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The summer issue of CheerProfessional is headed for a mailbox near you! Designated as our “Athletes’ Issue,” this edition is designed to help you get up to speed on all things athlete-related. From collecting overdue bills to hiring an athlete onto staff, you’ll find it all in our pages, along with stories like:
The Long & Winding Road for LGBT: Have the industry truly come a long way? CheerProfessional explores the treatment of gay athletes in all-star cheerleading, talking candidly with cheer professionals from FAME All-Stars and ACE Cheer Company to see where we stand.
Shades of Grey: Our writer Janet Jay talks with gym owners from Cheer Athletics, CheerGyms.com and more to find out where the line should be drawn between “good” and “bad” recruiting. Has your gym been on the receiving end of dirty recruiting? Tell us about it by emailing jen@thecheerprofessional.com.
More Than Business: Forming strong bonds with athletes is par for the course, but where should cheer professionals draw the line? This article explores the close-knit relationships many cheer professionals form with athletes—and the positive and negative ways they can affect the gym as a whole.
Two Sides: Are too many at-large bids being given to Worlds? Debbie Sprague of Capital Elite All-Stars and Theapia Best of New Jersey Spirit Explosion debate.
Cheer Pro-files: This issue is chock-full of great profiles of some of the industry’s most prominent faces and figures. Don’t miss our story on USASF “rules guy” Les Stella (and get a peek into his “Day in the Life!”) Also, meet the trio behind Texas’ perennial powerhouse Cheer Athletics—Brad Habermel, Jody Melton and Angela Rogers—and find out how they went from humble beginnings to hit machine.
Those are just a few of the stories we have in store for you this season—can’t wait to hear your feedback!
7:30 am: workout. 10 am: marketing strategy meeting. 3 pm: tumbling class. 5 pm: all-star practice. 8 pm: perfectly balanced, high-nutrition meal you lovingly prepared at home. If you found yourself nodding until that very last part, you’re not alone—amidst all the demands of a typical day at the gym, finding time to eat ideal meals is often a tall task. So how do celebrities and star athletes stay energized and fit on their jam-packed schedules? The whispered word on the street is “juicing.”
No, we’re not talking illegal drugs. This juice is the grandma-approved kind: fruits and vegetables, liquefied through a juicer (or blender, if you prefer to retain more fiber). What makes juicing so special is that devotees say the right combos can help them lose weight, power up even more than from caffeine and even improve their looks and body function.
“Juicing has lowered my cholesterol about 90 points, and along with working out, it helped me lose about 18 to 20 pounds,” says Carlos Onofre, co-owner of Chatsworth, CA-based West Coast Rush, who favors green juices like wheatgrass. “I usually have it in the morning at least three times a week; I use it as a meal replacement.” Though Onofre admits that cleaning out the juicer can be “a pain,” he thinks the results are well worth it.
Wondering if juicing is worth your time and effort? Get a sense of what it’s all about:
Small sips, big impact: For those who think juicing can’t replace a big salad, think again. “In a fairly small glass of pressed juice, you’re capturing much of the nutrition found in several handfuls of produce,” says Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, sports nutritionist to the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays and author of S.A.S.S! Yourself Slim: Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds and Lose Inches. Vouches Onofre, “It’s incredibly energizing; you instantly feel it.”
Careful about calories: Keep in mind that juicing sugary fruits can be a quick way to swallow more calories than you would if you were chewing. To keep sugars in check, “make sure to include green veggies and that no more than one-half to one-third of the ingredients come from fruit,” recommends Jared Koch, nutritional consultant and founder of the healthy eating site CleanPlates.com. “Spinach or kale are great options, and adding lemon is also a [lean] way to enhance the flavor.”
Not so fast: An increasingly popular trend is the extreme “juice fast,” in which participants replace all their meals with juices for a set number of days. Some say the challenging ritual eliminates toxins and facilitates quick weight loss, but experts say it’s actually smarter to add juice to a healthy diet. “Without protein, you lack the building blocks needed to maintain or heal the muscle mass you have, or build new muscle tissue,” cautions Sass. “Also, if you aren’t taking in enough fuel, your metabolism may slow down in an attempt to become more fuel efficient.”
As far as the energized feeling that some claim they get from fasting, that could be your body going into starvation mode. “I’ve seen many people rebound-overeat after ending a juice cleanse because they felt so starved and deprived during it,” says Sass. “That yo-yo pattern can result in losing muscle during the cleanse and gaining body fat afterward.”
