I was surprised to find out they have dance teams in hockey. Then I found out they have them in baseball. Then I found out they have them in tennis, too. I thought I’d seen everything. Evidently not. ~ sasha
Fillies to make debut in Shergar Cup
Cheerleaders, dancing girls, team anthems sung by pop groups… what next as racing tries to lure the casual sports fan looking on from the perimeter fence?
By J A McGrath
03 Aug 2009
The Telegraph
Believe it or not Ascot, normally the most traditional of courses, has decided to tear up the manual and adopt a populist approach – for one day only. This Saturday, the Queen’s racetrack is staging its popular Shergar Cup, a jockeys’ competition featuring four three-man teams from all parts of the world.
After snatching the Shergar Cup from Goodwood, where it had been promoted as an elite owners’ competition, Ascot is now preparing for its eighth running of the jockeys’ series. It is probably the only time ‘team riding,’ and all the grey areas that encompasses, is tolerated.
Nick Smith, Ascot’s Head of Public Relations and Communications, confirmed yesterday that for the first time in this country cheerleaders, in the tradition of some American football and baseball teams, had been recruited to add a little razzmatazz to a racing ‘one-off’ designed to promote the sport to a wider audience.
“There will be eight cheerleaders, who will dress in the colours of the winning team,” Smith reported. “If Britain wins a race, they will change into red uniforms and dance their way through the tunnel [leading from the course to the paddock] to the winner’s enclosure. Ireland’s colours are green, Europe blue and Rest of the World black.
“We have planned this very carefully with the British Horseracing Authority, who have been brilliant. The route taken with the winner has been painstakingly mapped out. Great care will be taken not to get too close to the horses.
“It is meant to be a bit of fun; something different. You could say it is not a day for the traditionalist, but having said that, there will be plenty of horses and plenty of chances for a bet,” he said.
Last year, Ascot reported an attendance of 33,000, but are expecting something in the vicinity of 28,000 on Saturday. “That would still be a fantastic crowd. Going back 10 years, we would have been looking at 12,000 for a Saturday with a few competitive handicaps and a Group race,” he added.
More than 40 years ago, the Duke of Norfolk, then the Queen’s Representative at Ascot, declared there would be jump racing at the course “over his dead body.” It is now history that the Duke passed away, and jumping has taken place successfully there for many years. Quite what the Duke would have made of cheerleaders is another matter.
Chicago Bulls: The Luvabulls completed auditions for the 2009.10 team on Wednesday, August 5, at the University of Illinois at Chicago Flames Athletic Center. Approximately 270 women were invited to audition for a panel of judges on August 1 and 46 were chosen to attend a mini-camp the following week. The mini-camp concluded Wednesday evening, as 25 candidates were selected to entertain Bulls fans at the United Center and represent the city of Chicago across the U.S. and abroad.
Ryan Smith
Chicago Now
(Photos by Mike Burley for RedEye)
8/3/2009
Melissa Driscoll slumped in her chair and took a deep breath before recovering her ever-present smile. “I could definitely use some coffee soon,” she said moments after her audition for the Bulls’ dance team Saturday.
Performing for a panel of judges to Justin Timberlake’s supercharged “SexyBack” is hard enough, but Driscoll, 25, had an added challenge–she arrived at the tryout in a moving van at the conclusion of a 17-hour journey from Boston.
Talk about having the drive to become a Luvabull.
Driscoll was one of 252 women from Chicago and beyond who flocked to the United Center to twirl, sway and sashay their way onto the Luvabulls dance team. Former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Melissa Rycroft has brought widespread notoriety to professional sports dance teams through her appearances on reality TV shows including “Dancing With the Stars,” but actually making the team is an exhausting and competitive process.
At Saturday’s tryouts, the judges were ruthless by necessity, whittling the list of contenders to only 50 who moved on to a three-day mini-camp that starts Monday. When the final decisions are made Wednesday, only 25 dancers will be able to call themselves Luvabulls.
Addressing the women before auditions began Saturday, team director Cathy Core was direct about what it takes to be a Luvabull.
“You need to have lipstick on, your hair should be fashionable, if you have glasses take them off, tattoos need to covered up, no belly rings … we’re sticklers for a polished look,” Core said. “You have to be the total package, the total picture of what we’re looking for. It’s not just looks or your ability to dance, it’s everything.”
