Houston Dynamo) Marilu Amador-Harman is a proud Latina of Cuban and Spanish descent.

Like many Latin natives, she has always had a passion for dancing and music. Her natural talent for dance led her into a career of professional dancing, choreography, show production, and music editing. Trained for over a decade at the McAllen Dance Theatre company and later in New York and Los Angeles, Marilu was a star performer and choreographer throughout her youth, and continued her passion well into her college years and beyond. When Marilu was a freshman at Texas A&M University, she was dismayed to find that the school so rich in tradition was lacking something that had been a personal tradition all her life – dancing. So she broke new ground and started The Texas Aggie Dance Team, a dance squad that performed at every one of the Aggie basketball games and later under her coaching went on to win national awards.

That uncontrollable urge to get up and dance lured her to Dallas while completing her senior year and receiving her Bachelor’s of Science degree. She danced for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks for one year, and then moved to Houston where she signed on with the Houston Rockets to re-vamp their cheerleading program. Under her leadership as dancer, captain, choreographer, marketer and director of the team for 10 years, her squad eclipsed even the starry moves of the pros in LA and New York, and received accolades from industry publications such as Sport Magazine which acknowledged her creativity as the reason for their choice as “Best in the NBA”.

Her expertise in the professional sports dance arena was sought after by other teams, and her style and presentation changed the face of the typical NBA dance team to the high energy Broadway style NBA teams showcase today. After only 2 years in the league, Marilu was recruited to serve as the visionary, creator, and director for numerous sports dance teams in Houston. Starting with the Power Dancers of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, Marilu also went on to create, choreograph, market for and direct the Texas Terror and Houston Thunderbears Arena Football Cheerleaders for 5 years, and the WNBA’s Houston Comets Team NRG co-ed hip hop squad for a record 7 years (after creating this concept, Marilu’s idea for the WBNA’s new dance crew spread and was copied throughout the league into what we see today on most of the basketball courts.)

And now, Marilu has been recruited once again to help create the newest sports dance team in Houston, the MLS Houston Dynamo’s “Dynamo Girls” who are now in their 2nd year. Not only new to Houston, but new to U.S. soccer as a whole, Marilu’s passion and commitment to the dance program has once again helped to pioneer a new dance endeavor for professional sports, as other MLS teams are looking to the Dynamo Girls’ program for support to start their own pro-dance squads.

Her strength does not only lie in choreography and creativity – but in the ability to take normal everyday people and their abilities and create something exciting. Marilu’s strongest conviction is to use the gifts that she has been given to help others. This conviction was noted by MTV producers in February of this year, when Marilu was featured as a coach on MTV’s reality TV show “MADE”. You can catch Marilu’s episode on this season’s show schedule. [Click here to watch it online] But her passion to coach and be there for others doesn’t end there. Many of Marilu’s dancers have gone on to fulfill their own careers – they have become local and national recording artists, actors, choreographers, directors of professional sports dance teams, studio owners, and several have gone on to perform in movies and with artists such as Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Fergie, Christina Aguilera, Frankie J, and many more. In the end analysis, Marilu is a visionary and a dream pusher – she believes in fulfilling her own dreams and helping other people do the same.

The Tulsa Talons are proud to announce the addition of Andrea Collins as the Director of the Talons Cheerleaders and Caitlin Hoagland as the team’s Choreographer.

ANDREA COLLINS-Director

Andrea is entering her sixth year with the Tulsa Talons Cheerleaders. She has been involved with dance for most of her life. She became an assistant dance teacher at the age of 12, a lead teacher by the age of 15 at Fun Times Dance & Gymnastics, and has continued teaching for the past 10 years. She has coached and choreographed for several cheer and dance teams in the Tulsa area as well as production numbers at the college level. Andrea has competed nationally for many years. She is a graduate of Jenks High School, where she was a member of the Jenks Pom squad for four years. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Finance & Accounting at Oklahoma State University in 2007. She is currently working as a Staff Accountant for SMG Tulsa.

