Cheers for Immaculate
published: Wednesday | July 30, 2003

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I FEEL compelled to respond to the letter of the day - 'Cheerleading competition should be revamped', carried in The Gleaner of Tuesday, July 29, 2003.

I differ with the 'American visitor' entirely. Hillel was extremely creative - no two ways about that! However, despite the team having tosses, stunts, hurkies, pyramids, etc., what I found lacking in their routine was "cheers" and that, to me, is an essential ingredient in a cheerleading competition! As the name suggests, "cheerleading" is critical to the process and this combined with the creativity of the routine (tosses, pyramids, etc.) is what makes a winning team. I, too, watch the cheerleading competition on ESPN and what I see is "cheering" all or most of the way. When teams are doing the tosses, stunts, etc., they consistently cheer every step of the way. As a matter of fact crowd involvement i.e. getting the crowd to "repeat the cheers" appears, to me, to form part of the score.

Therefore, in my mind Immaculate deserved to be the winners! They had stunts and pyramids and while all this was being performed they consistently had "cheers"! So 'American visitor', Hillel was not "the winner in the hearts and minds of the entire crowd", because I formed part of that crowd and IMMACULATE deserved the trophy!

On the matter of "expletives in their music", I quite clearly remembered the music being cut at the particular point where the so-called "expletive" would have been heard. To that end, I only heard "Mother" and at that point the system was turned down. So it was left up to one's imagination to assume what word would have been missing. The idea of sending teams off to a cheerleading camp to better hone and develop their cheerleading skills is an excellent idea, as I am sure efforts will be made to involve pertinent persons who can better guide the process of cheerleading.

CONGRATULATIONS Immaculate Conception High School for winning the Cheerleading Competition and JAMFIT, in association with the Ministry of Health, for introducing this to our little island Jamaica!

I am, etc.

Andrea Lawrence

St. Catherine

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