Camp Wrap Up

Everyone survived cheerleading camp 2009! Today was a fun day for Williamsburg cheerleaders. We were up bright and early packing, cleaning, and getting ready for final evals and camp champs.

Our morning officially started at 8:30, when we headed over to the Knapp Center for the last time to start stretching and practicing material for the big day!

First the girls participated in final evaluations for their team cheer and Xtreme routine. Both the freshman and varsity squads earned blue ribbons for both performances.

Next, teams got ready for camp champs (the cheer camp mini-competition). Both squads did a great job! Our varsity squad won first place in the varisty divison on the Xtreme Routine. They were also overall champions in this category. The freshman squad placed second in the non-varsity cheer divison. I'm uploading video of the varsity Xtreme Routine performance and the freshman cheer performance.

The freshman squad was also recognized as one of the Most-Improved squads at camp (which is the primary reason we come to camp in the first place!) The varsity squad was recognized as a Superior Squad. This recognition comes with an automatic bid for the squad to perform at the Capital One Bowl. The varsity squad was also awarded the "Top Banana" and "Traditions" award. These two awards are given for the most spirited squad throughout the entire week and for exceptional performance during the game day evaluations, that we completed yesterday.

Finally, I want to thank all of the people that helped make our week at cheer camp successful, safe, and FUN! Thank you to all of the parents who either drove to or from camp. Thank you to those of you that sent spirit gifts for the squad, to those of you that called to encourage your daughters and friends. A great big thank you to UCA and the great staff of Meredith, Emily, Kayla, Lisa, Taylor, Sean, and Luke. Finally, thanks to the Raider cheerleaders. This awesome week is because of your hard work, dedication, and PRIDE in representing WHS! GREAT JOB LADIES!

Almost Done!

We've wrapped up our last "offical" day of cheer camp. The only thing that's left are final evaluations and camp champs tomorrow.

The day started with the Hero's Pep Rally. Both squads from Williamsburg won the "most spirited" award, which means we now have a red, white, and blue beach ball to add to the trophy case at school when we get home!

The girls learned ANOTHER dance today, to use during timeouts at football and basketball games. Right now, I think this will be the dance the freshman do during some of their timeouts on Friday nights. We also jump conditioned, learned a band dance, and got ready to be evaluated on the Game Day Routine and the Xtreme Routine.

I'm pretty sure I already filled you in on the Game Day Routine and the Xtreme Routine; the freshman squad earned red Excellent ribbons in both evaluations and the varsity squad earned blue Superior ribbons in both evaluations. This officially extends the varsity squad's blue ribbon streak to four years! During our last four years at cheerleading camp, our varsity squads have only taken home blue ribbons!

Probably the biggest news of the day are the results of the All-American tryouts. Williamsburg had five girls try out for All-American and three got invitations to perform in London. A big congratulations to Samara Schmidt, Caitlin Capper, and Caitlin Osweiler!

We will end tonight saying good-bye to our only senior (Alisha Rowe) and painting all of our run-through signs for the up-coming football and basketball seasons. Although we've had our high points and low points at camp, I can honestly say this is the hardest working, most talented group of young women I have ever had the privilege of coaching. This week has been so much fun; much of it is thanks to the great leadership of Alisha and the willingness to work and to not settle for anything less than the best by your daughters and friends!

If you have the chance to come see us tomorrow at camp, I hope you will take advantage of the opprotunity! These girls have a lot to be proud of, and I know they will be excited to show you all they've learned this week.

Finally, I sent you an invitation to view my snapfish photo album of all the pictures I took at camp this week. I'll start a new album tomorrow for the final and email the invitation Wednesday or Thursday. I'm not planning to post tomorrow morning, its really hectic in the morning, and by the time I get the chance to post most of you will be on your way to Des Moines anyway. I will post one more time after we get home and upload video from camp champs and final evals. Thanks for following along with us at camp this week. I hope you've enjoyed it!

Offical (and final) ribbon count:

White: 0 Red: 4 Blue: 4 Banana: 1

Starting Day Three--Hero Day

Today is the final full day of camp and its the longest day of camp for the girls, by far. UCA tries to break up the day a little by having the final full day of camp be a themed day. This year's theme for day 3 of camp is Hero Day. The girls are dressing up like Raider Superfans today, complete with Superfan shirts and masks! We even made a "Super Senior" cape for our only senior Alisha Rowe.

