Cheerleader to Basketball Shooter

It's unreal how busy we've been and how busy we're going to be in the next few weeks and months. In fact, by our calculations, we have 2 free weekends left between here and the beginning of April. Much of that travel is due to Kaitlyn's cheerleading competitions with trips set for Hot Springs, Oklahoma City and the final competiton of the "season" in Kansas City at the end of March.

Also during that time, we're planning our annual Spring Break trip to Destin which, again this year, we'll also be celebrating my birthday. Be looking for a picture of me with the traditional glob of butter on my nose too.

Yesterday, we got back from a trip to Hot Springs where Kaitlyn participated in a statewide free throw contest sponsored by the Elks Club. This is a national contest where the winner of yesterday's competition moves onto another contest in Paris, TN in March and all subsequent winners there will meet in Philadelphia, PA. She became eligible to compete after winning the contest at her elementary school. Then, from there she competed in a city wide / community wide contest at the Fayetteville Boys & Girls Club. She was in the 8-9 year old girls division and (wouldn't you know it) she won.

The day she won this contest was also the day when I was singing in our choir's Christmas concert so I wasn't able to see her win. However, I heard all about it when I got home and was told that if we won in Hot Springs, we'd "get" to go to Paris, TN and then if we won there, we'd go to Philly.

I already knew our travel schedules were going to be hectic enough with her cheer competitions and Spring Break so to be honest, the thought of driving to Tennessee and possibly to Pennsylvania didn't thrill me much. However, getting to watch my daughter compete AND WIN would more than offset my "desire" to travel.

So...let's cut to the chase.

We got to the gym in Hot Springs yesterday and watched our children compete. There were around 100 kids there from Elks Clubs all over the state of Arkansas and each child fell into a specific division.

Boys and girls, ages 8-9, 10-11 and 12-13. That meant that at the end of the day, there'd be 6 kids going to Tennessee in March to compete at that level.

Kaitlyn's division went second so we got to sit through the 12-13 year olds and see how it'd be scored. Each child would shoot 10 free throws, go back and sit with their group and then return for a final 15.

All this being done in almost complete silence in the gym.

How did we get Jake to be quiet for almost 2 hours? 3 words for you...

portable DVD player.

Oh yeah...with headphones. LOL

So once Kaitlyn's group began, it went by pretty quick. At the end of the round, after all the scores were tallied, we were thrilled to learn that Kaitlyn finished 3rd overall in her division!!! That means that out of all the 8-9 year old girls who participated in the state of Arkansas, Kaitlyn finished in 3rd place!! To me, that's a pretty cool deal!

We were so proud of her!! She seemed pretty excited too as she walked out with a good sized trophy and a bag full of other prizes (ie: t-shirt, water bottle, basketball, etc) although she later admitted she wanted to win the whole thing.

That's the thing about her...she almost wins these things out of spite and sheer determination. I think she and I had 2-3 dedicated practice sessions of shooting free throws and me giving her pointers on proper technique.

In fact, here's a picture of me giving her a few last minute tips before they started keeping score. For her to do as well as she did and score as high as she did with only 3 dedicated sessions, it makes me wonder if with a few more lessons she could have indeed won the whole contest.

I think we may have a star-athlete in the making here.

Way to go Kaitlyn! We're very proud of you!!