The 24th annual Charger Girl auditions kicked off in San Diego yesterday. After two rounds of competitive tryouts, the field of over 450 dancers was narrowed down to 70ish who will duke it out on Thursday evening for a spot on the team. Congratulations finalists!
[Click here to check out my photo gallery!]
Congratulations finalists!
Aspiring noobs warming up
Returning vets
Round 1 is in the books and HoustonTexans.com has the coverage! Click here for photos, click here for more photos, and click here for video!
Cheerleader auditions are under way for the Washington Redskins, and they’re asking the public to vote on their favorite candidate to join the team as a rookie this year. Click here to cast your vote on Facebook. One voter will be chosen at random to attend the final auditions on Sunday.
Click here to see who made it to the finals for the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders. On Sunday night, we’ll find out which of these 57 ladies will be 2014 Denver Broncos Cheerleaders!
Shout-out to my homey Erica. L.A. girl in the house – woot! Knock ’em dead 🙂
Sharing team spirit across cultures
By Natalie Conrad
MN Sun
April 1, 2014
When Christina Gekas Taylor isn’t guiding her students on to post-secondary options as a school counselor, she is busy supporting the Minnesota Vikings as one of the team’s cheerleaders.
The Park Center High School counselor and 2003 Eden Prairie High School graduate is being recognized by the Minnesota Chapter of the National Football Foundation with its first Outstanding Cheerleader Award.
While a student in Eden Prairie, Gekas Taylor was a member of the pom squad for all four years and recently served as a judge for this year’s auditions. She began dancing at a local dance studio at age 3, and credits her strong dance background to her experiences as a young dancer and on the pom squad. A very supportive family didn’t hurt either.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without the love and support of my mom,” Gekas Taylor said. “My mom always really encouraged me to follow my dreams and instilled a lot of love and confidence in me. She raised me to feel as though I have a lot to offer this world and a lot to give, so I shouldn’t hold back. Whenever I have experienced self-doubt or insecurity, she has always been my personal cheerleader.”
She attended college at the University of Kansas, where she continued to dance competitively for the school’s dance team and studied journalism. The team provided Gekas Taylor with a combination of cheer and dance.
“It was a nice balance of school spirit and competition,” Gekas Taylor said. “ We got to cheer on the basketball team through March Madness and do competitions.”
After college, she traveled to India and South Africa, and was a cheerleader for cricket teams. Gekas Taylor was a member of one of the first cheer teams to support the popular international sport.
“It was an interesting experience to cheer for a sport that doesn’t usually have cheerleaders,” Gekas Taylor said.
Gekas Taylor holds a wild tiger during an adventure in South Africa. She cheered for cricket teams in South Africa and India.
Gekas Taylor holds a wild tiger during an adventure in South Africa. She cheered for cricket teams in South Africa and India.
She was one of the few cheerleaders selected from all over the country to cheer on the sport and served as captain her second year on the team. Despite the fact that the cheer- and dance-based sport may have been foreign to the people of India and South Africa, they really enjoyed it, according to Gekas Taylor.
“They really embraced it and got excited about it,” she said. “They were really the best crowds to cheer for, because they weren’t used to it. They appreciated it even more than people do here.”
Gekas Taylor, along with her teammates, also got to be part of some of the music videos cricket teams film to kickoff each season.
After returning from her adventures abroad, Gekas Taylor decided to continue her education by getting a master’s degree in counseling, but continued to pursue her love of dance, taking classes at night.
Her unique experiences, from the Eden Prairie Pom Squad to cheering at the University of Kansas and cheering on cricket teams abroad, helped her earn a spot on the Vikings cheer team as a rookie in the 2013 season. Since then, she has been able to perform for hundreds of thousands of Vikings fans, and traveled with the team to represent the NFL in London this past fall.
Growing up in Eden Prairie, alongside the Vikings training facility, becoming a cheerleader for the team had always been a dream for Gekas Taylor.
“There are so many really talented girls that go through the program and it is really intense, but it’s something a lot of dancers strive for,” she said.
“You just need to be focused to do your best at both things,” she said.
As for her students knowledge of her side job as a professional cheerleader, Gekas Taylor said she tried to keep it quiet, but some of them found out anyway.
“It made for fun conversation,” she said. “ I can talk to them about the game and am able to relate to them in a different way.”