The third day of camp is also the day for All-American tryouts (for those of you that have heard your daughters talk about camp before, this was previously known as All-Stars). We have five girls trying out for All-American today; Alisha Rowe, Samara Schmidt, Caitlin Capper, Alison Brinkman, and Caitlin Osweiler. If the girls are selected as All-Americans they will have the chance to pay a lot of money and cheer at a New Year's Day parade in London! If you have the chance, wish these girls luck! They will be trying out this afternoon before dinner and they will find out if they made All-American tonight right before final review.

I figured out how to upload the video I took of the girls rapping last night. If you go back to the Day Two post, you will find the video at the very bottom of the page.

Here's the schedule for today:
7:00 Breakfast
8:00 Senior Cheerleader Meeting
8:15 Warm Up
8:30 Hero's Pep Rally
9:00 Game Planning Class (including stunt testing, before squads can move on to elite stunts)
10:00 Dance Class
11:30 Private Coaching Prep
Noon LUNCH
2:00 Xtreme routine private coaching
3:15 Team UCA
4:00 All-American Tryouts
5:00 Dinner break
6:30 Xtreme Routine Evaluation
7:30 Material Review
8:00 Final Awards
8:15 Big Bro/Big Sis

Day Two

Today was the first full day of cheer camp, so chances are the girls will be sleeping well tonight! We were able to stick to the schedule I posted this morning pretty closely, needless to say the girls had a busy day!

Today the girls learned the Hip-Hop dance to Stunna Glasses . . . its hard, but the girls look great and worked really hard to learn the entire dance in one-hour! Caitlin Capper was crowned Williamsburg's "dancing diva" today. During stunt class the varsity cheerleaders mastered two extensions and the freshman are working on getting, nice, controlled elevators (the girls are in the air, but its not exactly the prettiest stunt yet!). Both squads worked on skills they had never even attempted before and had great success, because of their teamwork.

After dinner the girls were evaluated on a cheer they learned and perfected at camp. The freshman earned a red ribbon and the varsity squad was the ONLY team at camp to earn a blue ribbon today (although I'm not telling them until after we get home from camp). The staff at this UCA camp is very strict and has high expectations for the campers, so blue and red ribbons are certainly something to be proud of! Williamsburg also competed in the camp jump-off tonight. Both Samara Schmidt and Alison Brinkman were semi-finalists in the competition.

The highlight of the day was the varsity cheerleaders do their "Banana Rap." During the day the staff tries to steal unattended bananas. If the staff steals the banana the squad its stolen from must to a rap to get it back. I'm typing the words below, for those of you that are interested. I also took a video of the performance on my camera and when I can figure out how to upload that I will (the girls tell me its easy, but so far I've had no luck!) The girls went all-out and even put together make-shift gansta outfits (UCA staff tells us this is a first :).

We have the official schedule for the final day. Final evaluations will start at 9:15 and camp champs will start after evaluations. I'm guessing camp champs will probably start around 9:45. We will be in the Knapp Center for the evaluations. For those of you that go to Drake Relays, the girls tell me the Knapp Center is where you buy tickets for admission to the relays. Otherwise, you can download a PDF file of the Drake campus map and look for the Knapp Center. (It's on 25th street). The best place to park will be the public lot behind Jewell Hall. Jewell Hall is where the girls are staying, so it will also be easy to load their luggage in to your cars if you park there.

Tomorrow is typically a VERY long day for the girls at camp. Its the second full day of camp and the end of camp is in sight, so a lot of girls get anxious about getting to go home. If you have time tomorrow try to send your daughter an encouraging text or phone call around dinner time. They will really appreciate it!

Official Ribbon Count:

White: 0 Red: 2 Blue: 2 Banana: 1

Banana Rap Lyrics

Ooooh . . .

We got the pep

We got the energy!

We got the banana, but they took it from me!

Hey! Now what we gonna do?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .

Then we were sneakin' around,

We peeked around the corner and what did we see?!

The banana in a bin just starin' at me!

We looked at each other and said this is WACK!

So we used our ninja skills and took the nanna back!

We got oursevles in trouble,

but that's OK,

'cuz we're layin' down this rap for you today!

We still got the pep,

We still got the spirit,

This is the end,

we're glad you could hear it!

