The calendar (not to mention my ultra-literal oldest son)
tells me there are five weeks left in summer. But my eyes and ears tell me
otherwise. As mentioned in a previous post, Marist fall sports teams’ preseason
camps have begun. And as I type this on a beautiful summer evening, in a high
school parking lot pockmarked with potholes and weeds growing through the
pavement, I distinctly hear the sounds of autumn in the air.
Yes. That’s right. I am at my daughter’s cheerleading practice.
The coaches and the girls are counting out and cheering in unison. Most cheers
go to a cadence of 8, and they start out with a count of 5-6-7-8. If this means
nothing to you, it means you have not lived in the Cheerleading World. And
that’s OK! Here at Blog Central, we forgive you. And we are here to educate. If
there are typos in this or other posts, please forgive me. The girls are
bellowing out their counts very loudly, and very proudly and it can be
distracting to the writing process. But alas … it is the Cheer Way. Also, in
the background, in the fields below, I hear the whistles, grunts and crunching
of pads that signifies Pop Warner football practice. Sounds of fall, to be
sure.
Wait! Did you think I was gonna give up on Cheerleading
Talk? Ha! Not so lucky. Not so fast! Anyway. At last week’s Thursday evening
cheer practice, Coach Jenn (Natalie’s excellent and dedicated cheer coach
for many seasons) had a station wagon full of Cheer Swag (yeah man).
Some for sale. Some for free! Is there anything better than Free Swag? Not
really. And so, as a public service and forewarning to all team members that I
will see next week, and alumni I will hopefully be seeing soon thereafter,
there is a new T-shirt in my heavy rotation (as you can see), and it
reads as follows, in very boisterous and bold letters: “Cheer Dad.” Yeah man.
That’s me! Go ahead. Make fun of me. I don’t care. I am many things to many
people. Cheer Dad is one of them.
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