The speech prompted Amy Jesse to pull the mirror back out of her makeup bag, comb her hair and apply more lipstick.
“I’m really nervous,” the 21-year-old from Naperville confided. “I almost decided not to come this morning when I woke up and I don’t expect to be picked, but at the same time I’m excited to be here.”
Twenty at a time, the potential Luvabulls–all required to be 21 or older–had several minutes to introduce themselves and perform a couple of freestyle dance moves and a kick line for Core and her panel of six judges. Some dancers advanced to an afternoon session, where they were joined by former Luvabulls who must dance for their jobs back.
“There are no gimmes,” Core said. “Everyone’s got to audition.”
Driscoll, the import from Boston, was one of the 50 dancers invited to this week’s mini-camp.
“I’m resting up and unpacking, but I’m so excited to start,” she told RedEye by phone Sunday.
The women who join the team, which is entering its 30th season, will perform at 41 home games, plus make dozens of promotional appearances on behalf of the club. And for all of the dancers, that’s in addition to full-time jobs.
So why do they want to be Luvabulls? The women who spoke to RedEye said it’s their love of dance.
“I’ve visited Tokyo, Greece, London and Paris, and I’ve had so many opportunities to perform in special appearances,” said Erika Cruz, who served as dance team captain last season. “It’s really amazing.”
Even after six years on the team, the satisfaction of making the squad is fresh for Cruz.
“When they called my number the first year it was surreal, and it’s still surreal,” said Cruz. “I mean, I’m on the court and standing next to Derrick Rose or Kobe Bryant. There are so many exciting moments and I really look forward to every game because you never know what’s going to happen.”
How do they achieve that physique?
Ashley Bond demonstrates step one of kettlebell swings, which work the entire body. (Photo for RedEye by Kate Dougherty)
It’s not easy to look great in the midriff-baring, thigh-exposing, figure-hugging outfits the Bulls’ professional dance team dons during games.
“We really have to be at our best because we’re showing our stomach, legs and arms a lot,” said Erika Cruz, a six-year veteran of the Luvabulls.
Saturday’s tryouts mean the Luvabulls’ short off-season is over, and there is no time for the team to waste. Just as Derrick Rose must have the endurance to lead his team in the fourth quarter of an exhausting game, the dancers need to be in peak condition to keep fans pumped up from tip-off to the final horn.
Of course, just because you’re not one of the 25 women dancing in the United Center doesn’t mean you can’t work toward that type of body.
Luvabulls dancer Ashley Bond (Visit her ChicagoNow blog “Body by Bond”) said she has been preparing herself for the season with kickboxing, strength exercises and yoga.
“My goal is to stay lean and toned and still be able to have lots of endurance so that when we get to those games, I’m not dying after my first routine,” said Bond, a fitness trainer who also happens to be the reigning Miss Illinois.
Once basketball season starts, the Luvabulls get all the exercise they need through high-intensity dance routines they perform during games in addition to two four-hour practices every week.
Fast-tempo dance burns between 200 and 400 calories per hour, according to Naomi Wisely, a dance fitness instructor at Flirty Girl Fitness located on the Near West Side.
“Dancing can help almost every part of your body,” she said. “You’re engaging your arms and legs a lot, and you have to hold your core to keep your balance, so it’s good for that area too.”
TV reality shows such as “Dancing With the Stars” have contributed to a rising popularity of dance fitness, Wisely said. To accommodate demand, Flirty Girl has boosted its schedule to offer more than 40 classes that cover hip-hop, Latin and even pole dancing at all skill levels.
“You don’t even realize you’re working out until you’re sore because it’s so fun,” she said.
Beyond exercising, Bond said she maintains a dancer’s physique by adhering to a strict diet regimen, eating small meals or snacks every three hours. She eats foods high in protein, avoids carbs at night and includes a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit in her meals.
“Everyone knows their own body the best,” she said, “but really it’s all about eating healthy and to stop eating when you’re not hungry.”
The 2009-10 Los Angeles Laker Girls have been announced! Individual head shots have been posted on the Lakers website. Click here to go there now.
