A cheerleaders dream; being named a national champion. Staley Varsity and Junior Varsity cheerleaders were so close to having a chance to make their dream a reality, until the bad news struck.
The 2013 National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) School Open National Championship is what the athletes had been working for since April. They had dedicated many hours of their time during the season to preparing for this competition, practicing up to four times a week.
“It does take a lot of hard work outside of practice,” said Staley head cheer coach Jennifer Newman. “But most of the work in practice is done by the athletes.”
The Championship was held Feb. 23rd in Louisville, Ky. There were 41 cheerleaders and four coaches who were supposed to board a bus for Louisville early Friday, Feb. 22nd until they got the text. It read; “District Decision: No travel for any teams on Friday Feb 22nd. That means no Nationals for Staley Cheer!
:-(”
Due to the excessive amounts of snow and ice, the North Kansas City School District decided that the cheerleaders travel plans were too unsafe to pursue on Friday.
“We really wanted to compete and win,” said Junior Varsity coach Jesse Shea. “We are sad and upset that we can’t go. Safety is more important.”
All of the cheerleaders tried many different ways to attempt to get to Kentucky. Leaving on Saturday at midnight and seeing if NCA could change their performance time. For a while on Friday, there was a slim chance of still being able to make it, until the district finally said absolutely no travel. Many of the athletes said that being told no the second time was worse than the first.
“They already got our hearts crushed,” said freshman Lexi Knight. “It’s like saying your dog died but a day later he woke up.”
The coaches were also upset about not being able to participate in this competition, not just the cheerleaders.
“We have tried as much as we can to get us to go but there is no way we can go. It’s final and we have to deal with it. There’s nothing we can do. It’s out of our hands,” said other Junior Varsity coach Morgan Sobbe.
The cheerleaders worked very hard to earn all of the money to go to nationals and have not been refunded yet. The coaches are working with the NCA directors and the hotel trying to get their money back. There is about $10,000 that is still floating around according to Newman at a team meeting on March 5th.
Despite that the cheerleaders were not able to make their dream of winning the National Championship, they are remaining positive to finish out the season with performances for school events.
“Both teams would place top 2,” says Newman, “I’m very confident in both teams.”