Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 17, 1995 TAG: 9504180048
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
- slogan on a T-shirt worn by
Northside High School cheerleaders
INNIE STIMELING'S older sisters are nervous. They can't help thinking about the seventh grade, the one time Ginnie tried out for cheerleading - and didn't make it - but the two of them did.
"We cried more than she did," says the oldest sister, April, a junior at Northside High School and a cheerleader since she was 6. The three sisters have already begun practicing every night on the patio in front of their sliding-glass door.
Using their reflections in the window, they critique each other's movements, pointing out imperfections - down to an errant thumb sticking out, or an insufficient smile.
At the first of six practice sessions for Northside High School's cheerleading tryouts, the Stimelings join 80 other girls in preparing for the nail-bitingest, tummy-twistingest 10 days of the school year.
By the end, they hope, they will have jumped, danced and chanted their way into the most coveted sororities of female adolescence - the varsity and junior-varsity cheerleading squads.
Only 32 in all will make it, meaning that 48 girls won't. It's cruel math, no matter how you figure it.
"Bring the Kleenex box," advises Deanie Ronk, a Northside teacher and cheerleading coach for 16 years. "It is one of the most intense things you will ever see."
For the next 10 days, junior Melody Walker will finger her family's lucky rock. Superstitious April Stimeling will forego shaving her legs.
Good-luck flowers and balloons will be sent, multiple cans of hair spray exhausted.
Insidious chants like "Hold that line, Vikings, hold that line" will become ingrained in these teen-agers' heads - stuck there like a bad Top-40 song or the theme from "Jeopardy!"
All for a shot at the Winners' List - read by principal Donna Henderson after the tryout scores are tallied and the victors picked.
The Stimelings' mother, Betty, a former cheerleader herself, puts it this way: "They know everything's not gonna run smoothly in life; they know they're gonna have their disappointments.
"But you just want 'em to win because they want it so bad. To them, right now in their lives, nothing is more important."
First cuts for the JV squad are always hardest. Just ask Jennifer Champion.
"Last year, I had the chicken pox and a 104-degree fever, but I came anyway," Jennifer says, sipping a Diet Coke. "I was itching like crazy.
"It's just so hard. You're watching everybody else and thinking they're better than you."
Jennifer made the squad last year, pox and all. Which puts her in the perfect position to give advice to Amanda Whited. On the afternoon of first cuts, the two of them bite their nails outside the gym, waiting to go before the judges.
"I know the cheers, but I'm afraid I won't know 'em when I get in there," says Amanda, a freshman. She bursts into tears, sobbing into her hands.
"You'll do great," Jennifer says. "Just tell yourself, 'I can do it.' "
In the gym, Jennifer finishes her near-perfect performance, and it's Amanda's turn. She starts her cheer, "We're - the Vikings. We - can't be beat."
She flubs the next arm movement and stops, her face reddening.
"Can I start over?" she begs coach Ronk, who nods. Amanda takes a deep breath and begins again:
"We're - the Vikings. We - can't be beat. Salem -- Spartans. You're headed for - defeat."
She forgets her next line. Standing there, trembling, she bursts into tears.
Ronk runs to console her, but Amanda can't stop crying. Two senior cheerleaders whisk her into the bathroom for a pep talk.
Minutes later, she's back for the finish. She executes the first cheer flawlessly. But halfway into her second one, her mind blanks out again. Ronk puts her arms around her and whispers to her nose to nose.
Amanda completes her second cheer with Ronk kneeling next to her. Her words, her movements, her jumps - everything is perfect.
An hour later, when her name is called, Amanda screams. She's just jumped her way through the narrow hoop of first cuts.
She made it.
And the competition just got stiffer - 24 competing for 12 JV slots, 27 vying for 20 varsity positions. Almost all have experience on a recreation or school squad.
On final tryout night, 20 judges assemble on the bleachers, their clipboards and score sheets in hand. Among them are teachers, former cheerleaders and cheerleading coaches from other schools.
Judge Robin Nichols, a Northside Middle School teacher and former Patrick Henry cheerleader, shakes her head at all the hair spray and make-up in the cafeteria where the girls wait. "I thought it was a big deal when I was in school, but this is just huge."
In the cafeteria, the girls practice moves, straighten each other's ponytails and sing chants. They're trying to get their minds off the obvious question: How will I do in the gym?
Each try-out group returns from the gym with at least one horror story to tell.
