Stephanie at NY Jets Flight Crew Finals on Thursday
By Stephen Czarda
Redskins.com
Sure, balancing two full-time jobs can be tough, as intermingling schedules can be tough to manage and time is always crunched, but try doing the same for three different positions.
That’s exactly what Washington Redskins Cheerleader Charo, who is also a captain this year, has been doing for the last few months as she’s a tax accountant, a cheerleader and now the owner of a new online boutique called & Such Shop.
“I’ve been working on this diligently for about three months now, squeezing in time on the weekends and burning the midnight oil to prepare for the launch, and I couldn’t be more excited to hopefully watch my very own company grow,” Charo told Redskins.com of & Such Shop. “I came up with the idea of launching an e-commerce women’s fashion website in late January and since then, I’ve been teaching myself the ropes.”
Charo has also been “curating and buying clothing and jewelry, developing relationships with vendors, designing my website, performing my accounting and business functions, styling the photo shoots, playing photographer and photo editor for the shoots, designing my logo and marketing materials, and so much more.”
“It has been a one-woman show, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help of so many integral people,” she said. “My network here in DC is so unbelievably supportive and competent, I couldn’t be more grateful. From here on out though, I’m just excited to hunker down and see what I can make of my tiny little internet imprint.”
Beyond getting & Such Shop further integrated into the online shopping sphere, Charo has been a tax accountant over the last two years for a large digital media, broadcast and publishing company.
“I made the transition from public accounting to private about two years ago, and feel fortunate that I’ve been able to see both sides of the industry,” she said. “At my job, I help in preparing the provision and return for our 300-plus entity consolidated group, which consists of tracking book-to-tax differences to estimate tax liability. Our company is also undergoing a large restructuring, so there’s never a dull day in the office as far as the tax department is concerned.”
And what about being not only a cheerleader, but one of four captains, which, of course, requires more time?
“As one of the captains of the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders, maintaining a positive and uplifting disposition helps me get through the day, and hopefully it helps others through theirs as well!” she said. “I’m also a firm believer in efficiency and preparedness. Fortunately, when I come to practice each night, it truly is a form of escape from reality. I am so in love with the girls who make up this team, the values of the team, and dancing, that I lose myself in it – having been bestowed the title and privilege of a Washington Redskins Cheerleader Captain can hardly be considered “work.” The only difference between an adventure and an ordeal is your attitude.”
By Michelle Heath
Beaumont Enterprise
With her flashy, red knee-high go-go boots and perfectly curled blonde hair, Jessica Eatman strolled around the Orangefield High School football stadium and coaches’ offices on Wednesday afternoon.
Teachers and coaches greeted Eatman with hugs and the occasional squeals of “congratulations.” The 22-year-old was selected last month out of 1,200 women to join the 2015 Houston Texans Cheerleader Squad.
Eatman, a former Orangefield High School head cheerleader, will be one of 35 women cheering on the Texans when the NFL season opens this fall.
Eatman said she had tried out for the squad twice before and didn’t get picked.
Her family’s love of football – specifically for the Texans – made the idea of standing on the NRG field cheering in front of 70,000 fans a surreal ambition.
So, Eatman got serious about this year’s tryouts.
She moved to Houston last summer – while still enrolled full-time at Lamar University – and started taking ballet, jazz and hip-hop classes.
Eatman also made her own tryout uniform this year: a flowy, blue ensemble. One of her boots broke during the March tryouts, making her the last cheerleading hopeful to show off her skills.
Apparently that last impression paid off.
In addition to preparing for tryouts, Eatman used her move to Houston to start pursuing a law degree. Eatman said she intends to take the LSATs soon.
She said the Texans Cheerleaders don’t fit the old cheerleading stereotypes. Some of the women are nurse practitioners and oil and gas executives, and a few are pursuing master’s degrees, she said.
“They choose good girls because you’re an ambassador for the Houston Texans,” she said.