“I am excited to be the director of the AF1 Tulsa Talons Cheerleaders. After being a Talons dancer for five years, I am looking forward to being part of a professional dance team and what the new AF1 will bring to Tulsa.”

CAITLIN HOAGLAND-Choreographer

Originally from Tulsa, Caitlin started dancing in middle school and continued on to Tulsa Memorial Pom squad, where she was an officer all four years, and captain her senior year. She since has taken hip-hop through Extension Dance Academy, Applause Studio, and Tulsa Ballet. Caitlin started coaching her sophomore year of high school and has been coaching for the past eight years. Caitlin will be entering her 3rd year with the Tulsa Talons Cheerleaders. She currently teaches hip-hop at Extension Dance Academy in Broken Arrow, and choreographs for and teaches technique to other surrounding area dance teams. She is the coach for Byrd Middle School’s Varsity Pom Team and Booker T. Washington’s Varsity Pom Team. She currently is pursuing a pre-law degree at OSU, as well as an assistant manager at Vector Marketing.”I am absolutely thrilled about the opportunity to choreograph for the Tulsa Talons Cheerleaders. Being able to come in when the Talons have made the switch to AF1 is very exciting! I can’t wait for more people to know and gain respect for my choreography, the team, and our program.”

The tryouts for the 2010 Talons cheerleading team will be held on Saturday, February 27th from 1:30-6pm and Sunday, February 28th from 2-5pm at Gold’s Gym (6612 S. Memorial Drive). Go to www.tulsatalons.com or call 294-1000 for more information.

By Sheila Stroup
The Times-Picayune

When Lesslee Fitzmorris stands on the sidelines at Sun Life Stadium tonight, she’ll be watching the Super Bowl in a whole new way.

Fitzmorris, who has managed and directed the Saintsations since 2001, has been producing Super Bowl pregame shows and cheerleading clinics for the NFL since 1986. She has worked with everyone from Willie Nelson and Paul McCartney to Tina Turner and Beyonce.

So she’s still getting used to the idea of going to Miami just to watch the New Orleans Saints play.

“At the end of the Vikings game, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, my home team is going to the Super Bowl!’ I still can’t quite believe it, ” she says.

Fitzmorris’ parents were Saints season-ticket holders from the beginning, and when she was in junior high, she started going to games with her father, Bob Fitzmorris.

“I think about my dad all the time, ” she says. “On those drives from Slidell, I’d complain because nobody ever asked me out. He’d tell me, ‘If you want boys to notice you, you’ve got to learn to talk two things: fishing and football.’”

She was on the Slidell High School dance team, and after she graduated, her dad, who was the St. Tammany Parish clerk of court, encouraged her to try out for the LSU Golden Girls.

“I tried out just because he asked me to, and I made the team, ” she says.

Fitzmorris was packed to leave for Baton Rouge and her first dance team practice when her father died suddenly of a heart attack.

“He was only 41, ” she says. “I drove to that first practice, and then I drove home and we buried my dad.”

What got her through the difficult days that followed her father’s death was dance team practice and working with members of the LSU Tiger Band.

“Everybody just embraced me and kept me going, ” she says. “I couldn’t have made it through my freshman year without them.”

As a college student in need of money, Fitzmorris started working with high school dance and drill teams, putting on dance camps and teaching them routines. It was a natural progression. When she was a young girl, she liked to organize the kids in her neighborhood and put on little shows.

“People who grew up with me say I was always bossing people around, ” she says.

She was attending law school at Loyola University in 1985 when a bout with bacterial meningitis changed the trajectory of her life.

“I was in the hospital to have my spleen removed, and the doctors told me I had a 65 percent chance of not surviving, ” she says. “I learned at a very young age that time is precious.”

By then, her dance team camps had evolved into a business, American All Star Dance, and had spread all over Louisiana and to other states. When she was lying in her hospital bed, minus a spleen but happy to be alive, she had an idea: She knew a lot of young dancers with talent, and the Super Bowl was going to be in New Orleans in 1986. She could put on a little show in the Superdome.

“I called information and said, ‘Give me the number for the NFL, ‘ ” she says.

