Cheerleading is one of the most competitive sports I know. Cheer is more than the “rah-rah” you picture. Cheerleading is physical, it’s mental, and it. Gets. Bloody. Every team wants to beat their own personal best. Still, the process of getting the components needed in that 2:30 routine is all about who’s the most skilled, the most creative, the cleanest, the shiniest, the most energetic, and just the overall best.
…but I don’t really care about whether or not my athlete wins.
The sentence above doesn’t really match up with who I am and how competitive I actually get. I always want to do better, be better, and be the most impressive. If you’re running next to me on the treadmill, we’re racing. I’m always out to win.
When I say that first place is not my top priority for my athlete, it’s a big deal.
When it comes to All-Star Cheerleading, winning isn’t everything for me. Winning is not the measuring stick I use for success. I don’t pay for my kid to win every time. I don’t pay for my kid to be in the front. I don’t pay for coaches to tell my kid that everything she does is great. There is so much else that my athlete gains from this sport.
Here are just a few things that I pay for when I write that check to cheer, and absolutely none of them involves a scoresheet or placement:
I pay for tough love.
I pay for the lessons learned in losing.
I pay for lessons learned in failure.
I pay for my kid to learn how to work with a team.
I pay for her to find a community.
I pay for her to discover herself: her strengths, her passions, her areas for growth.
I pay for her to learn to work with people she may not get along with.
I pay for her to have leaders in her life who give her advice that matters.
I pay for progress over perfection.
I pay for my kid to find value in hard work.
I pay for my kid to do something she loves.
Do we always hope for a win? Yes. Would a championship ring be freaking awesome? Absolutely.
Do I celebrate when she does well, and do I cry with her when it doesn’t work out? You betcha.
Winning is fun. Winning feels good. But I don’t expect a win every time. I don’t expect my athlete to come home happy every day. I expect that there will be hard days when she wants to quit. Then I tell her that she should remember this feeling when she wins or hits a zero deduction routine.
And when she does well, I remind her that all those hard days were worth it.
So, no: I am not here to win all the time. Because doing your best, doing everything that’s asked of you, feeling proud of yourself, and being a whole, well-rounded, nice human is worth WAY more.