You get what you pay for: Kiwis and mangos and beets, oh my! Though it may be tempting to buy non-organic produce in order to save money, Koch is an advocate of playing it safe. “To avoid pesticides, choose organic—especially for fruits that go into the juicer with their skin on,” he recommends.
The type of juicer you choose matters, too. Traditional centrifugal juicers grind produce against a round, spinning blade and tend to be cheaper than “cold press” juicers. However, cold press juicers compress instead of grinding fruits and veggies, yield more juice and do a better job of juicing greens. Also, because cold press juicers don’t heat up, the juices tend to be more nutrient-rich.
An adventure for your taste buds: And the final reason to try juicing? The taste. “Today, I had celery, spinach, orange, carrots and a piece of pineapple,” says Onofre. “It might sound kind of disgusting, but I’ve actually let the kids try it, and they love it. It’s shockingly good.”
Visit the CheerProfessional blog for some awesome juicing recipes from our experts!
–Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh
Get a glimpse into the day-to-day life of Ace Cheer Company tribe leader Happy Hooper.
8:00 am: Wake up. The first thing I do is check emails—this morning = 45 new messages overnight. I try to answer them all, even sending an email to say I’ll get back to them when I have an answer to their question. I check Facebook and Twitter too—and I just joined Instagram, Vine and Path.
9:30 am: Grab Starbucks. My drink of choice: a grande nonfat no-foam latte.
10 am: Go into the office and meet with my business and state directors to go over financials.
11 am: Time for coach mode! I review tapes of run-throughs on every gym’s YouTube account. Afterward, I contact the site director about tapes from the day before. In terms of thinking ahead, I always try to do memos every week for our coaches to know what to do better for [maximizing] the scoresheets.
Noon: Every Thursday, we have a directors’ conference call to discuss what worked and what didn’t at the gyms—just to tackle what happened this week and prepare for the week to come.
1 pm: Zoë’s Kitchen for lunch! Now it’s a national chain, but it started here in Homewood (where the Birmingham gym is located). Zoë Cassimus is a great friend of mine. I ate there every day for three months and ordered the exact same thing: a lean turkey pita with fruit and pasta and an unsweetened tea. Since I’m such a creature of habit, all my staffers know how to order for me anywhere we go to eat. I find it comforting.
3 pm: Make playlists for the gyms from services like HitDisc and PrimeCuts. I make sure to have music playing in the gym at all times. It seems like every song has some bad words in it, so we have to make sure to use the “clean” version. Music is very important not only for our teams, but for setting the energy level for the gym during classes. I think the high energy helps to create an atmosphere that makes kids want to be there.
3:30 pm: Meet with class, all-star and staff directors on anything needed and objectives going forward.
4 pm: Classes begin. I try to walk around the gym or lobby once every hour to high-five athletes and say hello to parents during classes.
6 pm: Teams begin practice. I try to allow the coaches to coach but at the same time ensure that routines and athletes are being prepared properly according to the scoresheet we are approaching.
9 pm: Classes and teams finish.
9:15 pm: Call my parents after I leave the gym, as I do every night. When I leave the gym, my mom knows that more than not, I’ll be calling them. We talk about cheering issues, athlete issues, even scoresheet stuff; we’ll also go over the teams that we’re competing against. Their biggest advice to me is: “You’re never gonna please everyone; you’re never gonna win every one.” As long as you know that, then you can be of somewhat sane mind.
9:30 pm: For dinner, I always go to GianMarco’s and either get the daily special or lasagna. GianMarco’s is a very local Italian restaurant and it’s amazing—the place I go and relax. Not only is it feeding my body and helping me decompress mentally, but socially and business-wise, I get to network. Any given night, you can catch the ACE staff at GianMarco’s.
11 pm: Head home and spend time with my husband. Every night before we go to bed, I answer emails and check social media from my phone (sometimes he gets frustrated with me for doing that). Then I turn on “Law & Order: SVU” and try to fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow!
Operation Thin-spiration: Body Image Issues for Athletes
jen : June 3, 2013 1:51 pm : Mind, Body & Soul| Web Exclusives| webexclusive2
Lettuce-only salads, one slice of meat per day and strict rules against pasta, soda and bread—these are the staples of a popular “Worlds diet” making the rounds online (where Tweets like “Oops! So much for my Worlds diet” are standard fare). “I often hear my athletes saying, ‘Have you seen that gym’s Worlds diet?’” says Tanya Roesel of Midwest Cheer Elite. “It’s a bad time of year for body image. Everyone’s going to Florida, where they’ll be either in swimsuits or the spotlight.”