She figured she had nothing to lose. She got through to the director of special events. She talked. He listened. She went to Manhattan to meet with league officials. They said yes. And she put on her first splashy pregame show at Super Bowl XX.

After graduating from law school, she practiced law in Covington for a few years, but her dance team business and work with the NFL soon took up most of her time.

“I said, ‘I’m just going to do this until they quit calling.’ And they’re still calling, ” she says.

By the early 1990s, she had directed and choreographed the International Special Olympics closing ceremonies, an Academy Awards show and two Emmy Awards shows, along with her Super Bowl pregame shows. And she and her husband, Royce Mitchell, had a daughter, Caroline, and a son, William.

“And then the years just kept going by, ” Fitzmorris, 51, says.

When the Saints hired her company to produce and manage the Saintsations nine years ago, she wanted to make them “the best in the league.” She knew, from growing up a tall blonde dancer, that people have certain ideas about cheerleaders and dance teams.

“It’s not just about dancing, ” she says. “They are successful young women who will go out into the world and become leaders.”

Her Saintsations go through a three-part application process: First, they have a dance audition. Next, they have a formal interview with community business leaders. And to make the final cut, they have to pass a football quiz.

“They have to know the positions. They have to know every team and every mascot, and what division each team is in, ” Fitzmorris says. “I want them to know as much about football as the fans do.”

Most of them are college students or are starting careers. As Saintsations, they’re involved in community-service projects.

“They work with Angels’ Place and the Susan B. Komen Foundation, and they make dozens of public appearances, ” Fitzmorris says. “Some of them have been to Mexico. Some have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The Saints cheerleaders also put on workshops for Junior Saintsations.

“They’re role models for little girls, ” she says.

They learn how to dodge players, referees, camera operators, and those guys who run around with the flags when the Saints make a touchdown. They learn what it means to be celebrities, too. The 10,000 2010 Saintsation Swimsuit Calendars that were printed are nearly sold old. People constantly ask them for autographs. And they saw country superstar Kenny Chesney snapping pictures of them during a recent Saints game.

“They figure out that celebrities are just people, ” Fitzmorris says.

She calls this season’s Saintsations “the dream team.”

“There’s something really special about them, ” she says.

She started the season by taking them on a three-day retreat in Destin, Fla., last spring.

“It was 34 girls and three bathrooms, ” she says. “And I took their cell phones away, so they had to connect with each other.”

It ended up being a wonderful experience for them. They shared the bathrooms and their lives, and they vowed to be there for each other on and off the field.

“They’re good girls, ” Fitzmorris says. “I’m strict with them, but they know I love them and care about them.”

And she’s thrilled that her dream team is going to have the best seat in the house for Super Bowl IVXL.

“I’m proud of them, and I’m proud of our football team, ” she says. “Now, we just want to bring that Vince Lombardi Trophy home.”

Fitzmorris already knows what her favorite part of the Super Bowl will be: watching the faces of the awe-struck Saints players and cheerleaders while they listen to Carrie Underwood sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and realize the final football game of the season is about to begin.

“The national anthem is always very moving, ” she says. “I think when people go there and see it, they’ll understand why I’ve been going back for 25 years.”

By Robin Miller
The Advocate

They’ll never pass this way again.

Oh, there will be other football seasons. There may even be another NFC championship.

But none of it will happen as it did this year, when the Saintsations fielded a “dream team.”

That’s what former LSU Golden Girl Lesslee Fitzmorris, the Saintsations’ manager, calls this year’s Saints’ cheerleading squad.

“We all knew that this season was going to be special,” Fitzmorris, of Covington, said. “We knew it last summer, when we had our retreat in Destin, Fla. Never have I had a group like this.”

First, squad members posed no intrasquad competition, meaning no one tried to outdo anyone else. Criticism was replaced by support.

Those attitudes forged an instant bond among the 37 — 34 Saintsations plus choreographers, Blair Buras and Eileen Arnold, and Mama, as Fitzmorris calls herself. The closeness had to be a good omen, right?

