Cheer with Confidence

Confidence. That's all coach Lindsay Miller said she provided her 22-member cheer squad to enable it to take home the Varsity 2A Indiana High School State Cheerleading Championship for Cascade — the high school's first.

All the other tools, Miller said, were already in place.

"The team was capable of winning state all along," said the 24-year-old former Cascade cheerleader, who has also coached elite cheer and dance for 10 years. "I really didn't do anything but give them the confidence they needed to perform well. I went up to some girls and said 'You can do that stunt. It might be scary, but you can do it.' And to others, I said, 'I truly believe you can nail that tumbling pass.' I meant it, and they knew it."

After a second-place finish to Tri-West last year, the team was fired up for the 2008 competition. However, when their former coach stepped down shortly before the season began, everything seemed up in the air.

"It was a shock when our coach stepped down," said senior Amanda Tyler. "But when we found out it was Lindsay that was going to coach us, we were glad because most of us had worked with her already."

Those that had worked with her in the past also knew what to expect — hard work, conditioning and more difficult tumbling. When Miller started, that's exactly what they got.

"Several of them couldn't move for two weeks after I came in," Miller said. "But they survived. I had such a short time with them, and I wanted to teach them so much. Luckily, it paid off."

Besides the additional conditioning, Miller focused on perfecting her cheerleaders' skills and playing to each girl's strengths while continuously reinforcing their abilities.

"If a girl was struggling, everyone encouraged her," she said. "They wanted to come to practice and improve on all of the little things. They came together and realized there was one goal: Hit their routine and leave it all on the mat."

The season, which technically begins in March of the previous year with tryouts, kicks off in the public eye with football season. But it's the behind-the-scenes practices and competitions where the girls really perform their sport.

After choreographing and practicing a two-and-a-half-minute routine for months, the team competes in a regional, and if it places among the top nine in the state, it moves to the state competition.

The team is scored by judges, who watch and grade a certain category, which was new to the championships this year. In years prior, all judges watched all categories. Among those categories scored include jumps, dance, long tumbling, standing tumbling and partner stunts. Performances are scored on difficulty, execution, variety and synchronization.

This year, Miller said, Cascade won because the squad was more perfect, the individual tumbling was more difficult and more girls stepped up to learn new stunts and new tumbling.

Plus, of course, they were armed with confidence.

"I noticed watching the past couple years, that before they stepped on the mat they were having fun and goofing off," she said. "But as soon as they stepped on the mat they were like a deer in the headlights. It's all about confidence. I don't know how many times I said that."

"Before, we could nail the routine at practice a million times," Tyler said. "But we'd get in competition, and we'd never show it. It would be nerve-wracking."

After the regional competition, the team clung to fourth place — with its sights set on landing in the top three. During the two weeks between competitions, Cascade increased its difficulty and perfected its timing despite some injuries.

"They would ice up, and we'd do what we had to do, and then they'd ice up afterwards," Miller said. "I always wondered how hard I should push them. One of the girls had a shoulder injury and is now in physical therapy. Afterwards I asked, 'Was it worth it?' And she said 'Oh, yeah!' That really shows how much it meant to these girls. For a lot of them, this is what they do. Eat, sleep and cheer."

But keep in mind that "cheer" is a loaded word.

"I really just wish people could see one of our competition practices," said Kelsi Morris, a senior who enjoys the competition aspect of cheerleading more than anything else.

"Their practices aren't what people think," Miller added.

But as Miller and Morris both know, there will always be a difference of opinion between those who don't know, and those who know what it truly takes to be a cheer champion.

And it's more than just confidence. -