You may recognize a few of the rookies as “formers” from other teams. Brilane was a member of the Clippers Spirit, Dara was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, Erica D. was a ChivaGirl, Erica W. was a Denver Broncos Cheerleader, and Octavia was a Phoenix Suns Dancer. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Veronica somewhere, but I can’t think where. Angel is returning to the team after a year off.
Kari Herrick Named New Director of Suns Dancers
Stefan Swiat, Suns.com
Aug. 3, 2009
From the first moment that Kari Herrick represented the Suns, she managed to create entertainment.
When Herrick made her debut as a Suns Dancer at the Suns’ training camp in Flagstaff in 2000, she opened people’s eyes, just not in the way she would have preferred. As a freshman in college, making her very first appearance for the most popular dance team in Phoenix, Herrick made a dramatic entrance that she’ll never forget.
As she was heading down the stairs to perform her initial number, the grace and swiftness that epitomized Herrick’s dancing ability, managed to escape her a few memorable seconds. Herrick did what many people do when they embark on a new career, she tripped and fell… in front of everyone.
But what Herrick did next is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful: instead of crumbling into a heap, she dusted herself off and finished the job she came to do. And for the next five years, Herrick went on to help transform the Suns Dancers into one of the most popular dance squads in the NBA.
As the new Suns Dance Team Director, Herrick hopes to not only continue that tradition, but to raise the bar to the next level. For her, it’s a career that’s been long in the making.
Herrick, who was born and raised in Scottsdale, Ariz., first started dancing at the age of 2. She spent 12 years honing her skills at Bender’s Performing Arts School.
She took a myriad of classes in ballet, tap, jazz, modern and hip-hop from choreographer Kevin Bender, whose claim-to-fame was serving as a background dancer for the late Michael Jackson. After winning a bevy of honors and awards that included dance scholarships for classes in Los Angeles, Herrick was confronted with a life-decision.
As a 17 year-old that just graduated high school in 2000, she had to choose whether she was going to move to L.A. to pursue a dancing career, or remain in Phoenix and head off to college. She opted for enrolling at ASU.
But as serendipity would have it, Herrick would continue dancing. While moving into her dorm over the summer, she ran into April Morris, a friend and classmate from her former dance studio.
Morris, who was already a Suns Dancer, was on campus promoting the upcoming auditions for next season’s squad. Herrick knew she wanted in.
Herrick would end up being a fixture on the Suns Dancers for five years, finishing up her run at the end of the 2004-05 season. At that point, she had just received her BA in Communications and wanted to apply her degree to the real world.
“You have to really manage your time well with this dance team and it just worked well with school and with my other part-time jobs,” Herrick said. “You kind of have to work everything around the team. When you get out into the real world and you have a 9-to-5 job, it’s really hard to manage that.”
Suns Dancers arrive at the arena at 3 p.m. on game days, which worked superbly for Herrick when she was a student. She would attend class in the morning, hit the arena in the afternoons and then juggle a couple of part-time jobs on the side.
So as she accepted her first full-time job as the executive assistant to the Executive Director at Childhelp, a non-profit in Scottsdale that seeks to prevent child abuse, it just wasn’t feasible to keep dancing. The lifestyle change turned out to be much greater than Herrick had anticipated, as was the void created from abandoning dancing. But then serendipity knocked again.
While coordinating an event for Childhelp, she ran into a friend and former Suns employee, Bret Fishkind, who had moved over to the Phoenix Coyotes ice hockey team. It turns out that the Coyotes were looking into the idea of having a dance team on ice and they needed someone to put together a vision for a team.
Up until that point in the NHL, dance teams on ice only really existed in hockey’s minor leagues. Herrick, like many NHL front offices, was skeptical of the idea of performing on ice.
However, because she missed being involved with dance so much, Herrick decided to look at the situation as a challenge and construct a business plan. Soon after, the Coyotes gave Herrick the green light and she was off and running.
Herrick hired a consultant from Denver to help her find uniforms and broomball shoes, which were the shoes used specifically for dancing on the ice. Broomball shoes have two inches of rubber on their soles to create traction on the ice.
“It was a huge success,” she said. “We thought it would be difficult with hockey crowd that was used to old-school hockey, but because we’re not a hockey town I think it helped us integrate more things into the experience for the fans.”
