Autobiography

Imagine going through ten months of hard work and sweat. In my school at Brick Memorial High School, we have a cheerleading team that I am a part of. We have twenty-six people on our team, twenty-five girls, and one boy. We have been working very hard since the summer and now it has finally paid off. We were going to take part in our school's very first competitive cheerleading co-ed squad, and we are all very excited about it this year, especially my coach, Mrs. Crystal Handchen.

Mrs. Handchen has been cheering since 1970 until today. She has dedicated thirty-nine years of her life to the hard world of cheerleading. She is so passionate about cheerleading and takes it very seriously. She sometimes acts like a psycho, but I realized that it was for our benifit. She wants us to work hard, and to look good. She never likes to see us fail, only to succeed. When she yells at me I get the rush to do ten times better because she intimidates me. When she yells at me it makes me more detirmined to do better then what I was doing before. Mrs. Handchen is a very intimidating person because for one thing she only likes perfection. She will not take anything that is not perfect, and will keep pushing us to make us the best that we can ever possibly be. She also use to be a body builder and would compete in hard core contests. When you have a coach that use to be a body builder and tells us stories about how she would beat up the boys when she was in highschool, it is kind of frightening to see what she will do to us if we mess up.

My best friend Sarah Quinn is a part of my team and we find Mrs. Handchen to be hilarious. During our practices, she will say the craziest things and Sarah and I will be the only ones busting out laughing. Sarah has been my best friend ever since about third grade. I met her during Pop Warner. Sarah and I always go to practice together and we are always practicing our routine together. If it was not for her, I do not think that I would be catching on to our routine as quickly.

Our first competition was on Valentines Day, and it was two and a half weeks before then, and we still did not have a full routine. During our practices, Mrs. Handchen would put some parts together, but not everything. At that point all we had were stunt groups, a cheer, and an opening. To make the routine complete we need a tumbling sequence, a pyramid, basket tosses, flexiblity stunts, a dance, and music. We did not feel ready for our competition at all. I was attending every practice two times a week up until the practice before our competition.

Now it was time to decide if we were going to compete at all. I did not feel ready, but by this time, we had our whole routine. It was crunch time, and all of us knew it. I was working exremely hard, and so were all my teammates. Mrs. Handchen felt that we were ready to compete. She told us, "You girls, and John, can do it. I feel confident. I am not panicking, and when, if, I panick, then you know it is not good. I can see you guys, and you are looking great. You really outdid yourselves in six practices. I know to you guys it might not seem like enough, but it is. We are competing against one team, I know you guys can pull it off. You have an awesome routine. So we are going to be competing at the competition on Saturday, and you will strive for success. I know you all can do it because each and everyone of you are perfectionists, just like me." When I was listening to Mrs. Handchen, all I could keep thinking about is that we just learned our routine so we must not be all that perfect. I respect Mrs. Handchen and everything, but that just did not not feel right. I guess we would all find out the next day at our competition.

The next morning I woke up at about nine o'clock. We had to meet at the highschool at twelve and be ready with our hair curled, makeup done, uniform on, and bow in. When it was about time to leave, I actually started feeling more confident. I was actually really excited to compete today. When Sarah picked me up we were ranting on about how each of us were just equally excited about today. At that time I was not nervous at all. Once we got on the bus we were headed straight for the Asbury Park Convention Center.

When we got there, we got off the bus, and headed inside. We put our bags down in the auditorium part of it, where we were going to be warming up. Our warm up time was at 2:10 and we were schudeled to compete at 2:45. While we were standing by the door waiting to go inside to warm up, Mrs. Handchen started making her way towards the front of us. While she was walking she tripped and John, Sarah, and I were the only people that saw. We all started hysterically laughing. Sarah turned around so that she was not looking at herwhile she was laughing, John had to walk away, and I just stood there, laughing in her face. I could not help it, it was just so funny. After that died down, she started telling us what we were going to be working on when it was our turn to warm up. She told us that right when we get on there to go to our basket tosses first, followed by our flexibilty stunts, then our pyramid, and then finally our jumps. She set it up just like that because we only had five minutes to warm up.

Finally, it was our turn for warmups. We hit everything perfectly, and Mrs. Handchen said our jumps were looking good. After warmups we moved to another warmup spot where we went to warm up our tumbling. Everyone's tumbling was looking good and we were really getting pumped. The only nervous thingnow, is now that we were done warming up tumbling, it was two more teams, and then we were on the floor to compete. When we were waiting for our turn to come up, one of the seniors on our team, Sarah Thomas, told us to hold hands and to pray. We said the Our Father and then after that we all started to get nervous. We were now one team away and it was actually becoming more real. Before this point, it felt so surreal.

It was finally our turn to compete. We got on the side of the floor, held hands and chanted, "Fierce and ready in 2009, coming together, now is our time. Mustangs!" We then spirited onto the floor and we were then waiting for our music to come on. We started off really good and then it suddenly went bad. During the flexibility stunts, Sarah Thomas's group fell, and their whole group was totally on the gound. When that happens, you get major deductions because it is a safey violation. The next bad thing was during our pyramid, the two groups that were supposed to hitch out fell at the exact same time. When I saw this I was saying we were done and that it is over. We finished our routine, and ran off the floor. I was panting because I was so out of breath. Mrs. Handchen took us up to the top of the areana and was talking to us. She said, "Do not cry over this. This is our first competition. We did not get first this week, but we tried. Do not worry about it. I am not mad this week, and when I am not mad, then that is good."

When she was done talking we reliezed that our competition was up next. We ran out to go see them and we were all watching. The team we were competing against was called the Colonia Patriots. They had nine football players on their team and they were throwing their girls quite high. They did not have any stunts that fell, so we were sure we lost. The only bad parts of their routine was their jumps, transitions, and their dance. It was not sharp at all, but it did not matter. I knew we lost but there are still more competitions this season. I was not all that worried.

Now it was time for the awards. We all got down on the floor and were seated with all the other teams, not only Colonia, but all the other ones in different divisions. We were saying not to get upset when they do not call us, just to shake it off. First they were doing the highschool teams that were not co-ed. When they got to the co-ed division they did the small division first. We had to keep waiting forever it seemed until it was our turn.

"Now it is time for Varsity co-ed large squads." The anouncer said. Okay it was finally our turn and we were all telling each other not to get upset and just act like we were against like five other teams when they place us second. "And first place goes to...Brick Memorial Mustangs!" We all jumped up, shocked that we won when we had about four stunts drop. Some girls were saying we were set up because they never named the second place team, and some of us were saying that they just got disqualified. I did not care, however, because we won! After all our hard wark, we actually won. It seemed so surreal after all the stunts that went down. Mrs. Handchen was also surprised. She said that she was very shocked, but that we will take it.

Now that competition was over, we were on our way back to the highschool. The girls, and John, on the bus were talking about going to Apple Bee's tonight at ten for half-priced appitizers. That competition made me relieze that if you put your heart and soul into something that you dedicate all your time to, you will get everything that you always dream of. Now I am more detirmined not to give up at all in life and keep on succeeding.