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While Gekas Taylor does not plan to audition for the upcoming season due to family illness, she plans to continue her love of the sport for years to come. She said she may pick up where she left off with the Park Center dance team and doesn’t rule out a possible return to the Vikings cheerleaders.
“I’ll never say never,” Gekas Taylor said. “We’ll see what happens.”
She will remain a member of the Vikings team until a new team is selected at the end of April. In the meantime, Gekas Taylor is busy promoting the upcoming Hoops for Hope event at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 27, at Park Center High School, 7300 Brooklyn Blvd. in Brooklyn Park. Teachers will face off against students in a basketball game to benefit the American Heart Association. The students will be cheered on by Park Center’s own cheerleading team, while the Vikings cheerleaders will cheer for the teachers.
As far as winning the outstanding cheerleader award, Gekas Taylor said she is “shell-shocked” and honored, but is even more proud to know that this new award will continue to recognize those who dedicate time and effort to support the state’s professional football team.
“The cheerleaders are such a big part of the football experience,” she said. “We work really hard to support our team and the community.”
The award will be presented at the Vikings’ annual Minnesota Football Honors event on May 4 at the Hilton Minneapolis. In addition to the cheerleading award, eight high school football scholar awards will be presented along with the Vikings’ top player awards for the 2013 season. The event is open to the public and tickets may be purchased online by visiting nffmn.org.
By Jocelyn Syrstad
Leader-Telegram
March 31, 2014
Last April I decided to try out for the Minnesota Vikings Cheerleaders. I mentioned the idea mainly as a joke — I never thought I had what it took to be on the team — but my youngest sister encouraged me to go to tryouts.
The day was a whirlwind of activity. About 175 women showed up for tryouts for 35 spots on the team. We learned multiple dances in front of a long table of judges and left the day physically and mentally exhausted.
I left thrilled. Going into tryouts, I thought I’d be cut after the first round, head home and chalk it up to a fun experience. But, instead, I left with an invitation to join the Training Program, a JV team for lack of a better term.
For the past 10 months I have been training weekly with my Training Program teammates, coaches and trainers. I drive to the Twin Cities every Tuesday for a two-hour practice and make sure to spend the rest of the week racking up a lot of time in the gym and sticking to a healthy lifestyle.
It amazes me to see how far I have come. One of my teammates recently pulled me aside to tell me how much I have improved. At our team banquet a couple of weeks ago, my teammates voted me “most improved glamour.” And my all-around confidence and poise has improved tremendously.
Now, a year after I walked in blind to open auditions, I will walk in to those same tryouts again this Sunday. I have no idea what my chances are. If you asked me honestly, I still think I have a lot of work left to do. But I do know I will be better than last year.
I am prepared for all scenarios — I don’t make MVC, I make it, I get invited back to Training Program, I am not asked back — and I will be proud of any outcome. I am proud of how hard I have worked over the past year and I am proud that I have made improvements.
What’s meant to be will happen. My dream, of course is to one day be an MVC and perform on the field each Sunday with my wonderful teammates, but if that doesn’t happen this time around it just simply wasn’t meant to be for me yet.
One thing is for certain, though. No matter what happens I will continue to work hard and improve myself so hopefully I am even more prepared for the 2015 tryout process.
In the meantime, I’ll leave everything on the field Sunday at tryouts and hope for the best.
The Denver Broncos have photos and video from yesterday’s open call. Check ‘em out!
by George Riba
Kens5.com
March 31, 2014
DALLAS — When you see the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders take the field these days, they carry with them lots of history.
The group – formed in 1960 and originally with high school students – were then known as the Cowbelles & Beaux’s.
By 1970, General Manager Tex Schramm decided to change their image to boost attendance. Five years later, Suzanne Mitchell, who started as Schramm’s secretary, took over as the director of the cheerleaders, but it wasn’t until the Super Bowl in Miami in January 1976 that things started to change.
“Everybody paid so much attention to the girls on the sidelines, and Tex started getting all these phone calls like crazy,” Mitchell said. “He said, ‘Somebody has got to manage these girls. Why don’t you do that in your spare time?’ So that was it.”
Mitchell would be director of the cheerleaders until Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989.
“Tex had given me my opportunity,” Mitchell said. “It was my loyalty to him that made me leave, because he gave me every opportunity to do what I did with the cheerleaders.”
To this day, Mitchell gets credit for molding the image of the cheerleaders into what you see on the field.