“I remember coming back from the retreat and telling coach Payton, ‘I have the Dream Team this year,’” Fitzmorris said.

Of course, as head coach of the New Orleans Saints, Sean Payton was working on his own dream team, one that’s played its way to the Super Bowl for the first time in the team’s 43-year history, a journey that somehow seemed predestined.

“We just knew,” said Brittany Hamilton, a political science major at LSU. Her sister Chrissy Hamilton also is a Saintsation and is a student in the Xavier University College of Pharmacy.

But Brittany Hamilton also knows that this group will never pass this way again. Friendships are lifelong, but Dream Teams are rare. Membership will change next year. Some members will leave; others may not make the team. And even if the Saints were to make a repeat Super Bowl appearance in 2011, it wouldn’t be the same. You have to have been there. But that’s past tense. The 2009 Saintsations are there now.

On Jan. 28, squad members, dressed in identical two-piece practice uniforms of black and gold, were running through their final home rehearsal before leaving for Miami.

“They have all kinds of uniforms,” Fitzmorris said. “They’re girls, so, of course they love clothes.”

But the most coveted perks are the game day parking passes.

“They say the pass, alone, is worth being a Saintsation,” Fitzmorris said.

The new American Independent Football Association San Jose Wolves
are in search of a Dance Team Coordinator. interested parties can send their resumes to Quyen Ly (quyenly@sanjosewolves.com).

[San Jose Wolves]

The West Michigan ThunderHawks of the Indoor Football League continued preparations for the upcoming 2010 season by hiring Kimberly R. Herr as Director of Dance Team. Herr held a similar position with the AFLs Grand Rapids Rampage over the past two seasons.

Herr, a resident of Hudsonville, Michigan, led a team of 18 dancers that performed during games and also made many off-field appearances in the West Michigan community. Even after the AFL suspended operations in 2008, Herr kept the team together to continue fulfilling a busy schedule of appearance obligations and event requests, including the annual RAGE Pom & Dance Challenge for statewide high school teams, performing at Davenport University basketball games and participating in the Girls on the Run program.

Herr, who currently teaches at Forest Hills Central High School in Grand Rapids, also has served ten years as the schools Varsity coach for pom and dance teams. Her teams qualified and competed in the UDA National Championships in Orlando, Florida from 2004-07 and earned Midwest Regional Class A Runner-Up in 2004.

Before receiving B.A.- and Masters Degrees from Grand Valley State University, Herr did undergraduate work at Central Michigan University where she was a co-captain on the CMU Chippettes Dance Team. Prior to that, Herr was a member of the East Kentwood High School Dance Team.

The girls on the team have a positive attitude, high energy level and are very team-oriented, said Herr, who is also a wife and mother. They put on fan-friendly performances, are good role models and represent the community and organization with class.

Herr added that her team worked with professional choreographers to enhance routines and practiced a couple of times per week. Team members must be polished dancers, high school graduates, and at least 18 years of age.

[West Michigan ThunderHawks]

By Kevin Manahan
OregonBusiness.com

To most people, cheerleading and marketing don’t often go hand-in-hand, other than using pep rallies and bake sales to promote the high school team. Which could be why it was so interesting to hear Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders director Kelli Finglass talk about how she built the cheer team – first conceived simply as an outreach arm for the Cowboys – into a world-famous business brand that sells everything from throw blankets to yoga DVDs.

Finglass spoke at a luncheon this week for the local American Marketing Association chapter, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Northeast Portland. Finglass herself was a Cowboys Cheerleader from 1984 to 1989; she was eventually brought on as assistant director and later worked in sales and promotions for the Cowboys franchise before being hired as DCC director by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. But the Cheerleaders weren’t always an international presence; in fact, before Finglass took the job, the team was operating at a deficit, and moving the team out of the red was one of Finglass’ first challenges as director. But she succeeded in making them profitable, eventually introducing branded items like calendars to promote the team’s image and establishing dance camps and competitions — all to expand revenue streams for a group that wasn’t originally intended to be a money-maker.

