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Macey Davis
Ms. Dahle
ENG 1010
10/20/14
Sometimes Things Dont Go Your Way
What makes a world champion? There are thousands of elements; however
when it comes down to it, three values remain constant: hard work, talent, and
passion. I was determined to be all of these things. One might say having a dream of
becoming a world champion is a little too unrealistic. I say, somebodys got to do it.
My dream always has and always will be to win the World Championships of
Cheerleading. Never heard of Cheerleading Worlds? I cant say Im surprised.
Competitive cheerleading hasnt made it big in Utah. Nonetheless, athletes from all
over the world come to this event, held annually in the ESPN center in Orlando,
Florida. The only way to attend this competition is by receiving a bid or an
invitation; thus, only the worlds most elite cheer teams compete.
In 2013, my team took home the bronze medal; it was a life-changing event
for all of us. We came out of Worlds extremely motivated, knowing our dream of
becoming world champions was not out of our reach. We were determined that next
season at Worlds 2014 we would take home the gold medal.
I thought last year our routine was as hard as it would ever get. Boy, was I
wrong. The season started out intense. Some people on the team had deferred
college to cheer their last year. Others moved away from their families so they could
be fully dedicated to the team. People had made sacrifices too big for excuses to be
valid. This was the mentality of everyone on the team. If youre in pain? Suck it up. If
youre sick? You will still be at practice. I cant imagine what it was like for the

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newbies on the team. Im sure they were scared beyond belief at first. Fortunately it
didnt take them long to adjust. It was do or die. As a result of the pressure and
intensity, this team was even better prepared than the team that took bronze the
previous year. A fire had been lit under us, and nothing would stand in our way. Or
thats what we thought.
Some people struggled dealing with the pressure; it was too much for them
both physically and mentally. Our preseason was laced with an abnormal amount of
injuries. Injuries werent something new to us, they happened fairly often; they were
part of the sport. The good thing about injuries is that they heal. After a certain
amount of time in a cast, boot, or on crutches the injury has repaired itself and is
ready to function.
Following our first competition, a member of our team, Ally, quit. Ally wasnt
a newbie; in fact, she had been cheering for over twelve years and had won bronze
with us the previous year. She was the oldest one on the team and everyone looked
up to her. Her quitting was especially hard on me. Ally had been one of my closest
friends from the get go. I remember her calling me during one of my classes at
school and her telling me, I just dont love it anymore, Mace. I ran out of my class,
not knowing what to think. Was she joking? Ally loved pranking people, was this
another one of her pranks? But Ally wasnt kidding. I couldnt fathom why she would
do this. I felt betrayed by her, because I knew this would set the team back for
months. I had such great passion for this sport, so I knew Id never be able to
understand her reasoning. This was a devastating blow to the team. Unlike bone or
muscle, Ally could never been fully replaced.

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Our coach Janet always seemed to have a back-up plan. She put Jaime on the
team. Jaime, like Ally, was also a very experienced cheerleader. She had been on the
team in previous years but had returned when she heard we needed her. Jaimes
enthusiasm refueled our desire to compete. In cheerleading, its hard to replace a
member of the team. When someone new is put into a group that has been working
together for months, no matter how good the replacement is, it takes time to adjust.
We went to a Nationals in Palm Springs, CA, completely unprepared. This was
the competition that gave our team a Worlds bid in 2013. We took last place. I dont
think anyone on our team was that surprised. We knew our routine was going to be
rough since Jaime had come on such short notice. Our last place finish at Nationals
only made us practice harder. We took no breaks. We practiced nearly every minute
of every day. We had only two weeks until our next competition.
As it turned out Ally was only the tip of the iceberg. The week before our next
competition in Las Vegas, my flyer, Lauren, broke her leg. With not much time left,
my coach enlisted Livy. She was a flyer from a lower level team. Livy had never been
to Worlds before. I cant imagine how intimated she must have felt. As we expected
this competition was a disaster. Livy fell and so did my stunt group.
It was now the middle of the season, and we still did not have a bid. Tensions
were rising and people were beginning to break. I already felt badly enough Id let
the team down when my team mate Xavier came up to my base, Huff, and me and
yelled at us to work harder. Xavier was obviously frustrated because he had hit
perfectly. It is too bad that cheerleading isnt an individual sport; youre part of a
team. You win and you lose as a team. The conversation got heated and left me in

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tears. There was no mutual understanding of how hard the changes are to some
people on the team. Xaviers stunt group hadnt been changed over and over again
like mine had. He just didnt understand and it made me angry. My group wanted
the bid just as badly as his did. Our team left Vegas discouraged and bidless.
It was emotionally draining to go from being optimistic to anger during
every practice. We would get frustrated so easily, because we knew that we were
capable of more. Our last competition before Worlds arrived, held in Dallas, Texas.
This was the biggest Nationals in the country. Sixty teams were competing in our
division and over 10,000 people expected to attend. I was backstage ready to walk
onto the floor, and my nerves were the worst they had ever been. My stunt had just
fallen less than a week ago in Las Vegas. I prayed for a miracle. Gratefully my prayer
was answered. We hit our routine and took home the bronze medal. Not only did we
get a bid to Worlds, we got a paid bid. With a paid bid, the Worlds arranges to pay
for your team to come and compete at Worlds. We were on cloud nine. This
experience proved to us that we were good enough to place top three at Worlds
again. Although our routine was not perfect, we knew what we needed to work on to
move up in the competition. We were good enough to win. Our dream of being a
world champion was still alive.
Our happiness was short lived. Janet, our coach, as solemn as I had ever seen
her, said she needed to talk to our team. This wasnt a good sign.
Lauren just got cleared by her doctor. She is going to be able to compete
with us at Worlds, Janet announced. Thats not bad news at all! I initially reacted.