Although it grew in popularity, after spending two years at the helm of The Pack dance team, the squad was eliminated for economic reasons. It was a disheartening blow to Herrick, whose life had become The Pack.
But it ended up being a blessing in disguise for her. After dabbling in interior design and then working in guest relations at a cosmetology school, opportunity not only knocked, but bulldozed Herrick over.
After 12 years, Director of the Suns Dancers Maggie Cloud resigned as the team’s coach to relocate to New York with her husband. Once her position became open, Herrick jumped at the chance.
“After my first season I fell in love with the Suns and the games,” she said. “I love watching the games, but half the time when I go to games I’m concentrating so much on the dancers because I’m a dancer at heart. I love watching what they do and where they go.”
Herrick has watched the Suns Dancers evolve a great deal over time. Not only has the style of dance changed, but so have the team’s uniforms and styles. In fact, when Herrick first started dancing for Phoenix, the team didn’t even use pom-poms.
“The first few years we were very sporty,” she recalled. “The costumes didn’t have a lot of rhinestones or sparkle. It was more like sports-bra tops and plain cotton pants that you’d wear working out in a gym.”
Herrick plans on carrying over many of the traditions fans expect from the Suns Dancers. She admired much of what Cloud accomplished during her time as the squad’s director.
“I’m going to carry on Maggie’s legacy but definitely add a lot of new elements,” she said. “I learned a lot from Maggie and I took a lot of the strengths that she had and that really prepared me when I started coaching my team.
“You don’t really understand what it’s like to be in her shoes until you’re actually in her shoes. You don’t see the stuff that the coach goes through and half of what it takes for the team to be what it is.”
Although Herrick plans on building on the foundation that Cloud already established, Herrick has her own vision for the team’s future. Since her time as a Suns Dancer, Herrick has watched the dance teams evolve during her time with the Suns.
Not only have the routines become more complicated, but the trend seems to be for dancers to wear more make-up and appear more feminine. Herrick is determined that the Suns Dancers be “eye-catching” in all that they do.
“I definitely want to diversify the choreography a little bit more,” she said. “I think we have such an amazing pool of talent in Arizona. With the amount of talent that we get at auditions and on the team I feel like that there’s so much more that we could do with that.”
Herrick’s goal is to challenge the dancers with their choreography. Ideally, she would like the choreography and the costumes to look different every game.
“It’s difficult for the audience to differentiate what the routine is if you’re wearing the same uniform for every dance,” she said.
When the news Suns Dance Director looks around at other dance teams in the NBA, she is influenced by the Heat Dancers’ style and the Knicks City Dancers’ flashy choreography.
“The East Coast has different uniforms than the West Coast,” she said. “We want to take New York’s and Miami’s styles and combine them with our own. We don’t want to copy them, we want to take an element from them and make it our own.”
When Herrick was interviewed for the position, it became clear to her that one of the most important aspects of the dancers’ job would be fulfilling their roles as ambassadors for the league. For the fifth season in a row, the Suns Dancers were invited overseas on behalf of the NBA.
Taryn, Lauren, Amanda R., Carla, Jaclyn and Brooke were the five Suns Dancers that went to Rome to perform at the events that the NBA had coordinated. Herrick, who traveled with the five dancers, believes that the dancers helped bolster their already immaculate reputations.
Due to the bar that the Suns Dancers have set, Herrick has created a more trying audition process for selecting the 16 dancers. Instead of the traditional two-day audition, Herrick added a two-day training camp to go along with prelims.
Since she will be spending a full year with the girls she chooses, she wanted to make sure she chose the best possible candidates. A longer interview process allows Herrick to find out who’s responsible, punctual, committed and sociable.
“To really get to know someone you really need more time,” she said. “They also need to get an idea of how involved the team is, because it’s a huge time commitment.”
The training camp was created so Herrick could see what the girls are like in an actual three-hour practice. She will work them out for an hour, put them through technique and then make them learn a routine.
“That’s what’s expected every week from them,” she said. “If they can’t have it perfected by the time they leave and if they can’t learn it as fast as the other girls, then they can’t be on the team.”