But with the new branding opportunities came the temptation to over-sponsor and slap the Cheerleaders’ logo— also redesigned under Finglass — on everything. “I was very cautious, which made it a little harder for me as a brand-new marketer to figure out ways that we could create revenue without compromising the mission of the Cheerleaders,” Finglass said. And when she tried reaching out to Mattel to make a Barbie doll modeled after the Cheerleaders, she was denied for years because the company still didn’t think the team had a national appeal. It wasn’t until Finglass helped the team get its own Country Music Television reality show that a Barbie designer finally took notice two years ago; the resulting DCC doll sold out nationwide in three days. In addition to watching the cheerleaders establish themselves as go-to USO entertainers, Finglass considers the Barbie deal her biggest DCC brand achievement, especially when she looks back at the thick file of denial letters from Mattel.

Kelli (right) with DCC Choreographer Judy Trammell in 2006

The cheerleaders themselves play a big part in marketing by using the DCC website and blogs to market their image and get appearances booked. Finglass is looking to further utilize sites like Facebook and Twitter as a means for all 35 Cheerleaders to interact with fans — instant virtual fan mail. She also keeps tabs on consumer feedback by braving the inbox flood and having general email messages forwarded to her personal account. “It’s time-consuming,” Finglass said, “but it’s a serious way to be more well-informed about what people are interested in and how you can apply it to marketing.” DCC even recently got a request to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show through the general email account, an opportunity that could have gotten lost in the fray if Finglass weren’t reading the messages herself.

Certainly, many cheerleading teams can’t say they’ve made enough of a mass impact to get written into Saturday Night Live skits; how did America’s Sweethearts manage to break away from the norm? One business tactic that’s helped is making DCC its own self-sustaining entity, operating largely without third parties or agencies and risking the errors that are bound to happen when outsourcing is ruled out (squad photo and calendar misprints among them). The Cheerleaders have also established themselves as a separate brand from the Cowboys, making it possible for them to support their business on their own terms — regardless of how the Cowboys fare on the field.

[Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders]

The Ogden Knights Professional Indoor Football team is now accepting resumes for the 2010 Dance Team Director.

Responsibilities include, but not limited to:

* Game Day Choreography
* Practice Schedule
* Assist front office in securing practice facility
* Assist front office in uniform fitting/ordering
* Schedule and conduct tryouts
* Delegating and Assigning dance to members to various team appearances
* And more…

Interested individuals should send their resumes to Team President Travis Vance.

For Questions or more information contact Travis Vance at travis@ogdenknights.com or (801) 627-5644.

Back in the 1990s Washington Wizard Girl Director Jessica Pikulski (seen here at Fedex Feld in 2004) climbed California’s Mount Whitney. At 14,505 ft. Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the lower 48 states. Jessica and her group climbed and descended in just 24 hour (the thrill seekers way). The previous day they had visited Death Valley (the lowest point in North America at 282 ft. below sea level). Jessica says that drastic change in elevation did NOT help her altitude sickness. Exhaustion kicked in on the way down the mountain, and she had to be practically rolled off the mountain by her dad.

[Washington Wizard Girls]

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Congratulations to good friend of the blog Elizabeth Guaraldo, who is the new Director of Cheerleading for the AIFA Baltimore Mariners.

From Baltimore Mariners.com

This will be Elizabeth Guaraldo’s first season with the Baltimore Mariners. Guaraldo has been the Director of the National Indoor Soccer League’s Baltimore Blast Cheerleaders since 2007. The Blast Cheerleaders have released two swimsuit calendars, performed at the AST Dew Tour and have traveled to Bermuda to participate in the Island Soccer League (ISL) All Star game that took place this summer. Prior to working with the Mariners, Guaraldo was a 2005-2006 Washington Redskins Cheerleader. She went to college at UMBC where she was on their dance team as both a member and a captain.

Liz tells us that she’s still with the Blast Organization as well, so she’s going to be handling two dance teams at once. If anyone’s suited to handle such a incredible time commitment, it’s Liz. She earned her Masters in Education from Johns Hopkins, completing 39 credit hours in just one year, all while working an internship and coaching the Blast Cheerleaders.