POP CENTURY-Remember When....

So, Nationals 2010 is officially over. Yep, that's right. finished. Home from Florida. Back to hell. Yeah, i'm sure you all get it. Wanna know how we did? Well, let's see. Ask the judges what they prefer: slutty shimmies, wild hair flips, or embarrasssing sweeping the floor motions? They'll apparently answer all of the above AND MORE. So basically, Iowa Elite Senior Coed was undefeated all season right? Right. We never once got anything less than first place and we rocked the shit out of every competition, getting grand champs at all but two. I'm blesssed to be on such an awesome cheerleading team. Now I know I wasn't expecting to get first at nationals (okay maybe I was), but I was expecting to get better than 8th out of 12. But guess what? We didn't sell our routine enough for the judges apparently, because the teams ahead of us, while lacking in skill didn't lack in the area of cockiness but it was more than just that it was downright, absurd, we run this shit routines. It was horrifying watching other teams being placed in front of us, especially when we've worked our aces off to get here. Not saying that any of the other cheer teams there didn't work just as hard as we did, but I felt like we really deserved more than what we got. This year we took down the most tumbling we ever have. That's the amount of flips in the routine. Then, we have the largest team we've ever had going down there too. Well, tied with last years but this year with much more talent. And we also brought down what I thought was the absolute best routine I have ever seen in a very long time from us. It's little to say that I'm bummed, I'm pissed off, yeah I'll admit it. But not because we got eighth. Well okay yes because of that but because I don't understand it. If I thought the other teams that beat us deserved the spots they got, I'd be okay with it. If I knew our routine difficulty level and skill was nowhere near the others I'd get it then too but what upsets me the most is that our routine was just as difficult and more often than not, more difficult than the other teams in our division. We had over seven flyers in the air at the same time hitting the same skills. We had a killer pyramid, awesome dismounts, and super flexibility with our flyers. We had so many flips you couldn't count 'em all. The first place team had ten all together. But what we didn't have enough of, I guess, was cockiness. We knew this the first day we competed as the judges pre-ranked us. So, we took the advice, added the stuff that made us look like the other teams (the shimmies, the hair flips, the sweeping the floor motions: all ridiculous I'm well aware), and we STILL placed eighth. Our routines were perfection. We had one minor flaw the first day and a bigger than minor flaw the second day so I knew enough not to expect first but eighth, come on 8th!??!?! Might as well just hand back the trophy and say goodbye to the judges. We all decided to let our emotions run wild Sunday night after competing, we cried as a team, we talked as a team, and for the first time ever I finally felt like we all truly were a team. It was the best. At those moments in time, nothing mattered anymore but being together. We ended up trashing our trophy on the bus ride home. We covered it in silly string, put garbage all over it, wrote our names on it, made it look like crap and you wanna know what? We had the funnest time doing it! We didn't care anymore about getting eighth place, we knew, no matter what the judges said, that we deserved ALOT more than what we got. But oh well I guess, there's always next year. Then again though, that's my last year to win one of those ugly national champion black jackets I've wanted for sooooooo long!!!! WE MUST WIN :)

Here's a link to watch our routine down at Nationals. While looking, take a quick peak at the other large senior coed level 3 teams, and see how you'd rank them, and let me know!!! Maybe you'll choose the way we did and put Iowa Elite in top three:)

www.varsity.com