Roesel is especially sensitive to the issue of body image, as she’s had two athletes hospitalized due to issues with anorexia. “In one case, it became blatantly obvious as the athlete got thinner and thinner; during snack breaks, the athlete wouldn’t eat at all,” Roesel recalls. “Our coaches were picking up on it, but the parents were in denial.” It was a magazine shoot that finally brought the problem to light for everyone involved. Adds Roesel, “When the magazine came out, we almost fell over—the photo was so shocking. The bones were sticking out in her face and you could count her ribs.” By the time the Level 5 athlete was admitted to the hospital, she weighed 70 pounds.
Of course, not all body image issues are quite as apparent—often presenting in more subtle ways. At Shine Athletics in Orlando, Fla., it’s not unusual for gym owner Sydney McBride to overhear young cheerleaders in the training room talk about having Jamie Andries’ abs or Maddie Gardner’s silky mane. “With the rise of the cheerlebrity trend, I often see pictures of girls in crop tops posting quotes about wanting abs like a certain cheerlebrity or a body like another girl,” says McBride.
The aspirational talk isn’t relegated to just cheerlebrities, as athletes often compare themselves to celebrities, models they see in magazines and even siblings or friends. It’s all part of a deep-seated dichotomy unique to the cheer industry: it’s essential that athletes be fit and healthy, but what’s to prevent them from taking it too far?
The Breaking Point
Healthy body image is certainly a potent concern for youth across the board, in part due to “unrealistically thin images of females that are so prevalent in visual and print media,” according to expert Ron A. Thompson. Yet cheerleaders may be especially at risk for developing issues—thanks to a perfect storm of unique factors including exposure, scrutiny, self-esteem and pressure (both internal and external). “They are performing in front of spectators, and there is high pressure to look good,” says Thompson, co-author of Helping Athletes with Eating Disorders.
For flyers, the feelings may be even more heightened. “My athlete who got really ill said that every time she went in the air, she felt like she was standing on a scale. All she could think about was whether the bases could tell if she’d gained or lost a pound,” says Roesel. “For that 30 seconds a flyer is in the air, all attention is on her. They’re wondering, ‘Is my stomach hanging out? Do I have love handles on the side of my shorts?’” A September 2012 study by the University of South Carolina corroborated Roesel’s statement, finding that showed flyers had the highest risk of developing eating disorders, and that the risk was directly related to the uniforms they wore.
No matter what role an athlete plays on the team, poor body image can lead to an array of unhealthy behaviors and even put an end to his or her cheer career—affecting performance and general well-being. “If poor body image drives athletes to diet, over-exercise or engage in any form of disordered eating, they will be putting her physical health at great risk,” says Claire Mysko of National Eating Disorders Association. “They’ll have less energy, strength and focus to devote to their sport.”
The danger of developing eating disorders also looms large. Adds Mysko, “Not every person who struggles with poor body image will go on to develop an eating disorder, but poor body image is certainly a major risk factor.” (See sidebar for a rundown of common eating disorders.)
How You Can Help
Cheer professionals can make all the difference for athletes who are struggling. “It’s important for coaches to encourage athletes to live their version of a healthy lifestyle and to stop comparing themselves to others,” says McBride. Find out how McBride and others play an important part in warding off issues at their gyms:
Mark what you say: Words can conjure images, and it’s important to make sure you’re not sending a harmful message. “As coaches, we can help encourage a healthy body image by not using words like ‘thin’ or ‘skinny’ and instead using words like ‘fit’ and ‘healthy,’” says McBride. Sean Powers, director of all-star tumbling for Connecticut-based Spirit Zone, agrees. “The word ‘diet’ just screams bad. I use ‘meal plan’ instead,” he says.
Educate yourself, your teams and staff: At Midwest Cheer Elite, Roesel employs a personal trainer who offers free daily strength & conditioning classes and gives frequent nutrition talks; she also makes a strong effort to educate both her athletes and staff on all facets of body image. At Spirit Zone, Powers and his colleagues “try to promote healthy eating, along with appropriate training programs for all athletes.”
Mysko says this type of education is essential for all cheer professionals in the gym environment. “These are complex issues, and knowledgeable coaches are in a much better position to help [athletes] develop a healthy sense of self and intervene when they see problems,” she says.
