I never had a child work as hard as Camille to make a school team.
The youngest of four sisters, Camille grew up watching her sisters cheer and dance. She took dance as a child, but her passion was guitar. Music was her “track.”
But in 5th grade, that passion changed. Camille developed a love for cheer and decided to quit guitar to work toward making the 7th-grade squad.
If you know cheerleading, then you understand how tumbling is a big component. Most girls don’t pick it up overnight. They build these skills young, which means that Camille was behind.
The tumbling that came naturally to her sisters didn’t come easily to her.
But she persevered with lessons to catch up. She got her round-off back handspring and other cheer skills, and when 7th-grade tryouts arrived, she looked good.
But it wasn’t good enough to make the team.
Camille’s tryout was my 14th tryout experience with a daughter. You could say I’ve been around the tryout block, and that gave me perspective. I knew my baby girl would be okay, but seeing her upset was hard.
This was her first real rejection, and as Rod Stewart sings, the first cut is the deepest. Camille’s big sister didn’t make the Varsity squad the year before (story below) but in some ways, this heartache felt more difficult because of Camille’s age and lack of experience dealing with disappointment.
I just knew that she’d quit cheer. I predicted her to play it safe, being the perfectionist that she is, and not be vulnerable again.
Thankfully, Camille proved me wrong. She showed more resilience than I gave her credit for and surprised me in the best way.
Rather than quit, she decided to double down. She was determined to be a Mountain Brook cheerleader.
This was her dream, so it became my dream too. We spent the next year working overtime to prepare her for 8th-grade tryouts.
All the while I reminded her, as we drove to tumbling, cheer, and stunting lessons, that what I was investing in wasn’t the singular goal of her wearing a cheer uniform, but rather, the relationships she was building, the character she was developing, and the life-shaping conversations we had in the car because of her cheer journey.
Ultimately, these things matter most. These are the things that last.
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