Here’s the official team photo of the inaugural KISS Girls dance team. Hopefully individuals will follow!
Click photo to view full size.
Top row: Caroline, Niaps, Jenna, Sheldon
Middle row: Xandi, Julianne, LeighAnn (Coordinator/Choreographer), Jules, Natllely , Alexis, Lizzy
Front row (seated): Lynhthy and Vanessa
A few years back, I made a big push to identify as many cases as I could find of sisters/brothers/mothers/daughters/aunts/etc from the same family who have cheered professionally. The result was our “Sisters, Twins, Moms, Daughters and More” page. It turns out that although this isn’t common, it’s a lot less rare than I expected at the start.
I’ve been adding to the list over the years, as I come across more information. In just the last 9 months, I added 8 or 9 more examples to the page! (See below) However, I suspect the page that doesn’t get visited very often, and there are probably more cases of sisters and legacies than I am aware of. So now I’m reaching out to you all. If you know any women who cheered professionally, and also have relatives that also cheered professionally, please let me know. It doesn’t matter if they were on different teams at different times, or if they were in completely different leagues. Email me at sasha (at) procheerleaderblog.com and let me know!
New additions:
George and her daughter Brittany
Jessie and her mom Jane
Sisters Karen and Alyssa
Sisters Nadia and Jorina
Sisters Kaylen and Stefanie
Sisters Emily and Erin
Twins Claire and Caroline
Twins Devin and Whitney
Sisters Mary and Jacqui
Vikings.com has tons of coverage of this years MVC auditions, including a three part, hour long video series on how this year’s squad came together. Click here to check out the videos and all the photos from tryouts!
Auditions are under way for the Dallas Cowboys Rhythm & Blue Dancers. Click here to check out photo on the team’s Facebook page!
Browns Moving Toward Adding Cheerleaders for 2015 Season
Cleveland Scene
April 30, 2014
Want to rile up Browns fans, outside of the usual sticking points like talking about backup quarterbacks and the draft? Bring up the uniforms or cheerleaders. No fan base is more passionate about the clothing giant men wear or the women on the sidelines who wear very little. Both topics will be the subject of plenty of debate in the next few years.
As owner Jimmy Haslam and team president Alec Scheiner have previously said, the Browns will be wearing new uniforms, redesigned by Nike, in 2015.
And, according to a source in the organization, the team has also started moving toward adding cheerleaders for the 2015 season. The team has had meetings and started preparations to introduce a squad and is currently in the consultation phase of the process. Reached by Scene this week, the Browns declined to comment through a team spokesman.
As renovations at FirstEnergy Stadium march on toward completion before the start of the 2015 season, so do the Browns’ efforts to modernize not only the stadium but also the game-day experience. With the fancy scoreboards also come the wiener dog races, for example.
Some may say that tradition is still important for a team that hasn’t won anything of significance since Lyndon Johnson was in office. Others say the Browns have fallen behind and need to relate to a younger, more progressive audience. Bernie Kosar says a whole bunch of things, but none of them will be for the Browns’ preseason broadcasts (speaking of the team moving on from traditions).
The Browns are currently one of six NFL teams without cheerleaders, but contrary to popular belief, the Browns did once in fact employ cheerleaders back in the team’s earlier days.
In 2010, Bill Lubinger of the Plain Dealer wrote a piece explaining that the Browns did have cheerleaders multiple times. The most recent was in 1971 when high school girls in orange turtleneck sweaters performed on the sidelines (they were not paid, incidentally). He quoted Pat Modell, wife of former owner Art Modell, as saying, “We had them one year. They looked crazy. It was ridiculous.”
And so they will have them again. Hopefully, less ridiculous. But we’ll wait for Dee Haslam’s reaction.
Remember, the team’s vice president of fan experience and marketing is Kevin Griffin who came from Seattle, where he helped engineer one of the more engaging game-day experiences in the league and built goodwill with the Seahawks’ fans for open communication.
Will cheerleaders completely fix their recent image problem? No, of course not, but they wont hurt it either. The more your team’s name is out in front of children, the stronger their bond to that team will be.
Fans need to stop seeing the Browns through a pair of rose-colored shutter shade glasses. This is not the 1980s anymore and the Browns need to build a new legacy.
