Auditions for the 2009-10 Reading Express Smokin’ Hot Steam Team were held Satuday in Reading. The Steam Team is the Dance and Promotional Squad of the defending AIFA Champion Reading Express
Disclosure: I was a judge for the interview portion of the audition process.
Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders Jessica and Paige were at Casey’s in Drexel Hill for the Friday Night Bud Light Party.
Jessica brought along her pink poms. Eagles Cheerleaders sported the pink poms at Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay.
Paige
Jessica
[Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders]
By Nash Nunnery
Clinton News
Clinton native Clair Montgomery is living a double life in Nashville, but it’s one she wouldn’t trade with anyone at this stage in her life.
By day, she’s a project coordinator for a Nashville design and engineering company, organizing a mountain of paperwork for the firm’s architects and engineers.
For her second job, she puts down her pen and picks up her pom poms – as a cheerleader for the National Football League’s Tennessee Titans.
With complex dance routines and pretty looks, cheerleaders have become a part of the NFL fabric, just like the multimillion- dollar players on the field.
Borrowing from the lyrics of an old Journey song, 25-year-old Clair Elise Montgomery is a self-admitted small-town girl living in the not-so lonely world of the NFL and the country-glitz of Nashville.
“Clinton is a wonderful community and I have great memories of growing up there,” said the Ole Miss and CHS grad. “I’ve always enjoyed coming back home and visiting with my friends and enjoying the small-town feel.”
Fellow Nashville resident Meredith Edwards, who grew up with Montgomery in Clinton, isn’t surprised to see her friend on the football field sidelines.
“Clair is the kind of girl who’s always up for an adventure. She’s very independent,” Edwards said, adding that her friend also has a competitive edge, whether on the high school tennis team’s courts or Attache show choir’s stage.
Montgomery often was a featured soloist for the show choir, said Attache director David Fehr.
“She was an outstanding performer, had a great work ethic and a voice that was incredible,” said Fehr. “Clair is tough as nails, and her earning a spot on the Titans cheerleading squad does not surprise me at all. She never knew the word ‘quit,’ and I couldn’t be more proud of her.”
Montgomery says she tried out for the Titans squad on a whim.
“I was sitting in my car waiting to go to work, and I heard a spot on the radio announcing Titans cheerleader auditions,” she said. “Well, at the end of that week I attended their cheerleader workshop, where we learned a (dance) routine.”
She signed up for tryouts, although she hadn’t regularly danced in six years. Dancing, not cheering, is priority one for an NFL cheerleader.
No problem for Montgomery.
“Clair is one of the best dancers I’ve ever known,” said Edwards.
Montgomery survived the grueling competition, including weeks of exhausting dance routines and detailed interviews in front of a panel of Nashville celebrity judges.
At the end of finals night, before an enthusiastic crowd at the Wildhorse Saloon, Montgomery’s name was called as one of 26 selected for the 2009 squad.
“It was awesome to be chosen, but I think my mother (Debbie) was more excited than I was,” she said. “She knew how much I wanted it and what I had been through over the weeks of auditions.”
Mom Debbie and sister Marly attended Clair’s NFL regular season debut Sept. 20 when the Titans hosted the Houston Texans.
“Going up to Nashville to watch her perform was so exciting,” said Debbie Montgomery, a secretary at Mount Salus Christian School. “They split up the squad on the field and during the first half, Clair’s group performed right in front of our section.”
Sworn to secrecy by Clair not to tell anyone she was trying out for a coveted slot, she was relieved when her daughter was selected.
“It was extremely hard to keep my mouth shut,” said Debbie Montgomery. “Everyone was real excited when I finally told them Clair was a Titans cheerleader.”
Each cheerleader must pass a fitness test before taking the sideline, not unlike the NFL athletes.
“We still had to endure an excruciating month of physical tests and workouts,” said the personable blonde. “They won’t let you near the field to dance until you pass the fitness test. And during the season, in addition to making public appearances, we have dance classes twice a week to learn new game routines.”
Delighted to have a Mississippian on this year’s squad, Titans director of cheerleading Stacie Kinder says Montgomery has surpassed her expectations.
“We are so happy to have her on the squad since the team has so many Mississippi fans,” said Kinder. “She’s extremely outgoing, has a great body and an excellent work ethic.”
