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“Come on, Mack, smile!” Sometimes the flyers concentrated so hard to keep their stunts in the air that they forgot about their facials.
The bases tossed MacKynzie in the air and she twisted twice before they caught her and set her feet back on the mat.
“Great! Next,” I said, and we moved from stunt to stunt. I had to snap my fingers a few times to focus wandering eyes, but overall, they did as good as could be expected.
All the stunts did well, only a few wobbles and one fall, but she didn’t hit the mat, so they didn’t have to do push-ups, crunches, and running like they would have if she’d hit the floor. Flyers had broken their spines falling from stunts and I wasn’t going to let that happen on my watch if I could help it.
Since they had done so well, I decided to take it easy on them and drill the dance for the second half of practice, working on performance of each person, having each member do it by themselves in front of the whole squad and compete to see who had the best showmanship. It was light and fun and they all got so into it. Team dynamics were important, and I wanted to give them these less-serious moments. Cheer was supposed to be fun, and I didn’t want them to walk away from their cheer careers and regret being here.
While they had fun, I let my attention wander to the other side of the curtain. I’d seen a few stunts go up and down, and she seemed to be working on getting her flyers to be sharper on the ground, and having the bases count each stunt. Nothing exciting. One of her assistant coaches seemed to be videotaping, something I would start doing next week. The only way to make them see what they were doing was to show them what they were doing.
I grabbed Dom and had him make a note that we needed to film next week.
“This is why I need another assistant coach,” I said to him. “I need a spy. You think Heath would quit his job and pretend to be another coach for us?”
Dom laughed and shook his head. “They’re rattling you.”
I gave him a sharp look.
“What? It’s true. You’re totally rattled, look at you.”
I was literally standing there twitching. I could feel it.
“Shut up, Dom.” I said under my breath.
“You need to get over it. You need to lay your problems at the door. Isn’t that what you’re always telling them?” He gestured to the squad with his chin and I hated to admit he was right. I had to put this shit with Echo aside and give everything to this team. That was my job.
“Way to go, James!” I said as one of our more quiet guys gave a great performance. “That’s what I’m talking about. You gave me energy eleven.” I gave him a high five, which was silly because he was over six feet and I cleared five and a half on a good day.
Practice ended on a high note, and I felt good about what they’d put in for the day. Echo’s squad pushed the curtain to the side of the gym, out of the way and then everyone started sizing each other up as they rolled up the mats and put those away as well.
“Should we introduce them? It feels weird that we wouldn’t,” I said to Dom as Echo walked over, her entourage of coaches following in her wake like supplicants. I hated this so much.
“I thought maybe we should have them get to know each other, since we’re here on your hospitality.” She said the word with a hint of sarcasm that I didn’t miss.
“Sure,” I said, because what else was I going to do?
We got the kids together and everyone went around the room and it was awkward and a little weird and I could tell they all wanted it to be over as soon as possible. Each person introduced themselves, said their pronouns, and said what their position was.
When we got around the room to the coaches, Dom said “I’m Dom, he/him, and I’m the assistant coach of the Tigers, and I was a base and a tumbler when I cheered.” He turned to me and I said that I was head coach and had been a flyer.
Echo was next.
“I’m Echo and I’m the head coach of the NECC champion Bulldogs, and I was a flyeranda tumbler when I cheered.”
No one could miss those passive aggressive digs and I could feel the steam coming from my ears. Dom reached out with his foot and pressed it against mine, and I bit down on my tongue to keep a yelp in as Echo’s assistant coaches introduced themselves.
Brit, Dede, Cece, and Carl. I stopped myself from rolling my eyes as they went. Finally, it was over and the Bulldogs gathered up their things.
Echo checked her phone.
“Okay everyone, bus is here, get your stuff together and make sure you clean up your trash.” She clapped her hands again and I was starting to twitch whenever I heard that sound.
Echo wrangled her squad and they headed out to the bus all chatting and making as much noise as they had when they’d walked in.
And tomorrow we would do it all again.
The minute the gym door closed and they were gone, I breathed a sigh of relief.
