History

When I was 13 years old and in the 7th grade I saw cheerleaders for the first time. They were the Stovall Jr. High 7th and 8th grade cheerleaders. I can still remember all their names! I actually cried. Im not sure why but at that moment I fell in love with what they were doing and it has been a passion in my life ever since.

I never got to cheer in Jr High or High school. Back them it was based on popularity and this shy and somewhat sullen girl would have never made it. None the less I practiced my cheers and started taking tumbling.

I finally did get up the nerve to try out once in high school. I did my round off backhand spring, my jumps and executed my cheer and dance perfectly.  Another girl got on the stage, started her cheer and couldnt remember it. Everyone laughed and she lauged with them. She said "no wait, I got this!" and she tried again only to forget the words and moves. The crowd of students again erupted in laughter. She said "I cant do this" and laughed herself off the stage. She made it. I didnt. 

I gave up on trying out but a little known fact: I choreographed about half of the older teams routines that next year. I would visit their practices and show them the cheers and dances I made up and they would ask me to teach them. 

After high school I started coaching anywhere I could but thats hard when youve never officially cheered. I did put together a cheer clinic for Houston First Baptist Chruch and I was also blessed to work with some NCA cheerleaders later that year.

One day a friend told me that Lee College in Baytown was having cheer tryouts. I was currently attenting North Harris and still taking tumbling. I went to Lee and tried out with about 50 other girls that had been cheering at the area high schools in Baytown. They were only chosing 10 girls for an all girl team. I tried out. I made it. I also made the highest score out of all the girls that tried out. Hows that for Gods favor?

I cheered at Lee for 2 years and spent part of a summer working for NCA.

When I graduated from Lee with an associates degree and left for SHSU cheerleading got put on hold.

For...a....long....time.... That was 1992

Between school, having a kid, getting married and having another kid..... it wasnt until 1997 that I decided I couldnt live without coaching anymore and started looking for opportunities.

I found a company called Young Olympians in early 1998. Their motto was to teach you a little and sell you alot! They wouldnt let us stunt and their manual didnt know the first thing about cheerleading but they had cheesey 20$ pom poms they wanted you to buy. Jewelry, shirts, skirts, bows....you name it we had to sell it. And the parents bought it too.

Well, I didnt go by the manual. I taught them REAL cheers, jumps and dances. It was fun. I had about 6 classes all over the Houston area.

One day I went in to get my "commission" check (LOL) and he said.... "We are closing Young Olympians". I even got to keep my inventory. I still have cheesy red and blue pom poms around here somewhere.

But the girls in all my classes........ when I told them YOI was closing they said "But Ms. Stacy now what do we do?"

I began to look for cheerleading competitions online and found Texas Cheer Association which was morphing into American Cheer Power. We signed up for a competition and started putting together a two and a half minute long routine.

 As much as I knew about cheerleading I was still learning about entire routines and coaching. I wasnt hard enough on them and it showed. I didnt know anyting about the new kinds of stunts they were doing or that our routine should not have been almost two minutes of cheers LOL We stank.

They won about 3 or 4 first place tropies that year at regionals but they never competed against other teams. I think it gave us all a false confidence because we placed last at nationals.

Somehow though the kids had fun and my tiny team of 19, created from left over YOI girls morphed into three teams the next year. A Senior team, a junior team and a show team. The senior team fell apart before nationals with one of our strongest girls quitting right before nationals. The junior team did awesome that year and was actualy the first team I ever had that actually WON first place at a regional. They placed third out of four at nationals.

The next year we decided to put all the kids together for a summer competition. We had SEVEN boys that summer and all but one could tumble. We took about 21 kids to the Astroworld competition that summer as a show team doing a routine to God Bless The USA. Tara Grigg was on that team. She went on the be the captain of the cheer team at Rice University. We had special shirts made for them and everything. It was awesome! Right beofre I was going to split them up into two teams............I found out I was pregnant!

Instead of running my program the 2000-2001 season I took a break. We started practice again in December of 2001 at my house. Some of the girls came and went. They would always seem to get mad at the rules. One little girl quit cause I wouldnt put her nasty lyriced rap music in the routine. Soon after her two friends quit too. Eventually it settled into a team of about 19-21. They were between 5th and 9th grade and they were amazing.They were super strong stunters for their age. They did well. Ourfirst highlight was getting 4th out of 9 team at Americas Bes. We went agaisnt Woodlands Elite. Of course they got first but to get 4th out of 9 teams going against teams like WECC was awesome for us. We were up against 4 teams at nationals. We got second, losing but a hair and were as happy as could be! BOGC was getting better!!!

The next year I affectionaly call "Nightmare year". Because we did so well at Nationals and were looking good the program grew. A little too big for me. I had NO help that year. We took 28 kids to camp (and did amazing by the way) and 35 to the first competition. OMGSH!! WAYYY too many kids on the mat for my head. I max out at 16 and overload at 20. 

We had kids coming and going and coming and going.(we hadnt implemented the 100$ rule yet) The minute we would plug in a new flyer or base she would quit. I had one flyer who was difficult and would not listen or follow rules. She would run back to mommy and tell her lies and started so much trouble for me that year. We had two that constantly fought and I ended up kicking my own beloved captain off that year.(I think I had become too much of a friend to her and when it was time to be an adult and call her on something, she flipped out)  It was crazy.

At the december competition we were a MESS!! I had to leave the girls for a bit and go cry. I had no idea what to do and NO HELP. Only parents being critical and rude and starting drama. None of the coaches I called ever seemed to return my calls. I had to make a decisison that was best for the team, for the girls who had shown the constant commitment and dedication. I did something BOGC had never done and will never do again. Imade some cuts.

First I cut all the drama starters. I also cut the noobs and the ones who just counldnt keep up. Some of them I breathed a sigh of relief to watch go. A few of them, the hardest thing ive ever had to do. :-(

I took the remainer of the girls and we created a brand new routine in TWO WEEKS! It was awesome but not enough to give us the edge we needed at nationals. TWELVE teams in our division and one of them........POE CHALLENGE TEAM. One of the best and scariest teams you could ever think of going against.  They still inspire me! After our performance on saturday I crunched the numbers and saw that even if we stuck everything and Poe dropped everything we still couldnt edge into 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Thats how far ahead they were of us. Our routine just didnt have the difficulty we needed. I talked to the girls and gave them options. 

Option one: Go out there, do our best, and see how close we can come to 4th.

Option two: Have some fun with this. :-D

Oh yeah...............we had the fun!

First of all we changed our cheer. It said:

Red Black and Gold

your national champ is here

we got the big guy on our side

so be of good cheer! (pause) YEAH!

We changed it to:

Red Black and Gold

your national champ is THERE (and we pointed to POE)

but we got the big guy on our side 

so be of good cheer! (pause) YEAH!

:-D

Another thing we did is change the dance. I let them do whatever they wanted during the dance sequence so they jumped and waddled and flapped and well...............did some pretty funny looking things. I wish I could have heard what the audience was saying LOL Better yet, I wish I had a tape of it!!

And the last and best thing was Lavender in the front.

See, we were in a non tumbling division that year. No tumbling allowed at all.

Well we had two girls who COULD tumble, we just didnt put it in the routine..............until now. 

Lavender could actually throw a standing back tuck. And she also happened to be the very front and center person in the dance. Guess what she did in the middle of the dance? :-D

You should have seen the judges faces!! It was GRAND!!

So much fun! SOOOO MUCH FUNNNN!

We placed NINTH out of 12! And we loved every minute of it!!!

To be continued................