By Lannan M. O’Brien
CapeNews.net
Jessica M. Strohm was clothes-shopping at Express when she received word that she made the 2015 Patriots cheerleading squad. Her screams of joy elicited looks from other shoppers, but she was unbothered. This year was the fourth that she tried out for the team and the first that she was selected as a member.
A 2008 Falmouth High School graduate, Ms. Strohm started cheering at the Pop Warner level and served as captain of the high school squad in her sophomore and junior years. She currently works full time as a sales manager for Performance Foodservice in Rhode Island.
“I was so excited, yet so nervous,” she said of the tryouts during a phone interview last Friday.
This year’s preliminary auditions were held on February 28, followed by final auditions last month. Ms. Strohm made it to the third round of tryouts for the squad’s dance team and was cut, but later was called back to try out for the promotional team. Following interviews and a two-week boot camp at Gillette Stadium, she was one of 10 candidates selected as promotional team members. Twenty-eight cheerleaders made the full roster from an initial pool of 300 candidates.
Tryouts were more of a team effort than they were a competition, Ms. Strohm said. While candidates were personally determined to make the team, they also connected with each other to form a support system.
“You’re with such an amazing group of girls,” she said.
The environment was in stark contrast to that of the “pageant world” familiar to her. Ms. Strohm has competed in several beauty pageants, earning the title of Ms. New England States in a tri-state tournament last November. She also competed in the Miss Massachusetts USA pageant the same month. Unlike those competitions, Ms. Strohm said, cheerleaders seeking a spot on the Patriots squad were not in it for themselves.
“Everyone wants to make it together… it’s more a ‘team effort’ to make the team,” she said.
As for her own success, Ms. Strohm is looking forward to events, such as a Junior Patriots Cheerleader clinic in May and a June calendar photoshoot. She has already begun practices on Tuesdays and Saturdays, completing workouts the remainder of the week.
The promotional team will cheer for half of each home game and make appearances at the stadium’s clubs and private suites for the other half. Outside of games, Ms. Strohm and her teammates will serve as spokespeople for The Kraft Group, a group of privately held companies led by Patriots owner Robert Kraft, representing the team at various functions and charity events.
“I have to pinch myself every day, knowing that I work for Bob Kraft,” she said, adding that the Patriots are involved with “so many different charities.”
She is not nervous or intimidated but is excited to start the season. Her family, too, is excited for her. They understand how hard she has worked “year after year” to reach this goal. In a phone conversation earlier this month, Jessica’s mother, Falmouth Fire Rescue administrative assistant Kimberlee A. Strohm, said that when her daughter wants something, she holds on and never lets go.
Jessica Strohm agreed. “You can’t give up on the things that you want… you have to take it one day at a time,” she said. There is truth in the expression “YOLO” (an acronym for “You only live once”), she added, even if it sounds cheesy. “You take those opportunities and the dreams that you have and do whatever it takes to get there.”
Still, becoming a cheerleader for a national football team hardly feels like a reality. “It’s the best [football] team in the US,” Ms. Strohm said of the Patriots. Perhaps her dream will not materialize until the moment she joins a team huddle, she said, and looks up from the field at hundreds of thousands of fans.
A Washington Kastles Cheerleader
Natasha Martinez of Chino Hills will be departing June 27 for the national Miss USA® competition to be televised on NBC. Thousands watched as Martinez was crowned Miss California USA® 2015 on January 11 at the Long Beach Terrace Theater. Martinez is a graduate of Chapman University and is currently the on air host a KDOC-TV. She is a former Los Angeles Laker Girl and was previously a princess and parade performer at Disneyland. The Miss USA® competition will be held at in Baton Rouge, LA and will air live on NBC on Sunday, July 12, 2015. Fifty-one young women from across the country will travel to compete for the coveted title.
Performance from last season when they were under the direction of former New England Patriots Cheerleader and San Diego Charger Girl Alexa Flutie.
Fifty-two amazing and beautiful dancers have made it the Minnesota Vikings Cheerleaders Finals. Now you can check out the finalists and cast a vote for your favorites.
Cast your vote here.
A Minnesota Vikings Cheerleader