“What I did, especially the first few years, was say ‘no’ a lot, because Hollywood was calling, William Morrison [Agency] in New York was calling, and they had all these things they wanted us to do, to sponsor, to advertise, but they were not in keeping with the image that Tex wanted and what I wanted,” she said.
Opportunities continued to stream in.
“Then some things like TV shows like the Love Boat, the Oakridge boys, the Osmond brothers, The Country Music Awards, and things of that sort,” Mitchell said. “We started doing a little bit at a time, and mainly because the fans wanted to see the girls, and it progressed from there and I just held on tight.”
What followed were trips to visit the troops overseas, preforming in hangers and on aircraft carriers, and even carrying messages home from the troops to their families. Mitchell’s impact was being felt worldwide.
Today, the jacket she wore during those trips is kept at the cheerleaders’ headquarters at Valley Ranch.
“The first tour of Korea at Christmas, a young soldier came up and put a pin – his unit crest pin – on my jacket,” Mitchell said. “One after another, the boys kept doing, a pin, a pin. Well, the jacket ended up weighing 14 pounds, but I wore it every night.”
These days, Mitchell isn’t fighting for her girls, but instead is in a battle to save her life. Last July, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is working with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network to raise money to find a cure for the disease.
A 5k and fun run, held at Clyde Warren Park in Dallas, raised $500,000 last year. On Nov. 8 this year, they’re trying to double that amount.
“The thing about this cancer, and the reason I want to do thing like this is whatever time I have left – because only six out of 100 that are diagnosed live five years – so I don’t know how much time I have, but I want to spend that time trying to increase the awareness, because there is less funding for pancreatic cancer than there is any cancer,” Mitchell said.
To help raise money for research, Toni Washington, who was a cheerleader for Mitchell, designed what she calls her “Suzanne bracelet.”
“What she did – not just for me, for so many woman around the world – and I’m a better mother because of my mother and Suzanne,” Washington said. “Just the touch of her is unbelievable.”
LINK: Information about Suzanne bracelet for pancreatic cancer research
Mitchell has seen many former cheerleaders step up to help.
“I was just blown away,” she said. “Most of the cheerleaders have bought one or are going to, and we’re hoping it’s going to help.”
In the meantime, Suzanne Mitchell, who has called herself “the luckiest lady that has ever lived,” continues to fight for her life.
Washington expressed her feelings to the woman who help mold her.
“You are my world,” Washington said. “I am the woman I am today because of you. And I love you more than words will ever know. The Suzanne bracelet will carry your legacy, and it’ll out live me.”
By Joey Bunch
The Denver Post
March 30, 2014
The 154 candidates for the 26-member Denver Broncos cheerleading squad Sunday afternoon needed more than high kicks and a beautiful smile.
They also might need a second job.
“We want beautiful women out there representing the team, but they have to be intelligent,” said Teresa Shear, the Broncos’ director of cheerleaders and game entertainment, as dozens of women clad in blue and orange practiced dance steps and twirls nearby. “They interact with the fans and represent the team.”
Besides cheering at 16 regular-season games and the playoffs, the squad makes more than 100 other appearances and instructs the Broncos’ Junior Cheerleaders.
Before the 56 finalists can make the team, they must undergo background checks, interview with team officials and take a test on their football knowledge.
[PHOTOS: Denver Broncos Cheerleader tryouts]
[VIDEO]
NFL teams won’t discuss how much cheerleaders earn, but the low pay has become a controversy. Online petitions seek to raise the wages, noting the millions of dollars players and team executives earn.
Stephanie Anderson of Niwot was trying out for the fourth time. Her sister Brittany made it last year.
“I’ve been dancing since I was 2,” said Stephanie, who also teaches dance. “It’s in my blood.”
Claire von Nieda said her company would relocate her job from Salt Lake City if she makes the squad. Gioia Bartalo came from Florida. Her father, Steve Bartalo, played running back at Colorado State before a stint with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“Being from Tampa, my favorite games were always the Broncos and the Bucs,” she said.
Toni Gabrielli moved to Denver from Minneapolis two years ago as she made the squad, and within a week also had a job as a career counselor at the University of Denver.
“Fate kind of worked things out,” she said.
The finals are next Sunday at 6 p.m. in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.
Auditions for the 2014 squad started this weekend.
NewYorkJets.com has a lot of great photos: Gallery 1 | Gallery 2 | Gallery 3
