My Cheer Family: By Lauren Matus

Last month I wrote about my actual family; the one who I see every day and night, the one who knows all the quirks about me, and who continues to be very important to me. However, my cheer team is like a second family to me. Cheer starts as early as April (which is when tryouts are), and then practice officially starts in July. July marks the beginning of lots of hard work, tears, and bows. We have practice twice a week in July, and then from August through December, we have practices three days a week, with an additional day for gymnastics, and games and competitions on the weekends. On top of this, we go to cheer camp in Pennsylvania for a week in the summer which is a really fun bonding experience. 15 girls. One shower. We share one cabin, and as much as we might want it to be over in the moment, camp teaches us skills we'll utilize for the rest of the season. All of the days we're there for camp, we need to wake up at six and it's a whole day packed with activities, ranging from learning new cheers, to doing stunts we've never tried before. By the end of the day, we're all exhausted, but we somehow manage to stay up even later just talking and playing games. 

One of my favorite memories last season was when we went to a competition in Toms River. This was the competition we had been waiting for all season. This was the qualifier in order for us to go to nationals. I remember my team and I sitting in a circle, hands crossed, waiting for our division to be called (Super Large Game Day). When one of the judges finally called our division, we were ecstatic! We were jumping up in down, some of us in tears, overwhelmed with happiness. We got our bid to nationals and all our hard work had paid off. 

Cheer season is one of my favorite times of the year, and not just because I don't have to pick out my outfit every Friday. I get to spend the majority of my time having fun with my teammates. Although, running sprints in the gym and getting critiqued by our coaches wouldn't be the same without an amazing team by my side.