17 ladies have been selected to participate in training camp for this year’s team. Auditions for the male members of the team will take place next weekend.

I was holding off on posting this, hoping for some photos, but there still aren’t any, so here ’tis…~sasha

2014 Patriots Cheerleading Squad Announced
By Tracy Sormanti
Patriots.com
May 3, 2014

The Patriots Cheerleaders’ audition process began in February with an optional workshop, followed by preliminary and final auditions, interviews and a two-week boot camp. Today we’re proud to announce the 2014 Patriots Cheerleading squad!
The Patriots Cheerleaders’ audition process began in February with an optional workshop, followed by preliminary and final auditions, interviews and a two-week boot camp. Today, May 3, we are proud to announce the 2014 squad, to include 17 veterans and 11 rookies. The Patriots Cheerleaders will jump right into their season activities, preparing for the May Junior Patriots Cheerleaders clinics at Gillette Stadium and June calendar and video shoot in Cancun, Mexico. 2014 Patriots Cheerleading Squad

Veterans
Alexandria Stavropoulos
Allison Smedley
Amanda Soucy (Returning after 2 year hiatus. Previously on the team 2011-12)
Amber Smith
Brittany Bonchuk (Returning after 3 year hiatus Previously on the team 2009-11)
Brittany Dickie
Camille Kostek
Erica Cadigan
Hannah LeBeau
Jensine Rich
Kelly Bennion
Kikco McMahan
Lasondra Greene
Leigha Marie Hervey
LisaMarie Iannuzzi
Michelle Nigro (Returning after 1 year hiatus. Previously on the team 2010-13)
Zoe Bucuvalas

Rookies
Alyssa Merkle
Jacqueline Jamiel
Karen Link
Kristen Sherrerd
Lauren Schneider
Madelyn Wilson
Megan Swain
Mary Babbitt
Melanie Sanches
Stefani Swaim
Victoria Spadaro

And our friends at The Line Up are offering a discount to those who get their orders in early. LOVE these little jackets, especially the mesh one. Perfect for layering over a little top, without making it too warm to wear for an all-day audition. Besides, layering is a fantastic way to make sure nobody else turns up in your exact same outfit. 😉

The judges narrowed the field down to 76, and they’ll choose the final team tomorrow. Help them out by voting for your top 5 candidates to make the team. Click here to vote now!

Final auditions for the 2014 Seattle Seahawks dance team took place last night, with a live web cast so fans, and friends and family of contestants could follow along. I’m always impressed by the way they are able to keep the live webcast moving, with live commentary and video clips to keep you interested between dances. It’s also a way to get to know the candidates and the Sea Gals in a way that makes you see that these are real people, not just pretty girls in photos. I wish more teams would follow the Sea Gals example!

This year’s squad of 32 includes 21 veterans and 11 rookies. Seahawks.com has tons of video and photos and the webcast from this year’s auditions, and they already have individual pages and galleries for this year’s team. Now that’s FAST!

A few interesting factoids:
Veterans Allie, Bianca, and Brittany are all returning to the team after a year off

Two rookies come to the Sea Gals with experience from other pro teams. Jalanda was a Tennessee Titans Cheerleader and Leisel was a Portland Trailblazers BlazerDancer.

Three other rookies have a Sea Gals family connection.

Gretchen’s sister Geraldine was a Sea Gal from 2011 thru 2014. Kylie and Taylor are both daughters of Sea Gals alumni. Kylie’s mom Dawn Gray and Taylor’s mom Heather Melvard were teammates in the 1980s.

Sidebar: One of the most important things I learned from the Sea Gal auditions is they have a Director of Cheerleader Social Media. OH. MYLANTA. This is a thing now? This is somebody’s actual job??? Here I am, slaving away at a boring cubicle job by day, and blogging by night. Meanwhile, I could be somebody’s manager of cheerleader social media. Getting paid to do my hobby?

Ahem, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially announcing my availability. Anyone needs a social media person for their team, call me. I’ll freelance. I’ll relocate. Whatever. I need to get in on this, ASAP. Call me!
(Good grief, that sounds desperate)

Auditions are over and the team has been announced. Click here for photos and video from auditions, and click here for photos of the ladies who made the team.

