Friday, November 03, 2006

Reality Bites...literally

As a former Midway High School Cheerleader, I found it very interesting when I heard that TLC was going to do a reality show following the cheerleaders. It's hard to admit, but I LOVE reality television. I think that people in general are so interesting and can't get enough of 'em. I have known several people who have been on reality tv and know enough to know that sometimes they hardly show the reality of the situation. My love for reality may change after next week!

I am still close to my High School cheer coach. I even helped her start an All Star cheer gym in my hometown 8 years ago that I worked at for 5 years. She had been the Cheer coach for almost 20 years at Midway, and had led them to Nationals for the majority of those years. Last year, unbenounced to her, she was no longer the cheer coach at Midway High School. (that is a whole different story). This is the part where I am reminded that everything happens for a reason, which may have not been clear at the time.

The Cheerleaders were given a new coach who was quick to sign them up for a reality show on TLC. TLC followed them for several months and it turned out, that for the first time in many, many years they did not do so well competing. I guess worse than unentertaining cheerleading is unentertaining television. The show is set to be aired on Monday, November 6th at 6pm on TLC under the name Texas Cheer Mom's.

I hate that title and everything that it portrays. Working in the cheer industry, I fully understand that the idea of the "Texas cheer mom" absolutely exists; however there is a lot of positivity surrounding the sport that often doesn't get seen. TLC apparently felt that the sport and characters of the girls was too uninteresting to play into, so they decided to make it about the Mom's. I think they are missing a big opportunity to show how the positive side to these girls and this sport. I happened to have coached a handful of the girls that are going to be portrayed and am nervous to see how it is going to go.

It was told to me that the school administrators have seen the first four episodes and were appalled. They went as far as to try and get the series pulled before it could be aired with no luck.

I will be watching with my hands over my eyes. It will be interesting if anything. If you happen to catch the show, let me know what you think.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Midway cheerleading???? Never heard of them in the competition world! I have been coaching and judging cheerleading for 18 years and have not heard of them till this past year when I judged the UCA high School Cheerleading championships! So I did some looking into this today. I found this squad competed a few times at nca. By the rankings they have not ever come close to winning! Found a old video and saw them compete! Not too good! As for what I remember from this team at UCA nationals they were not bad. I think thier routine was great but had a top girl jump out of a stunt. I looked at the preveiw on the TLC web today and I think the show is great! Will show the world how crazy parents are and spoiled cheerleaders are. Oh cheerleading is not a sport it is an athletic activity!

Anonymous said...

To anonymous, I thought a sport was anything athletic that speeds the heart rate? Maybe I am wrong though. lol.

Midway isn't known for cheerleading, they are known for thinking they are the Harvard of public schools when they didn't even place on Newsweek's rankings.

Most cheerleaders I've seen work very hard, but sadly it's true that Midway elevates their cheerleaders to an unfair status and gives them all huge egos. It will be interesting to see the show. Surely there's got to be one sane mom in the crowd. They can't all be living their second childhood through their daughters.

Tiffany said...

I appreciate the comments. Very interesting. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

First off, in writing against the first comment left...no one said anything about Midway cheerleading winning first place at Nationals, she said they were lead to Nationals. Whether they won or not doesn't matter. Who cares if you have ever heard of them or not? There are so many high schools around that a UCA person may not have heard of if the teams are predominately NCA. Second off, I also agree that the show should focus on some of the positive aspects of cheerleading, not another show about a cheer mom. If Midways cheerleaders are overglorified and no one has ever heard of them then tell me again why a major television network chose them for the show?

Anonymous said...

They knew the new coach at Midway.