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“Listen, my team and I were talking and since we don’t have enough mats yet to go full on tumbling, we could have a tumble off. Everyone gets to show their skills and it will push them to go harder than they normally would have.” Her tone was brisk and professional.
I completely fucking hated that idea. This wasn’t cheer camp. I needed my kids focused, not playing around with their rivals. Why couldn’t she just stick to her side of the damn gym?
I couldn’t say that, though, or risk everyone knowing that she was getting under my skin. So I said, “sure, sounds like fun” and hoped my eye wasn’t twitching too much.
Echo announced to the two squads what we were going to do and I had to admit, they all seemed excited about it. I’d had plans to video some of the stunts today, but that probably wasn’t going to happen. Echo had hijacked my practice, and I was going to have to make it clear this wouldn’t be happening again.
Dom shared a look with me, basically asking non-verbally if I was okay. I shrugged one shoulder. What was I going to do? I had to be classy, not assy.
The tumble off was fun, I had to admit. A few of my kids went for skills they might not have gone for during a regular practice and one, Amy, ended up landing her first standing double back handspring back tuck.
“I knew you could do it,” I said, giving her a high five. “You feel good about putting it in the routine? I could use you.”
“Yeah, definitely.” She beamed and her teammates grabbed her up in a huge group hug.
One of the reasons we’d lost at New Englands was that our tumbling wasn’t as high-skill as Echo’s team. We made up for those points in other areas, but this was what happened when you didn’t have five coaches to work with your kids on tumbling drills all the time.
There was a vote after everyone had tumbled and a guy named Timber from Echo’s team was declared the winner. I had to admit, I’d kill to get him on my team. Maybe I could call his parents up and convince them to move to a different school district.
“They’re good,” Dom said in my ear.
“Yeah, but our stunts are better.”
He sighed and Echo clapped her hands.
“Okay, enough of that, let’s get to work. Get the curtains up, divide the mats, let’s go.” And everyone moved their asses, including my team. They listened to Echo better than they listened to me.
Having her here was like putting my coaching skills under a microscope and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like having my inadequacies shoved in my face.
When I’d come to Corsica to coach, the Tigers had already been winners. Their head cheer coach had been here for twenty years and had built the program from the ground up. Then the torch was passed to me, and I had never coached a high school team before. I’d helped out with peewee kids, and at gymnastics camps, but I didn’t have any high school coaching experience. Somehow, they hired me anyway, and I spent every damn day trying to prove that I could live up to the legacy I’d inherited.
I breathed a little easier when Echo’s team was on the other side of the curtain again.
“Okay, are you all ready? We’re going to do two stunts at a time, and yes, there will be video.”
Dom had brought out the projector that I could use for my phone, as well as the white screen. Best investment I’d ever made as a coach.
There was a little grumbling, but I shut that down and made everyone who wasn’t in the stunt spot. We counted out each stunt as a group and I started to have a bad feeling about this practice. Sometimes they were on, and sometimes the vibe was just off and falling became like a virus. One stunt would go down and it would get in the other flyer’s heads and they’d psych themselves out and every stunt from then on would be shaky, or would go down.
This was one of those nights.
“Lock your leg!” I yelled as Ciana stood with a completely bent leg, trying to save a stunt that wasn’t going to be saved if she didn’t get stable and lock her damn leg. She didn’t listen to me and came crumbling down, but was caught by the bases.
There were a few whispered curses from the bases and Ciana looked like she was about to cry.
I stared each of them in the eyes. “You have two options. You can let this stunt defeat you, or you can go for it again. If you really think you can’t hit it today, I’d rather have you tell me that now so we don’t keep slamming our heads against a brick wall all night, or have someone get injured. It’s up to you.”
I liked to put the power in their hands, because it was. It was up to all of them to work together to keep Ciana in the air.
“You can do this, C. You’ve got this. You could do this stunt in your sleep.” She nodded and turned her head from side to side, cracking her neck. She made eye contact with her bases and everyone else started pumping them up, letting them know they had this, and they could do it.
Ciana went up the in stunt there was a little wobble, but enough of us gave her verbal support that she dug in and finally hit the stunt sequence, coming down with a huge smile on her face and high fives from her bases.
“That’s my girl,” I said, pointing at her.
“Thanks, Coach,” she said, blushing a little.
We moved on to the next group, and I almost forgot about Echo.