"During the [dance to the] school song, I go, 'Let's go, big green,'" squeals April Stimeling to her younger sisters, Ginnie and Sally. "I'd messed up the cheer before, so I was trying to do anything I could to make up for it" by shouting impromptu chants to show spirit.
"But THAT... 'Let's go, big green.' I mean, how GOOFY."
Girls are assigned numbers for the judging instead of going by their names. Ginnie notes that she and Sally both drew the number 21.
"And April's number 14. So we're all multiples of 7, which is good luck," the eighth-grader explains.
Whereupon Melody Walker shows off her family's lucky rock, which is pinned to the inside of her shorts pocket. Her sister Traci, a college student and former Northside cheerleader, found the rock on Myrtle Beach when she was 18 months old.
Ever since, she explains, her mom and dad have been carting it to job interviews and important meetings, loaning it out to the daughters for events like college interviews, tests and cheerleading tryouts.
"It's never failed us," Melody says, grinning.
Two hours into tryouts, the Stimelings' mother, Betty, arrives with their supper - homemade sub sandwiches, chips, fruit, and green and gold cupcakes with the words "GOOD LUCK" written in icing.
Only half of the girls have tried out, and Betty - who's been through this five times before - knows it'll be hours more before the winners' names are called.
A fixture at Northside games, Betty got it into her head last season that the varsity basketball team couldn't win unless she and another cheerleader's mom, Sandy Hearn, sat directly behind the team.
"I've had a headache all day long worrying over this," says Sandy, mother of Christy Timmerman. (Sandy's car license tag reads "CHEER-MA.")
"I'm doing OK - until you and the other moms get around me and make me nervous," Betty tells her. To avoid creating even more pressure, Ronk bans the moms from watching their daughters try out in the gym.
"I'm probably a big embarrassment to them, but I love it," says Betty, a single mom who works the line at General Electric. "This is my life. I figure I won't have 'em much longer."
She takes her daughter Ginnie's ponytail down to re-tie it.
"Too lumpy," Ginnie says. Her mom re-ties it again.
Later, Betty confides, "Varsity's not gonna be hard for April and Sally to make, but Ginnie I worry about."
Our father, who art in heaven...
Ginnie's group holds hands and recites "The Lord's Prayer" in the cafeteria, then asks God to give them confidence in the gym.
Amanda Whited, who cried during first tryouts, seems matter-of-fact when it's her turn to take the stage. She stumbles just once in her first cheer, ending the chant by looking sideways instead of toward the judges.
When she finally does face the front, she looks stunned - like a deer caught in headlights. The judges laugh and she does, too. Then she leaves the gym smiling.
Ginnie's group, one of the last to try out, gives a near-perfect performance. But, as principal Henderson tells the girls just before she reads the Winners' List, "Unfortunately, not everyone can be on the squad."
"Remember," graduating senior Cora Carpenter advises, "you all did a great job." Cora holds the 6-week-old baby of senior cheerleader Meredith Bradley, who came to school just to hear the Winners' List read.
"Cheerleading is not the end of the world," Cora repeats. "There are other things."
But as Henderson stands there with the list, nothing is more important to these girls than hearing their names read. Sitting in a circle, they wrap their arms around each other.
The senior cheerleaders, wearing their uniforms for the last time, are already crying. The moms, banished to the hallway, stand with their ears pressed to the cafeteria doors, listening.
Even one of the girls who was cut the week before shows up with her mom. She'd sent 10 good-luck carnations to the gym for her friends and was there now to show support.
As Henderson reads the list, girls squeal and scream, hug and jump. By the end of the list, almost everyone is crying - some because they made it, some because they didn't.
Some because their friend made it and they didn't, some because they made it and their friend didn't.
The Stimeling sisters, who all made it, are all in tears. Joy for themselves, sorrow for a friend of theirs - a junior cheerleader who won't be coming back.
Amanda Whited, who also didn't make the final cut, hugs her friends who did. Melody Walker, who will return to her cheerleading post next year, hugs her mom, Carol, and squeezes her family's lucky rock.
It is 7:30 p.m., four hours after the final cuts began, 10 days since the line began separating the winners from the losers - creating memories both cruel and kind.
As coach Ronk tidies the gym, principal Henderson leaves with the stack of score sheets, the coveted statistics of runners-up and top scorers. It's serious business, she knows, so she locks them in the school vault, where they will remain unless a parent questions a score, or a runner-up is needed.
Outside, a red-eyed student waits for her ride. She sits alone on the cement, her legs crossed, relieved to be going home.
by CNB