Personal Essay: Tryouts In High School

Nervous: tending to be anxious; highly strung. The word nervous couldn’t even begin to describe how I felt going into my freshman year cheerleading tryouts. It was late March in 2011 as I was leaving middle school and entering high school. I had cheered since I was little all through elementary school and all through middle school, so when the time had come for high school tryouts I was a nervous wreck. Not only were tryouts a full week, but they also consisted of learning a dance, two side-line cheers, the school fight song and a “big” cheer. I can remember tryouts being absolutely miserable for me, because they fell on Easter Break. That year for Easter I was flying to visit my dad in San Diego, but I was leaving on the second day of tryouts.

After talking to the coach we established the only way I could try out was through a video submission on the first day. It’s my freshman year, im already nervous and I now only have one day to learn, perfect and submit my tryout video. This was probably the most stressful event I had ever gone through until this point. The next day I went into tryouts and worked until I couldn’t move, I gave myself a 10 minute break and went in to record my video for Friday. I walked in and started off right away. By the end of the video I was shaking so badly. I completely bombed my tryout but thankfully the judges showed sorrow and my coach explained the situation to them. Even though I made the team, I made sure I was going to be in town for every tryout the next four years.