Instill best practices: Coaches are not infallible and may be partial to cheerleaders who have a certain body type. However, it’s important to be conscious of presenting information in the right way. “Focus on cheerleaders’ abilities rather than weight and appearance when assigning positions because they do notice who gets chosen,” advises Sonya SooHoo, who conducted a study on body image among adolescent cheerleaders at the University of Utah.
Uniforms are another area where coaches can set a positive example. Roesel gives athletes and parents the option of choosing long shells or midriffs, which she says helps set their minds at ease and step out more confidently on the mat. “Allow cheerleaders to choose uniforms that don’t make them feel uncomfortable or self-conscious,” says SooHoo.
Communication is key: Coaches need to convey the message that healthy eating and nutrition are important, and Mysko adds coaches should reach out to the cheerleaders who are likely candidates for body image issues. “A coach can help get her on a healthy path or he/she can reinforce the negative thoughts in that cheerleader’s head,” she says.
Although certain facets of cheerleading do hold high risk for bringing out negative body image, the sport can also be a great platform for instilling positive eating habits, confidence and well-being in athletes. McBride views her role as a way to help develop these essential life skills and encourages other cheer professionals to do the same: “We have the opportunity to create positive role models and teach youngsters to be themselves.”
–Dinsa Sachan
Will the growing popularity of STUNT have detrimental effects on all-star? CheerProfessional looks at both sides of the debate.
Has the quest to make cheerleading a sport finally hit its stride? With the formation of College STUNT Association and STUNT, USA Cheer’s answer is an emphatic “yes.” Designed to meet Title IX requirements, the sport of STUNT follows a four-quarter format focused strictly on athletic and technical skills including partner STUNTs, pyramids, basket tosses, group jumps and tumbling. All teams must perform the same choreography and technical sequences, and there is no crowd-leading element—differentiating STUNT from both school-based and all-star cheer.
Currently, USA Cheer is taking steps to secure STUNT as an NCAA emerging sport, but not everyone in the cheer industry believes that STUNT is a step forward. We spoke with Randy Dickey of ACX Cheer and Kim Gaskin, high school cheer coach and president of New Jersey State Coaches Association, to find out their perspectives.
Editor’s Note: Please note that the views expressed in this article are expressly those of our sources and not those of CheerProfessional.
Randy Dickey
Owner, ACX Cheer
Randy’s take on STUNT: I’m not a big fan. If this becomes an Olympic sport and/or NCAA starts riding the train, there will then be scholarship opportunities, as well as possible Olympic hopefuls—all of which outshines the benefits of all-star cheerleading. If STUNT is suddenly the way to get scholarships and cheerleading as we know it goes away at the college level, what’s the next step after a kid graduates high school? High school cheerleading will follow what the NCAA does. The minute that STUNT gets mainstream NCAA [status], high schools will segue over to [that format]. I really believe as soon as that happens, it will open the door for gym owners to take a backseat.
On dual participation: As a gym owner, I personally think that STUNT definitely could pull kids from all-star. Depending on when the STUNT season takes place and how it interlaces itself with the existing cheer season, it could greatly affect dual participation. If a child cheers on their school team, that’s an 11-month commitment in many cases. Many schools already have a stigma about letting kids do all-stars in the same season; this opens the door for more coaches who don’t understand the value of all-star cheer.
On its impact on all-star: I know a lot of choreographers are very concerned about the whole STUNT idea because it could become compulsory over time, and if the competitive aspect of the 2:30 routine goes away, then there is no longer a need for choreographers. I know there is also concern on the music mixer side because they could also give out compulsory music, which would negate the need for original music. I know there are people on different sides that are nervous about it. Whether or not those are legitimate concerns or just people being worried, I’m not sure, but I do know that there are people who are scared of those types of things going on.
About STUNT’s relationship to the Olympics: I believe that there is a push from somewhere trying to get cheerleading in the Olympics, and I believe that it’s a race to see who will the biggest and baddest. Gymnastics and cheer have been going head-to-head for many, many years. If cheer were to become an Olympic sport, there are powers that be [in the cheer industry] that want it to be in their control and not gymnastics’ control.
However, gymnastics has more clout than cheerleading, and they are only going to allow cheer in the Olympics if it doesn’t compete with its sports. Therefore [the Olympic version of cheer] has to look completely different than gymnastics—hence the motivation for STUNT.
