave you with advice from the husband that lost his wife:

Enjoy the time you have with each other because I would give anything to hold her one more time.

Waiting to Exhale

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April’s Fools Day came and went and I was only involved in 3 jokes. The first was using Spirit Post to say Varsity Brands was pulling out of the USASF. It was a short and sweet post that led to a firmly worded email from one of the higher ups at Varsity All Star along with a decent discussion on cheerleading message boards about whether or not Varsity pulling out would be good or bad for the industry. The second and third jokes started shortly after reading the email about the first while eating lunch. The second was a simple attempt to get Kat’s family to believe she just found out she is pregnant, while the third was an attempt to convince a male friend of ours that he got someone pregnant.

Kat’s joke started at lunch by having a friend, also at lunch with us, put a message on her Facebook wall saying how excited she was and hoping it was a girl. About 30 minutes later I posted on Josh’s wall, Kat’s fiance, that I just heard the news and I hope it’s a boy. This didn’t snowball as much as we thought it would, but Josh did get a message or two about it. The third joke took off as expected. It also started at lunch when we decided to ask a girl our friend got to know, in a biblical sense, a few months earlier if she was up for playing a joke on him. She said she was in, but we never gave her full details of what we were going to do, but told her we would send her text messages to send to him throughout the rest of the day. The first message just said she really need to talk to him as soon as possible and it was really important. She also said they had to talk in person. By the end of the day he was convinced she was pregnant and all of their friends knew it, despite us never having her say what she needed to talk to him about. We managed to increase his stress level enough that he was dialing his mom’s number to let her know the news as we told him it was all a joke.

My last judging event of the season was in Destin, FL. Leading up to the event I ate lunch in 5 different states in 5 days. Monday was Jackson, MS, Tuesday in Nashville, TN, Wednesday was Lexington, KY, Thursday in Birmingham, AL, and Friday I was in Destin, FL. The weekend in Destin was great in large part due to having a day with nothing to do on both sides of the competition days. All of the people were great, but Kelly, “Becky”, and “Sparky” led the charge. Kelly started it off by being completely unfiltered. It she thought it, she said it, and it was usually funny. Kelly was the cause of one of the most interesting and entertaining dinners I’ve had in a long time. Becky & Sparky kicked in after the event. What started as a attempt to have a low key night by cooking dinner and hanging out in the condo turned into a bit of craziness thanks to the do whatever the sheet of paper says to do game introduced to us by Becky and Sparky.

For my parting shot I want to remind people to live in the moment and to live in the present. By live in the moment I’m asking you to be involved with the people around you. Don’t sit at dinner with a group of people and do nothing but text the people that aren’t there. Enjoy the time with the people you are with. By live in the present I’m asking you to realize that the past is over. The good and bad of it is something to learn from, but life goes on. Don’t let it pass you by.

Goodbye January

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I couldn’t think of a good name for the article so you’re stuck with Goodbye January. My January will end in Providence, RI with the crew from Athletic Championships, assuming the Delta-Northwest merger hasn’t completely screwed up my flight. February starts with a trip to Atlanta for Cheersport.

This week has been uneventful, but pretty productive. The Aneris outline is now much more organized and useful, I wrote an article about judging stunts for Spirit Post, and I took care of a few things around the house. I’m also 2 chapters away from finishing The Innovator’s Dilemma. I think The Essential Drucker will be next.

In random news, the mailbox had to have more surgery and the pizza wasn’t nearly as expensive as expected, but we still don’t know for sure how it got in the room.