And other recent moves prove the Browns aren’t beholden to vestiges of their heritage as they try to stake out a new brand for themselves.
The team announced this week that they would be replacing native son Bernie Kosar on the preseason broadcasts.
Kosar claimed it was because of his slurred speech caused by years of concussions. While that could be part of the issue, it’s much more likely to be the fact that he berated an opposing third-string quarterback and was arrested for suspicion of a DUI last season.
While the alcohol related charges for this case were dropped on Monday, the PR damage was already done.
The truth is that Bernie’s issues have gone far past what transpired last season. It was just about 18 months ago that Kosar called into do an interview with Bruce Hooley on ESPN 850 WKNR and sounded, well, hammered.
I worked for WKNR at the time and can tell you that it was a huge ordeal behind the scenes and ended with Kosar “taking some time off” from our shows.
This is not a good look for the Browns organization that is desperately trying to shake the stigma of being bumbling fools.
So maybe it is time to move on from Bernie on our broadcasts. Maybe it is time to embrace a change in uniforms. Maybe it is time for cheerleaders to walk the sidelines at FirstEnergy Stadium.
NewOrleansSaints.com: The members of the 2014-15 New Orleans Saintsations were announced Wednesday afternoon. The squad is divided into appearance and field teams. Click here to see who made the team!
News9.com – Oklahoma City, OK – News, Weather, Video and Sports |
By Steve Shaw
News 9
April 29, 2014
OKLAHOMA CITY –
A 20-year-old Choctaw woman just found out she’s been chosen as a member of the 2014 Denver Broncos Cheerleading Squad.
Hayle Johnson has been dancing since she was two years old.
Earlier this month, Johnson spent nearly two weeks in Denver, where she competed with 152 other ladies for 26 slots.
Johnson plans to move to Denver in a few weeks to begin preseason training with her other 25 teammates.
“I would have to say that I wasn’t for sure going to make it, or not, just because there were so many good girls there,” Johnson said.
Two seasons ago, Johnson danced on an elite cheer squad that performed during the 2013 Super Bowl.
KVAL.com has pictures from this year’s open call for the Seattle Seahawks cheerleaders. click here to check it out!
KJCT 8
April 19, 2014
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. The Denver Broncos Cheerleaders held tryouts a couple of weeks ago and one of the newest recruits started her career on the Western Slope. Katie Martin was one of 26 girls to make the team.
Martin spent four years on the Fruita Monument High School POMS team. After graduation she went to CSU where she is now a junior studying Fashion Merchandising. She has been on the CSU dance team since her freshman year and a few of her teammates will join her in the Mile High city.
“The girls are so amazing and just seeing how close they are with each other… I’m just so excited to build those relationships with them,” Martin said.
The tryout process she went through was a little over a week long and over 200 dancers tried out. There was a series of routines she had to learn, interviews and tests about football.
“So many people have helped me,” Martin said. “My parents have helped me so much and supported me through everything I have done and I have had so many dance coaches along the way at Fruita and at CSU.”
Her mother, Sheryl Martin, says it was one of the most intense audition experiences she has ever been through. About halfway through tryouts Martin pulled her hamstring, but pushed through and was still able to perform well.
“It was fun going through it with her even though it was nerve wracking and very stressful. It was really a hard audition to go through,” Sheryl said.
Her parents have been there every step of the way and couldn’t be more proud. They plan to attend every home game and even travel to some away games. Her family, including her brother, even went to Denver for the last night of auditions to cheer Martin on.
“I couldn’t be more proud,” Sheryl said. “I have watched her since she was a little girl dancing and wanting to do this so I think it is pretty inspiring to live a dream.”
Katie said the most vital part about tryouts was being physically fit because the routines were so high energy. The team has already started prepping for football season and they will have a training camp during May. Martin won’t be on the CSU team anymore, but she will have to drive to Denver a few times a week for practice.
“I’m most excited for the first game when I get to be in the stadium and on the field and it’s real, because right now it just doesn’t seem like it’s real at all,” Martin said.
Final auditions for the 2014 New England Patriots Cheerleaders took place yesterday. Click here for photos from the event.
