Team Mom

FIRST CAME CHEER

At the age of 16, I became a little league cheer coach for my hometown's football team.

Being that we were in our hometown, we knew the parents and the children. We were all connected in some way, so the bond that we had was very family oriented. With that being said, the territory came with us being able to put the parents in their places when they had a little too much to say, "Why don't the girls have practice uniforms?" This was the main question for the cheer coaches of all the squads (Flag, Mighty-Mite, Pee-Wee, Juniors, and Seniors).

For me being young, I couldn't always say what I wanted to say especially being that I was raised in an old school environment. My mother nor grandmother tolerated disrespect from any of their children at any time. So knowing that I had to deal with parents, children, and other coaches I had to pray hard that my mind and mouth were disconnected from one another.

That was the first year I had ever been considered an official mentor. I really enjoyed that feeling and I wanted to always be someone my girls could look up to. I bettered my behavior so that it would rub off on the young children that I mentored. "You will not be perfect, and that is okay. But you will always be worth it. You are intelligent, beautiful inside and out and I love each of you." I had to teach them that life had more to it than just cheering, or just school. I showed them the importance of school, and the technique in cheer and dance. My first year at the cheer competition I had no idea of what to expect, but we had a blast. Although we didn't place, the girls did amazing and they came back stronger the next year.

THEN THE WORST OF CHEER

The following year my girls were still mighty-mite. And this time I was assigned an assistant coach or "head" cheer coach. Although she served in the army, her attitude and mine just were not mixing well. Plus her father was the president of the organization, so she had too much gas in her balloon. Some days we got along great with no problems. Other days, not so much. She had the tendency to favor a few of the girls over the others and I didn't appreciate that at all, because when you pick favorites, you're going to have attitude changes out the girls and she being a "coach" should have know better.

The girls who weren't her favorite would always come to me before or after practice with complaints that "the other coach was yelling" at them or "being mean" to them. Which I told them, "I will not pick favorites, I am your mentor and your coach, therefore I will not love one or two more than I love the other six or seven girls. You all are part of this team, my team and with me, I will call you out and let you know when you're not giving me enough. But you must come to me if before practice so that I can tell your team why you are sitting out or why you're not practicing full out." And they understood that.

Sadly with me having personal problems with the other coach, and me moving to Orlando, I couldn't make it to their competition that year. But my girls went all the way to a first place trophy. I called the junior cheer coach and talked to my girls before their competition and sent my love and positiveness and they placed first. I was so proud of them.

I was not intending on letting the other coach be the reason for me stepping down, but my health was at risk, I had respect for the president, and my girls, I left and told them to respect her because she's an adult and she's your coach.

FROM CHEER TO MOM

Here we are 4 years later, and my brother's are playing football again. I became the team mom for my baby brother's Pee-Wee team and my mom is still with my younger brother's Junior team. This year my baby brother only played because this is our brother's last year of little league. He's the big high school kid next year (Still cannot believe my younger brother is going to be in the 9th grade).

This is our second year with this Orlando team so mom and me figured we'd help out this season. WHAT DID WE SIGN UP FOR? I'll tell you. A whirlpool of chaos.

But hey, we're in this for the children. My younger brother got injured so he was out on recovery for three weeks. The baby brother took it upon himself to take three weeks off as well, and his coaches couldn't even be mad at him. Now, we're getting back into them both having practice. My mom and I are team moms so we haven't missed a game. No matter where, we have showed up to every single game for our teams, even if we were running late.

And I finally got to experience my first like team mom sleep over with one of my boys and he is the sweetest thing. But my baby brother, plotted his teammate staying over. They were having a whole entire conversation during practice and came up to me and one of their coaches and was like, "So he needs a ride," I said "like a ride home?" they both say, "no, for the game tomorrow." The coach and I are standing up their laughing like you two little jokers been plotting on this all practice. But we got everything situated with the parents and other coaches and it worked.

I love kids. I guess that's why for me, being a mentor or being someone that these kids can count on and come to is just something magical and I wouldn't change it for the world.