Montgomery passed all five phases of the fitness test with flying colors, said Kinder.
Sounding more like a football player’s regime, the test is not for the faint of heart. It consists of a mile run, 25 “V-ups” (abdominal exercise), 25 military-style push-ups, two-minute step test (12-inch block, 100-step minimum) and a 300-meter shuttle run.
The cheerleaders are paid, Kinder said, but it isn’t a full-time salary. “They are required to have a full-time job or to be in school,” she said.
As the season wears on and the cheerleaders make more appearances, Montgomery is recognized more often on the street.
“That’s cool, but one of the best things is our involvement in the community,” she said, referring to public appearances promoting various fundraisers.
And when she puts the pom poms down?
“The firm has been very supportive of me becoming a Titans cheerleader, but at the office, I’m still Clair the project coordinator.”
[Clair at the Titans Cheerleaders Website]
Each season, hundreds of women dream of becoming a Spurs Silver Dancer, but only a select few make the final cut. The popular webisodes are back, as Spurs.com takes fans on an exclusive, behind-the-scenes journey to see just what it takes to make the squad when Making the Silver Dancers launches today.
Spurs.com will feature a new webisode every four days, running October 7 through October 28, showcasing what it takes to be a Spurs Silver Dancer. The webisodes will follow four Silver Dancer hopefuls from registration – to tryouts – to cuts, and finally to the announcement of the 2009-10 Spurs Silver Dancers. Fans can look forward to exclusive interviews, access and content as each webisode takes fans through the emotional four-days of Silver Dancers auditions – only available at spurs.com.
Log on to spurs.com to meet and follow candidates through the auditions, and even hear inside scoop from the judges who evaluated the field. Viewers will also have access to the ‘confessional cam’ where participants share their thoughts and feelings throughout the audition process.
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
2004
2005
2006
[Minnesota Timberwolves Dancers]
The Washington Capitals unveiled the new website for the Washington Red Rockers. There are bios, photos and video interviews with all the squad members.
The Choreographer for the Red Rockers is Sarah Davis, the captain of the 2008-09 squad. Sara is a graduate of George Mason University where she was a member of their nationally ranked dance team, the Masonettes. During her 4 years in college, she also served on the Universal Dance Association staff as an instructor and judge. After college, Sarah spent on year as Washington Wizards Dance Team before becoming a member of the Red Rockers.
[Washington Capitals Red Rockers]
By Steve Mazzucchi
Esquire
It was the game everyone not exhausted by the saga that has been Brett Favre III was waiting for, and the old gunslinger lived up to the hype last night, becoming the first quarterback ever to beat all thirty-two NFL teams as Minnesota toppled Green Bay on Monday Night Football. It was also apparently the loudest game in the recent history of the Metrodome, according to Vikes’ cheer captain Pamela Krominga. As Favre continued to dial down the storyline post-game, we asked her to open up on what No. 4 was out to prove, whether his 4-and-0 is better than the Randy Moss years, and why Minnesota might not have a realistic shot at the Super Bowl — all for a special Tuesday edition of Monday Morning Cheerleader.
ESQUIRE: Twenty-four for 31, 271 yards, three TDs, a 135 passer rating, and a 30-23 win. Do you think Brett was on a mission?
PAMELA: Absolutely. He was out to prove that this was about nothing more than his love for the game, and that was evidenced by how disciplined, determined, and efficient he was. Adrian Peterson’s a fairly well-known commodity, but now that we have two players that keep defensive coordinators up at night, it creates quite a large puzzle. You can stop one or the other, but you can’t stop both — and the Packers couldn’t stop Favre.
ESQ: What did you think when the Vikings began pursuing him in the off-season?
PK: My first thought was that it’s the sort of thing dreams are made of, to get an MVP-caliber quarterback considering playing for a long-time rival. He saw the Vikings as a team he could take to a championship. And for me, it makes the games a lot more fun having someone under center who’s a proven leader.
ESQ: Was the mood in the stadium different?