Starting Day Two

Here's the tentative schedule for today:
7:00: Breakfast
8:00: Head Cheerleader Meeting
8:15: Warm-up
8:30: Cheer Class/Jump Class
9:15: Dance Class
10:15: Stunt Class
11:15: Private Coaching Prep/Squad Unity Ceremony
11:30: LUNCH
1:30: Elective Classes
2:15: Private Coaching
3:00: Break
3:15: Dance Review/Team UCA
4:00: Open Workshop
5:00: Dinner
6:30: Cheer Evaluations
7:30: Material Review/Jump Off
8:00: Awards
8:30: Senior Reception

Today is "t-shirt" exchange day for the Williamsburg Cheerleaders . . . I have some very creative cheerleaders! One person is even wearing a t-shirt that her secret sis glued bells to!

I also forgot to include the offical ribbon count for WHS last night, so here it is:
White: 0 Red: 1 Blue: 1 Banana: 1

WE GOT THE BANANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The highlight of the first day of camp is winning the banana at daily awards tonight. Each night at camp squads that have worked hard and had great attitudes throughout the day earn a Spirit Stick (yes the spirit stick like in the movie Bring it On, no the spirit stick does not bring 7 years bad luck when dropped :). Anyway, the squad that goes above and beyond wins the banana. Today Williamsburg Varisty earned the banana!

Let's back up a little though . . .

We arrived at camp this morning about 11am. After getting the rules and room key assignments out of the way, the girls had about an hour to eat lunch, decorate their doors, and get ready for camp!

Today was a busy day at camp. The girls learned the Xtreme routine, three sidelines, a line dance, and stunting! Alison Brinkman was crowned the Williamsburg "dancing diva." The freshman worked hard on learning some shoulder-height stunts.

After dinner the varsity squad performed their home pom routine. We were the only squad to bring a pom routine to camp, but we are hoping our score will be high enough to qualify us to perform at the Capitol One Bowl in January. We had a few mistakes in the performance, but overall the girls did a great job. Next, both squads were evaluated on the three sidelines they learned this afternoon. The squads can earn one of three ribbons during evaluations; white, red, and blue. The freshman squad earned a red ribbon and the varsity squad earned a blue ribbon for their performance. We finished off the night with Xtreme Routine bootcamp . . . a VERY intense review of the Xtreme Routine material learned before dinner.

We finished with a gutter sundae in the dorm. We filled a 10 foot gutter with ice cream, the girls brought their favorite toppings and we dug in!

Overall, I couldn't be more pleased with the squads during their first day of camp. Its hot, parts of it are tedious, but they are WORKING HARD! I can't wait to see all of the improvements they make by the end of the week.

If you have a chance, leave a comment for us on the blog. I'm planning to read the comments to the girls the last night of camp.

I'll upload the day 2 schedule tomorrow morning. In the meantime I can assure you, your daughter is dreaming about cheerleading!

P.S. I'm also working on starting a Snapfish account of all the pictures I've been taking. If I get it figured out, I will be sure to let you know.

Getting Ready to Leave!

We haven't left for camp yet, but last night I downloaded the sample camp schedule from the Varsity website. I'm typing the sample schedule for Day 1 below. UCA usually tries to follow the schedule pretty closely, but I will try to update you with changes to the schedule.
Day 1
9:00 - Noon: Check in and Registration
12:30: Coaches' Meeting
1:00: Opening Demonstrations
1:30: Line Dance and Cheer Class
2:15: Xtreme Routine
3:15: Spotting Seminar/Stunt Qualification
3:30: Partner Stunt Class
4:30: Dinner Break
6:15: Optional Home Dance Evaluation (Williamsburg Varsity is competing in this)
7:00: Sideline Evaluations
7:30: Xtreme Routine Review
7:45: Material Review
8:00: Awards/Big Bro/Big Sis
9:00: Time Capsule

Be thinking of us while we travel up to Des Moines and some of the girls (and moms :) say tearful good-byes . . .

Getting Ready for Camp 7/10/09

Well tomorrow we leave for UCA cheerleading camp at Drake University in Des Moines. This year Williamsburg will be taking 16 cheerleaders with us to camp! This is the biggest group of cheerleaders I have ever taken . . . and we have two cheerleaders that can't come with us!

We've spent the last two weeks getting ready for camp (a total of three practices). We've been working on things like motions, jumps, and building. The varsity cheerleaders have also been preparing to show their home pom routine the first night of camp. This year we are dancing to Lip Gloss, by Lil Mama and Summer Love, by Justin Timberlake. We polished and polished the dance yesterday, and it looks pretty good! Hopefully the girls will do a great job performing on the first night!

We have some fun things planned for camp this year! We are going to dress up like Raider "Superfans" for Super Hero day at camp, make gutter sundaes, and have a microwave popcorn party!

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and stay nice, cool, and sunny for the next four days! Keep you fingers crossed!