Argument drowns out cheers

Deirdre Newman

Instead of looking forward to starting the new cheerleading season

when school resumes, some cheerleaders at Newport Harbor High School are

trying to resolve a crisis that has pitted girls against girls, parents

against parents and wedged the school principal smack in the middle.

“I think it’s very disorganized, and the girls don’t deserve this,”

said Nina Taylor, a freshman on the junior varsity squad. “Whether you

make it or not, it’s emotionally and physically challenging. No parents

deserve to have their children come home crying.”

Principal Michael Vossen now finds himself in the unenviable position

of choosing between the logical, detached opinion of some of the parents

and the emotional, involved attitude of the cheerleaders.

Vossen was led to the precipice of cheerleader discontent by what some

considered an unfair judging process, parental involvement and his

presumed vacillation.

What most cheerleaders want now is to maintain the school’s decision

to override the judging panel and let everyone on the varsity and junior

varsity teams.

But on Dec. 21, an independent committee made up of parents and a

school staff member came to a different conclusion and insisted the girls

who didn’t make the team in the first place should try out again.

In response, the cheerleaders are trying to gather signatures to keep

all the girls who tried out on the two squads and they will cast a vote

on the matter Jan. 8. Vossen will make the final decision after that.

The controversy started after the tryouts when some girls who made the

team allegedly admitted they had cheated in the execution of their

routine, said junior Jennifer Nahin, one of the girls who did not make

the team originally.

Jennifer, like many of the girls who try out, said she aspired to be a

cheerleader since she was a little girl.

“When I didn’t see my name up there, it was like my dream was over and

it wasn’t going to come true,” she said. “I was really upset. The first

thing I did was drive over to the coach’s house and got out of the car

and started crying. She said, ‘Something was wrong, you should have made

it.”’

Lisa Callahan, who has coached the girls for the past 13 years, was in the room during the tryouts but had no say in the judge’s decision. She

said she saw inconsistencies in the judging that distorted the final

results, which was reportedly confirmed by some senior cheerleaders who

were also in the room. After bringing her concerns to school officials,

Callahan said she agreed it would be possible to accommodate all the

girls who tried out on the two squads.

Vossen, along with consent by Assistant Supt. Jaime Castellanos, sent

out a letter Dec. 12, giving his seal of approval to Callahan’s

resolution.

“I reached a decision that if uniform standards had not been applied

by the judges regarding improvisation, this would in turn constitute an

unfair process for the participants,” the letter stated.

But that decision did not sit well with Mike Johnston -- the father of

two cheerleaders and a recent addition to the school’s booster club --

and five other parents of girls who originally made the teams.

These parents accused Callahan of starting rumors about judging

inconsistencies so she could let the girls on the team that she thought

deserved to be there. They also charged the solution was unmanageable and

financially infeasible to the booster club.

“I’m not doing this to keep [Jennifer] or any individual off the

squad. It just is what it is,” Johnston said. “That’s the contract that

every girl signed. It says in five different places that all the judge’s

decisions are final and some people apparently have a difficult time

accepting the fact that they weren’t chosen.”

Johnston and his supporters took their complaint to the district,

setting off a chain of events that suspended the cheerleading squads’

practices, established the independent committee to recommend a solution,

and produced a tidal wave of emotion that is still seething within the

ruptured cheerleading community.

“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Sherry Blake, whose

daughter Erin made the original varsity team. “[Some] parents complained

[to the district] and didn’t think about the ramifications. That’s

disgusting.”

Brittany Richards, a sophomore who originally made the varsity squad,

said the situation has caused a climate of alienation that is degrading

to the cheerleading squads and the school as a whole.

“I think something like this could provoke a school shooting, like the

one in Santee, [San Diego],” Brittany said.

Many parents also accuse Vossen of backpedaling in regard to fairness

after the six parents complained to the district.

Castellanos, however, said the district has to uphold the rules in the

cheerleading contract unless negligence by the judges can be proved. The

district did not undertake an investigation, ultimately leaving the

decision to the ad hoc committee and the principal.

Castellanos also warned against equating the cheerleading fiasco with

extreme examples of alienation that caused school shootings.

“This is a whole kind of different thing. The parents’ emotion is

dumped onto the kids. It’s a whole kind of trampling,” Castellanos said.

“Each parent owns their emotion, and each parent has to step up to the

plate. But [the district] needs to do what’s right for the kids, not

what’s right for theparents.”

Coach Callahan agrees.

“The bottom line is we’re talking about the girls -- teenage girls--

those girls are heartbroken, and it broke my heart as well.”

* Deirdre Newman covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at o7 deirdre.newman@latimes.comf7 .