After the training camp, the My45 TV special titled “Making of the Suns Dancers” will air showing all of the finalists. Fans will be able to log onto Suns.com to vote for their favorites and find out who made this upcoming season’s squad.
“You want the fans’ input because that’s who’ll be seeing the girls the most,” Herrick said. “It’s good for the fans to feel like they’re a part of something. They’re investing in this team financially and in the love of the team. To have them give their two cents is every important.”
In the past, the Suns Dancers have had around 250 girls at the auditions. This year, Herrick’s goal is to land 300.
It’s all apart of her plan to involve fans and entertain them like she did when she wore a Suns Dancers uniform. Moreover, it’s a part of her plan to make the Suns Dancers the premiere dance team in the NBA.
“I want their uniforms and their routines to have a ‘wow’ factor,” she said. ‘“I want to wow the fans and bring it to the next level.”
By Kaz Nagatsuka
Staff writer
Japan Times
8/6/2009
Yoshimi Isohata took a bit of a detour. But she has no regrets and feels blessed to have this Golden opportunity.
After enduring a difficult but fruitful time last season, the 27-year-old Japanese cheerleader has returned to the Golden State Warriors’ cheerleading team, the Warrior Girls, this time as a full-squad member for the upcoming NBA campaign.
Isohata vividly described the exciting, precise moment that she saw her picture and name on the club’s official Web site on July 24 while she was at San Francisco International Airport on her return trip to Japan.
“I kept refreshing the page from 10 minutes before the announcement, which was supposed to come at noon,” Isohata joked in Tokyo last week. “I became worried because it wouldn’t appear . . . But eventually it came in about 10 past 12!”
Isohata had already passed the cheerleading auditions for the Warriors last year, but her action was limited because she wasn’t granted a proper visa. And so she had to spend the season as an intern.
This wasn’t Isohata’s original plan, but she had certainly reached the point where she dreamed of being for the upcoming season.
Isohata confessed that although she knew what she would have to go through during the four-day auditions, which she says kicked off with some 130 applicants in mid-July, she still had some jitters because there are no clear “answers” to pass the tryout.
“Every year the director sets principles and applies new things,” said Isohata, who was formerly a cheerleader for the All-Mitsubishi Lions of the Japanese corporate football league while working at an insurance company. “So you need some luck, and you can’t really predict what you’ve got to do in order to pass. There are no formulas as in mathematics.”
But this much is certain: Isohata’s fellow Warrior Girls realize her dedication to the team has made a big impact.
“I definitely think she’s actually made us all work harder because she practices so much and she’ll stay after practice (and) she’ll be there early learning,” Shania Yamada, who made the 2009-10 squad for her fourth straight year, said of Isohata during the team’s visit to the bj-league finals in May.
“And I think her morale toward everything has motivated us to want to be on top of all of our routines,too.”
Finally, Isohata, who spent parts of her childhood in Osaka, Singapore and Dalian, China, showed no negative feelings about taking a circuitous route to becoming a professional cheerleader in America. Instead, she appears to appreciate that she gained precious experience and now looks forward to her latest challenge in life.
“This is just the start line,” she concluded. “I still have things that I have to work on, while I’m very much looking forward to many things, including visiting places that I couldn’t go last season, looking forward to community activities and events exchanging with the fans. It’s going to be a rewarding year for me.”
Today the San Antonio Spurs announced the 16 members of the 2009-10 Silver Dancers. Click here for video and photos from auditions. Congratulations, ladies!
Minnesota Timberwolves: The 2009 Timberwolves Dancers were announced Sunday at the Graves 601 Hotel. Check out the new team as they prepare for the season. Click here for photos
The Kings recently held tryouts for the all new METAL Ice Crew. I posted my take on auditions last week, but there’s even more coverage coming. There are videos and photos, and more in the pipeline. Here are the first few installments to start us off. This is good stuff, so stay tuned for the rest of the series!
Kings Vision gives you an all-access look at the first day of auditions!
Meet Carrlyn, who is trying out with the hopes to return for a 2nd season!
Meet Stephanie, who is trying out with the hopes to return for a 2nd season!
Profiles for the 2009 Ravens Girls are now online at BaltimoreRavens.com. Click here to go there now!