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What about Livy? I asked myself. I looked around to see that she hadnt come to
practice.
But someone is not, Janet paused. Livy. Sydney. Janet finished. Sydney? My
mind screamed.
She will no longer be competing with us because of her disregard of our
code of conduct. Now I dont ask much of you, but I do ask for your respect and
dedication to this team. This meaning that you will not do anything that could
jeopardize your team, Janet started a rant about following the rules. I was stunned.
As it turns out, I was right about Livy. Janet moved her down as soon as she got
word that Lauren would be back. More new people. Theres a special bond between a
team. They are your family. It was hard on us to keep letting new people into this
special bond. With heavy hearts we moved forward.
April is a special month to cheerleaders, because its Worlds month. It had
been nearly a month since our last replacement. We were close to being ready for
Worlds. We only had three weeks left until we would be competing. Everyone at
practice wore their nicest practice outfits and brought their A game. On this
particular day practice was about halfway over, and we continued to practice our
pyramid over and over again. Janet wanted perfection. On the dismount of the
pyramid, Lauren came down elbowing Lexi in the face. I was on the other side of the
pyramid, but it stopped me dead in my tracks when I heard Lexi scream. Lexi has
always been a bit dramatic, so seeing her cry wasnt abnormal. This time was
different. She fell to floor and the outline of her eye was traced in blood. It only took
one look to know that her nose was broken. What would this mean to the team? Can

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you compete with a broken nose? Questions flooded through my mind. We didnt
have time to waste worrying about it. Janet quickly shuffled us to our next stunt. We
continued to practice like nothing had happened. Lauren hit her stunt all the way up
until the dismount. She came down elbowing Steph in the face. I watched Steph fall
to the floor. She didnt scream; she didnt make a sound. She laid face down on the
floor. Huff and I went over to help her off the floor. She was out cold. We turned her
over to see her bleeding everywhere. Huff screamed and I ran to get Janet. Stephs
eye was traced in blood the same way Lexis eye had been. Steph was bleeding out of
her nose and her eyes. Janet called 911. Practice ended quickly.
I waited up all night for news of Lexis and Stephs injuries. Lexi had a broken
nose and had shattered her facial bones. Steph had a broken nose and a concussion.
They would not be competing at Worlds this year. This was heartbreaking, and was
a serious loss to our team. We didnt have time to replace them; we would just have
to compete down two people. This was the last straw. We had lost all hope of
winning. By now we just wanted to place in the top ten. We had so many calamities
through no fault of our own. They were factors that were out of our control. How
often does one girl seriously injury two people within ten minutes of each other?
We worked as hard as we possibly could up until the day that Worlds came.
Unfortunately at Worlds the pattern continued, and we fell apart again. I remember
sitting in the stands with my friend Kayla, watching all the other teams hit
flawlessly.
Now theres no way we can move on to finals, Kayla calculated, as
the last team walked off the floor. They had hit perfectly.

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Were going to make it to top ten. I know we will, I stated.
Kayla looked at me.
Mace, we didnt make it, She held the scores in her hand from every
team that had competed to that point.
I know everything happens for a reason, and we didnt go through
everything we went through this year to fail again, I shouted. I had complete faith in
the fact that our team was going to learn a valuable lesson from all these struggles,
turn our team around, and come home with the gold medal and an inspiring story of
how we made it this far. In the story we would tell everyone if you work hard
enough you can achieve anything. I had heard countless number of stories with the
moral that anything is possible. What was the purpose of the struggles? To be
humbled? I thought we had been perfectly humbled after getting last place at nearly
every previous competition. My thoughts ran through me like fire in my veins.
We have to make it. I argued with Kayla. She knew better than to argue
back. She just reached over and gave me a hug. The end result was out. We didnt
make it. We didnt make top three. We didnt even make top ten. This really shook
me. I didnt feel as if we deserved to win Worlds, but I felt that we at least deserved a
chance. We never got a chance to show how good we really were. Disasters were
thrown at us at every corner.
Maybe we just didnt have what it took to be world champions. I thought
back to my previous definition. To become a world champion takes hard work.
Starting right after Palm Springs until Worlds, we had practiced every single day.
We were constantly adjusting to the changes thrown at us. We stayed for as long as

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it took. It didnt matter if it was an hour after practice or two hours after practice,
we would stay. Nobody could say we didnt work hard enough. To become a world
champion takes skill. We had the skill. We proved it at the Texas competition. If we
could hit our routine, I knew we would place top three or higher. To become a world
champion takes passion. Our team wanted this more than anyone I had ever met.
When we took bronze in Texas one of the certified cheer programs tweeted, MACs
Small Coed gives me goose bumps. Just like when they got Bronze at Worlds last
year, just so beautiful and genuine. We had everything we needed to become world
champions, but sometimes things dont go your way.
Life isnt fair. In reality, you lose more often than you win. It doesnt matter
how hard you work for something, the talent you have, or even how bad you want it,
if its not meant to be, its not meant to be.
Somebodys got to be a world champion, and at Worlds 2014, that
somebody wasnt me.