And we're back from our third and most successful year competing at NCA and NDA college nationals! Both cheer and dance obtained the highest scores from our routines that we have ever accomplished. I am SO incredibly proud to say that the American University Dance Team has placed 9th in the nation for Division 1 Hip Hop!! We are so excited that all of our hard work paid off and we received some amazing recognition at nationals this year!
Usually, returning home from Daytona is bittersweet. It's the end of our incredibly long season. We will finally have ample time to do our homework, see friends that aren't involved in AU Spirit (does anyone have any of those anymore? haha), and get ready for finals and summer vacation before the season starts up again with the next school year. However, this year is very different for me. I will be graduating in December, a semester early, and therefore this was my last nationals season on the American University dance team.
Usually, I return home excited to show off my tan (which is actually usually a sunburn), and hang out with my friends, but as I walked through the door of my apartment with all of my luggage just a half an hour ago, I instead felt an overwhelming gratitude for what the American University Spirit Program has given me the past three years.
As I have said in my blog posts for the past three years, our spirit program is a group of extraordinary young women and men. It has been such an amazing experience to watch this program grow and be a part of it. We have always worked incredibly hard, but the talent and the perseverance to get better has only increased with every year. I have seen the technical skills on my own team reach far beyond a level that I could have imagined when I tried out for the team in April of 2008, and I got to watch the cheer team go from having 4 or 5 tumblers to having almost full team tumbling and sticking nearly every stunt they throw in the air.
My team and this program have given me so much in the past three years. My dancing has improved drastically, as well as my athletic ability, I have AMAZING time management skills, and I now know how to shake poms and run flags with the best of them. However, the most important thing this program has given me is a family away from my family.
We have faced many struggles together; not having time for schoolwork, friends, boyfriends (or girlfriends), getting injured, messing up performances, missing holidays and special time with our actual families, and enduring hours of hard practices. We've also had more amazing and funny memories than I could possibly count, and I couldn't picture the past three years without any of the amazing past and present members of the team. You all have made my time on the American University Dance Team nothing less than perfect, and I love you all. When we all look back on our days on our cheer or dance teams, we aren't going to remember our routines, or how long the bus ride to Florida felt, or the scores of the basketball games we cheered at, but we are instead going to remember those great nights in Daytona, the feeling of walking off the Nationals floor after nailing a routine, how many laughs we all had together along the way, and how lucky we were to have been a part of such a special group of people.
My freshman year I wrote on this very blog that I couldn't have been luckier to have left my family in Ridgefield, CT and found a new one here in DC, and I couldn't have been more right. Of course none of it would have been possible without our coaches, Alex, Rachel, and Nate, who have continuously pushed us to be better even when we thought there was no where else to go. Nate has been an amazing encouragement to not only his own team, but dance as well, and I will forever appreciate him staying after his own practice was over to help us clean our hip hop routine. Rachel has dove in to being an assistant coach of this crazy team so effortlessly, and we wouldn't be where we are (9th place!) without her. I want to especially thank Alex for pushing me and believing in me enough to choose me as one of the leaders of this amazing team, and wish her all the luck in the world as she begins the most exciting journey of her life. And of course a big thank you to Brett,and Jay for giving so much to this program, as well as all of our amazing alums who have been so supportive.
I'm getting a little teary sitting here at my computer, and I think I've written a novel already. I love you all more than you know, and I can't thank you enough for three amazing years on this team. When I am no longer a member of AU Spirit, I will be taking the place of "AU Spirit's Biggest Fan." You guys have no where else to go but up, and I will be cheering you on the entire way.
DT on 3,
Kelsey
