Chapter 9: Cheerleader Competition

Mid morning Friday everyone assembled at the high school parking lot for the trip to the state competition. Alex surprised us by showing up at the school with Tracy. When the company he worked for heard about the squad going to the competition, they insisted that Alex could take the paid time off to attend the event. I was happy for him to be able to see Tracy's squad perform.

The school provided a bus and driver for the squad and chaperones and was picking up the tab for the hotel rooms. The school photography club sent their best photographer, a girl, to take pictures for the school. The cafeteria made up box lunches and soft drinks for everyone for the trip up. By 10:30 we were all loaded up and on the road. The girls were so excited to be able to go that they were all sitting on the edge of their seats singing songs as we ambled along the road.

We arrived at the State University where the competitions were to be held. The girls were impressed with the size of the stadium. To them it looked like the Super bowl stadium. Everything was bigger and better than they had ever seen before. The massive size of it was intimidating to not only the girls but to everyone else in our group. Tracy went to the registration table to get us checked in and pick up our schedules. I noticed ESPN had set up cameras to cover the event. Seeing the cameras gave me an idea. I spoke with the producer and when I told him my name he recognized me as the programmer who did the software for the scheduling system he had wanted for a long time. When I asked him if he could make a DVD of our team competition he was more than willing to do it. He asked how many copies I wanted and I told him 18 would do nicely. He told me to consider it as good as done. He also mentioned to me that we would be getting not only what was broadcast but also the out takes.

We went to check in at the motel and found out that there was a big mess-up with the reservations. The school had reserved eight rooms for the girls and two for the chaperones. What we got were five rooms so we would have to bunch up with four girls to a room with the coach and two chaperones in the fifth room. By luck it would work out since the chaperones were Alex and me. Cathy pulled a fast one with the room assignments and got in the chaperone's room with us. As much as we wanted, there was too much of an audience for any mattress testing so we had to confine our fun and games to two at a time in the shower and mild petting in bed.

The school had fixed Tracy up with a credit card to pay for meals so we all assembled in the motel restaurant for dinner. The food was great and the plan was to spend a quiet evening at the motel so everyone would be rested up for the big day ahead. Well, as quiet as 16 excited girls could be. We all met in the restaurant for breakfast and then we were off to the stadium. Our squad was scheduled for just about the middle so we had plenty of time to get ready. Once through the groups took until mid afternoon and by elimination there were four teams left to compete. Our squad was in the finals and the girls put on a stellar performance. We had no idea how it was going to turn out. We would find out Sunday morning at the awards ceremony. It had been a fierce competition and all the girls put on the best performances you could ask for. It was very close so we were very nervous the whole evening. I suggested we all take in a movie for the evening. I researched and found a good movie, G rated, for the squad to see. There was no way that Tracy would allow them to see what they really wanted.