Erica Lentsch – Minnesota Timberwolves Dance Team Director
Erica Lentsch has been dancing since she was two-and-a-half. She was on her high school dance team and the University of St Thomas Dance Team, where graduated with a BA in Communications with a concentration in Broadcasting and a minor in Theater. She also cheered for the Minnesota Vikings for 4 seasons (2003-2007).
A little over a year ago Erica was finishing up her degree and looking forward to being a dance teacher with hopes down the road of opening her own dance studio.
Then she heard the Minnesota Timberwolves were looking for a new Dance Team Director. She applied on a whim not thinking she had a chance. But she got the job, and at age 24 she was the newest and youngest Dance Team Director in the league.
The search for a new director had pushed auditions back to late August; the Timberwolves had the last NBA Dance Team tryouts in 2008. So Erica had to hit the ground running. And just when it couldn’t get any more hectic (she says she’d be lost without her Timberwolves black planner), Erica learned she was pregnant.
She remembers thinking after the third game, that the season would last forever. The NBA season is a long one and by midpoint Erica began to sense that some of dancers were feeling burnt out. She resolved to keep upbeat and motivate her team. She scheduled group activities like attending a Britney Spears concert and going to see the Rockettes. The team recharged, the weeks flew by and soon it was April and the season was over.
In May after the season was over, Erica gave birth to a baby boy. Erica and her fiancé couldn’t be happier.
Now it’s 2009 and Erica has begun her second season as director. The word had gotten out how she was remaking and rebuilding the program, and taking it in a new direction. The result: Almost 200 ladies auditioned in July. That’s the largest turnout for Timberwolves Dancers auditions in ten years.
Her 2009-10 squad of thirteen (five vets and eight rookies) is already bonding. There are four former Vikings Cheerleaders, one of who was also a member of the NLL Minnesota Swarm Performance Team, making her a Twin Cities Triple Threat. One of the Dancers is a member of the Minnesota National Guard.
With a year under her belt Erica says she has a better of idea of what works and appeals to the crowd. Timberwolves fans can look forward to new costumes this year. They’ll be shooting the new team poster at the end of the month. She promises fans jamming routines across the spectrum of dance and while she’ll choreograph some of the routines, to keep from becoming repetitive (for both the Dancers and the fans) she’ll have alumni and some member of the squad choreograph routines as well.
Erica with the MVC in 2003
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