Get to know TNA’s newest Knockout, Rebel of The Menagerie
By Sean Rueter
CagesideSeats.com
May 2, 2014

If you’ve been following along with the story of Knux and his crazy carnival family on TNA Impact Wrestling [click here if you have no idea what this is referring to], you’ve already met Rebel. The poor girl thought she was reuniting with her long-lost man to chase his dream of being a pro wrestler (while making enough money to save the family business – a roadside carnival), when she finds out that the big lunk also plans to bring along Crazzy Steve (who is crazy) and The freakin’ Freak.

Many of us wanted to know more about this fire-twirling Tanea who will be showing up next Thursday night, and thanks to the dirt screens, now we know.

Tanea Brooks is a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader [1998-2001], and covergirl for their bestselling calendar, from Owasso, Oklahoma. She is also the country music equivalent of a video vixen, having appeared in music videos for Trace Adkins (“Honkey Tonk Badonkadonk”) and Brooks and Dunn (“Play Something County”).

A member of the performance troupe Purrfect Angelz, she met fellow Angel Christy Hemme there. Hemme, who has recently been promoted to TNA Creative, put in a good word for Brooks and she moved to Louisville, Kentucky and trained at Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) when TNA still had a relationship with them.

No word on how long she was in OVW, or how that training went. And, in fairness, there’s no guarantee that she will serve as much more than a manager/valet for the new carnival-themed stable.

By Phillip Ramati
Macon.com
May 2, 2014

Alexa Gregory has danced nearly her entire life. However, it’s a safe bet that she’s never danced on as big of a stage as she will this fall.

As a new member of the Atlanta Falcons cheerleaders, Gregory, 21, a graduate of Mount de Sales Academy, will be dancing in front of nearly 75,000 fans at the Georgia Dome — and millions more on television — when she takes to the sidelines this fall.

“I’ve never performed in front of that many people,” Gregory said Friday with a laugh. “But it’s something exciting to look forward to.”

Gregory nearly made the cheerleading squad last season, but she fell just short. But over the past week, Gregory was one of the 36 dancers who stood out among nearly 200 women who auditioned.

Gregory said the audition was a grueling process in which the dancers had to learn routines, survive the early cuts, then be interviewed before the final round of dancing.

Chato Hendrix, the cheerleading team’s coordinator, said Gregory managed to stand out among so many.

“She had a great performance,” Hendrix said. “She did exceptionally well in the interview, which is 50 percent (of the criteria). She had great showmanship. We really thought she would be an asset to our team.”

Gregory, a senior at Georgia College in Milledgeville, is majoring in biology. She said she hopes to become a physician’s assistant. Gregory said the Falcons require cheerleaders to be either employed in a full-time job or be a full-time student.

“They’re always looking out for your best interests,” Gregory said. “They want women who have something in their lives besides the Atlanta Falcons.”

She said she’s not worried about time conflicts between her studies and the team because the Falcons know all the dancers have full-time jobs or are in school, so they plan their schedule accordingly.

While Gregory has never before been a cheerleader, she said she’s danced competitively throughout middle and high school. She said she had a feel for what she needed to do during the tryouts.

“I’ve always had a passion for dancing,” she said.

The Falcons cheerleaders work on one-year contracts, Hendrix said. Veteran dancers must try out along with everyone else for positions on the cheerleading roster.

That means Gregory had to go against many veteran Falcons cheerleaders during her audition. But Hendrix said the team uses a blind judging process that puts everyone on equal footing.

“We try to give everyone a fair shot,” she said. “The judges aren’t familiar with who was on the team last year and who wasn’t.”

Gregory said she wants to put the money she earns into a savings account and use it to help pay for her post-graduate studies.

After learning routines and getting to know their fellow cheerleaders in May and June, Gregory and the squad will make their first appearance in August at the Falcons’ Friday Night Lights exhibition. The NFL’s preseason starts soon after that.

“I’m just grateful for everyone who has encouraged me, especially my parents,” she said.

“They told me that anything you set your mind to, you can achieve.”

Click here to check out the gallery on the Bucs website!