To me, the tumbling [in all-star cheer] is already very diminished. There is a huge drive even in international competitions to dumb down the values for tumbling. There has been talk of eliminating the tumbling skills for safety reasons, but sometimes you wonder if it is to help fall in line with the demands of what would create a conflict for gymnastics.
99.9% of our income is off tumbling classes, and when you make rules that dumb down tumbling, you’re affecting my income. When you do that to high school, it’s not affecting their income. Your rules can greatly affect someone’s paycheck. I always look at things from a business aspect and make sure the future is bright enough to keep the lights on.
The bottom line: I don’t believe that the all-star/competitive cheer [industry] for high schools has finished evolving yet. I’m a big fan of it and I don’t want to see anything take away from that. All-star cheer is my life, it’s kept me in business for [xx] years and I don’t think it needs something to take away from it.
Just like gymnastics would be nervous about cheer overpowering it in the Olympics or taking away participation in the lower levels, I believe STUNT could take away from all-stars. We already have to share our kids with football, basketball, school cheerleading—now there is one more thing to pull them in a different direction.
I love all-star cheerleading the way it is, so these are my concerns. Anything that could change that in any way, shape or form would make any business owner nervous about the unknown. However, I do support all types of cheer, and I will support STUNT—I’m just not excited about having sport to compete with the all-star world.
Kim Gaskin, President of New Jersey State Coaches Association and Head Coach for Burlington Township High School
Kim’s take on STUNT: The value of STUNT as it continues to grow will show that there are requirements that every great cheer team should know how to master. Those requirements are then benchmarked and put in a routine where each team has to do the same skills. In a normal [all-star] competition, every team has an opportunity to be as creative as they wish. [In contrast], STUNT allows teams to be matched up on the same skill; it does have a little creativity, but not as much complexity as a choreographed routine. It goes to the baseline of what makes great athleticism in cheerleading. I think judging our athletes on their tumbling skills, basket tosses, pyramids and partner stunts really is kind of fun for participants because they are measured on the same routine. STUNT is new, it’s evolving and it will find its place.
On dual participation: All coaches have an opportunity to determine whether they want to participate and make it part of their curriculum, as they would with any competition they choose to attend. I don’t see lines of division yet as opposed to an appreciation for the value of what STUNT can do both on college and high school level. Some of the elements of STUNT are basic skills that will get you to the more elite skills that will put you in national competition. The same cheerleaders who are on your cheer team can participate in a STUNT event. Coaches have to look at their program and decide what’s best as far as how STUNT fits into their overall competition [plan].
About STUNT’s impact on all-star: When you look at high school, all-star and college cheer, not only do you see the element of competition, but also a lot of creativity as well. STUNT was developed for a different purpose than to hurt any of those functions. Title IX is a positive way of recognizing athletes, and we need to find ways that we can align ourselves with any regulations that can benefit our athletes. This kind of venture doesn’t really take away [from other types of cheerleading], but continues to create value. Anyone who is a coach or cheerleader knows that our athletes are hard-working, dedicated and great leaders in the schools they represent; being able to allow them to get some of the financial benefits or recognition [that other sports enjoy] would be amazing progress.
About STUNT’s relationship to the Olympics: Right now, Worlds is really the hub of cheerleading around the world. The beautiful part of Worlds is that you see teams not only show great athleticism, but also bring a part of their country to the mat. Whether the team is from Mexico or Thailand or Jamaica, you see the diversity of the athlete. Because STUNT is so new, it could evolve to [that level], but you’re still talking about two different buckets—due to the technical aspects of what makes a great Worlds champion versus what makes a great STUNT champion. As cheer evolves, we have to be open to allowing these organizations and companies to get it right. Sometimes things aren’t perfect, but at the end of the day, the athletes are the ones who benefit. These are big platforms that allow cheerleaders to go out there and prove to the world that we are taking cheerleading to a whole new level.
The bottom line: I am an advocate of great cheerleading. Whether it’s high school, all-star or college, our job as an industry is to represent cheer in a way that’s positive and helpful for every athlete. The choice of which way an athlete decides to endure cheerleading is up to that person. There are so many kids out there—just look at the feeder and rec programs around the country trying to get kids interested in cheer and get them on that journey. For those that stick to it, we all need to encourage the kids filtering into our sport, rather than debating who is taking athletes away from whom. I’m not really one to take sides, but I’m all for anything we do as an industry that elevates our kids from both athletic and Title IX requirements, and I think everyone should think of it that way.
