August 15, 2011
Edmonton Eskimos
Stan’s Blog – Eskimo Cheer Team
There was no amount of words to describe our time at USA stunt camp in California. Surprisingly though being so close to Hollywood you can’t help but compare our trip to a summer blockbuster movie. Our movie consisted of high flying action, highs and lows and your cheesy musical number here and there!
Our Journey started landing in LAX and racing to our first cheer class because Esks had a game the night before! The USA cheer staff were more than amazing spending time with us and catching us up on what we missed in the morning. We wouldn’t have succeeded the way we did without our great instructors Jess and Christian. The first day felt extremely overwhelming learning all the choreography, yet as a team we knew nothing was impossible.
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| Lynae does her split kick basket toss which helped her win the All-American Spirit Star Award. |
Our four-day classes consisted of cheer choreography, pyramids, basket toss and a specialty class where we learned and mastered our partner stunting skills. It was in these classes that our team shined . Nothing came easy to us and we had to work together to succeed. Every member on our team came out of those classes reaching their goal! Being a rookie on the team our veterans kept us strong, always motivating us to be better than we were and it brought us even closer as a team.
On the last couple days we were evaluated on our cheers and pyramids, where we came out with the “Superior” ribbons, the highest awards for the two categories. We also won the Spirit Stick for being one of the most spirited teams at camp and placed first in Co-ed Show Cheer. Out of all the awards and accolades our team won I think one of the most special for me was the “All American Spirit Star award.” We had five members of our team try out for it. Riley, Tyler, Sean, Lynae and I were picked personally from USA staff out of over 300 competitors for the Spirit award. All five of us had to perform one of the cheers in front of the entire camp. After the competition was cut down from 50 to top 10, there was only one person who was shining brighter than the other competitors and that was Eskimos’ Lynae. Out of the top 10, Lynae blew the competition away with her larger than life personality, amazing skill set and what was called by many people the most beautiful “split kick” basket toss ever seen. Out of all the days we were in California that day was my favorite. We were all so proud of Lynae for winning this honor!
After every day of camp we would regroup and talk about the day as a team. It’s during these talks I realized how blessed I was to be sharing these moments with these people. We met all adversities together, and we truly won as a team. I can’t say enough about the great leadership we had from our coach Dianne.
We ended off our trip with a beautiful team dinner and an exciting time at Six Flags amusement park. Like every great movie, our journey ends with a happy ending. I went to California to work hard and learn, but I came back with so much more. I will always cherish the memories from USA camp, the trip where the Eskimos traveled down as a team but came back as a family.