Panther Jamboree

On Saturday we had the kids Panthers Jamboree. Maddie's cheer/pom team did their routines and Nate's team had a series of scrimmages against the other teams in his division. First thing you have to understand about this Panthers organization is that it's HUGE. Each football team has 31 kids, six coaches and a couple of unit directors. There are 15 different teams, 5 in each of the three levels of freshman, JV and varsity. Throughout the year the kids play teams from the surrounding communities, so this is a chance for all of the teams in the division to play each other and for everyone to see all of the cheer and pom squads.

I jumped in my car from the half marathon in Portland and drove 90 minutes to get to the event, but I just missed Maddie's team cheering. We sat in the 95 degree beating sun, getting even more dehydrated as the day wore on.

Maddie is loving cheer and she's great at it. She's a gymnast at heart, so she loves the stunts and is in the flyer position, which I learned means she gets thrown in some of the cheer stuff and is at the top of the pyramids. She practices the cheers all the time, which get stuck in my head for hours on end. The company who made their uniforms sent the wrong outfits, so they had t-shirts for the event instead of their regular game attire. Cathie said Maddie did a great job and had a big smile on her face the whole time.

It was fun watching Nate's team play. They scrimmaged for almost 2 hours straight, 20 minutes of offense against a team, and then switching and running defense. No score was kept. Nate is playing Tight End, Cornerback and Special teams on kick-off, all in starting positions, so he plays a lot of the time.

He's only 75lbs, but he's got the reputation as one of the hardest hitters on the team. His coach shared with me that he wanted to move Nate to the lineman position, where guys are 140-160. Ouch. This is their last week of five day/week practice. They have their first real game on Saturday and then practices switch to three days/week once school starts.