PK: This is my sixth season, and the stands were the loudest I have heard them. It was pretty close to the playoff game last year against the Eagles. I told the girls, “This is one of the biggest games you’ll ever cheer at, no matter how long you do this.” The fans were on their feet the entire game. But the loudest moment wasn’t Favre’s first TD pass — it was after Jared Allen’s sack for a safety made the score 30 to 14, and he took his helmet off and pumped his fist. The defense feeds off the crowd’s energy, and they had an outstanding game with eight sacks and that safety. They’re a big reason we won.
ESQ: Favre gets the headlines, but who’s the unsung hero?
PK: Cornerback Antoine Winfield. An interception and ten tackles — doesn’t get much better. He’s a great open-field tackler who’s finally getting the respect he deserves.
ESQ: Who had the best breast-cancer awareness style to cap off a rare week of pink all over the NFL?
PK: I’d have to say the cheerleaders. We wore pink jerseys with ribbons, and we dedicated two dances to breast-cancer awareness, breast-cancer survivors, and those who have lost their battles. They were choreographed by Michele Larkin, who is battling breast cancer herself.
ESQ: What was the turning point in the game?
PK: The safety seemed to seal the deal, but the goal-line stand late in the third quarter was also big. It made a statement that this is our game, this is our house, and you’re not gonna get away with anything here.
ESQ: Favre had one play where it looked like he stood in the pocket for a good ten seconds. Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers was harassed all night. How big a difference was the play of the two offensive lines?
PK: The Packers are trying to compensate for some injuries, and it’s had a domino effect on their O-line. They lost another guy, Daryn Colledge, this game. So that’s a big problem for them. If the passer’s got a pocket, he can check down his receivers, he doesn’t have to scramble and go into gunslinger mode. Our rookie right tackle, Phil Loadholt, has been one key to Favre’s success. This is also the first time in his career that Favre’s had a running back of Adrian Peterson’s caliber, so he doesn’t have the pressure of putting the team on his back every week. He’s got eight touchdowns to one interception so far. I like that ratio.
ESQ: Your rookie year in 2004, Daunte Culpepper threw for 4,700 yards and Randy Moss caught thirteen TD passes. Which team is more exciting, that one or this year’s 4-and-0 squad?
PK: Our job is to get the crowd engaged on defense, so I prefer this team because our defense has been so good. When the offense is doing well, you actually have to encourage the crowd to quiet down so the players can communicate, especially because the dome gets so loud. We give them a non-verbal, polite shush to save it for after the touchdown. I also think defense wins championships, from a football perspective.
ESQ: The team’s undefeated and looking like it. How far do you think the Vikings can really go this year?
PK: The selfish cheerleader in me wants to go to the Super Bowl; it would be a fun thing to do. Realistically, we can win the division. The Giants and Saints look very good, but I think we are definitely a Super Bowl contender if our offense keeps up its efficiency and our defense continues to play lights out.
The folks at Beckett, the publishers of slew of sports collectible periodicals, have a new magazine out featuring all 26 NFL Cheerleadering Squads.
From their description:
Sure, there’s no shortage of stunning photography in the magazine’s 80 full-color pages. But there’s also a compelling feature story on the proud history of cheerleading that includes an interview with Judy Trammell, the longtime choreographer of the famed Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
In addition, we provide insight and collectible information on the NFL’s 26 cheerleading teams, and a closer look at the headline-making cheerleader trading cards Topps released earlier this year.
We were also lucky enough to land an exclusive interview with third-year Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Abigail Klein, who sheds some light on what it’s like to perform with the most prestigious cheerleading organization of all time.
I hope you enjoy the magazine, and not just because of all the pretty pictures. If that’s all you know about cheerleaders, you’re missing a lot.
The magazine will be on newsstands everywhere beginning next week or you can order a copy here.
This week it’s the Tennessee Titans Cheerleaders at Maxim.
[Titans Cheerleaders at Maxim.com]
[Tennessee Titans Cheerleaders]
[Titans Cheerleaders Swimsuit Calendar]
Getting in shape has never been so much fun! Join the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders at their famous dance studio as they take you through a series of step-by-step dance routines, each one hosted by a different cheerleader! These routines will transform, tighten and tone your body into its sexiest shape ever. Do one or two segments for a short workout or put the whole program together and Dance It Out!
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Power Squad Bod! – Calorie Blasting Dance
