Moxiejan

There is little that is "empowering" about any of the rules in the contract that they sign.

The DCC has plenty of rules about behavior that certainly can affect a cheerleader's status as GL (or even remaining on the squad at all), despite being perfectly legal: socializing with players, being late, gaining weight, appearing in public without full hair/makeup … heck, even showing up at practice in the wrong outfit. So if there indeed is a DCC rule about taking/having nekkid photos, it is not "victim-shaming" to discipline a cheerleader who is found to have them (whether due to a crime or a vindictive ex or whatever). It is entirely possible that had Heather not been proactive & warned TPTB about the hack, she might have found herself off the team.

Kelcey (as a blond) danced/cheered for awhile on the Arizona State squad, then switched to University of Nebraska for its med school (and Big 10 cheer); changed back to dark hair at some point. She just graduated with a nursing degree & has been fitting in her DCC stuff with studying for nursing boards. So she might be a one-and-done, depending on the constraints of whatever nursing job she gets.

Blame the giant new video screens that make a ripped figure & perfect face more essential than killer dance & appealing personality. Would my early MTT faves (Kandi & Brooke) have even made finals in the current climate?

I didn't say "relax and enjoy the game"; I said sit with K&J and provide feedback on the cheerleaders/routines. That would have been a more worthwhile use of her time. Really, if her injury was such a risk that she needed to sit in the locker room (despite having done out-of-locker-room appearances), they should have left her home. After all, football players who are on injured reserve usually don't travel with the team.

She would have been on Cowboys' insurance for the entire trip, including transportation there & back, and any appearances she made. That's why it made no senses that she had to sit in the locker room. Sitting with K&J would have been no more of an injury risk than making a HoF appearance.

Thinking about Erica at HoF: If they knew in advance that she wouldn't be dancing & instead would have to sit in uniform in the locker room for hours (usually a punishment for those who were late or committed another offense), why did they even bring her? She could have stayed back in Dallas and given tips to the TCCS, even if only verbally. If they felt that all veterans (except the 2 being punished) should get to go on the trip despite not being able to dance, why not have her sit with K&J and have her provide feedback on those dancing? If they thought it would look odd to have a uniformed cheerleader just sitting there, she could have worn street clothes. Sooo... is it possible that some sort of infraction took place AFTER she got to HoF, but BEFORE the game? And she was punished by having to stay in the locker room in uniform? And she then got angry & decided she was going to quit, so decided to seal it by going into the stands to drink?

So they really did go from 38 to 37 without any explanation. Bizarre.

The MTT page on Facebook has a couple of sneak peeks of tomorrow's episode. On one, Kelli announces that "we're down to 37 and have one more cut to make." So she certainly isn't making any attempt to be vague with the number count. It will be interesting to see when/how they address that last week's 38 has become this week's 37. If they just go straight to 37, it really would be true that they don't care a bit about continuity from one episode to the next.

I didn't say that her bad behavior (or injury or anything else) would be addressed; only that her departure would be. It can be as simple as "veteran Erica will not be on this year's team after all."

Agree; it's entirely possible that initially, Erica's struggles with injury WERE a part of this season's story line (remember that the closed captioning did have her announced as GL), but then the Jenna/Holly "big old mess" came along and the CMT producers decided to make more time for that by editing out Erica. We'll just have to wait & see how this all plays out in the final episodes.

They obviously have back-edited to diminish her, but she still was shown in the background several times. And Kelli has repeatedly kept the audience aware of the "number count." Clearly, it has been decided to play up Jenna/Holly & play down Erica. But Kelli simply can't make one cut and then announce that the 38 have become 36. The departure of one more has to be addressed in some way, even if with only a 10-second announcement.

How is it that we know that her departure won't be mentioned? All we know is that she has been largely edited out so far. That doesn't mean that Kelli can magically get from 38 to 36 by making just one televised cut. Something about the second exit has to be said, even if it's just "a veteran got injured, so we're down to 36."

Kelly's comments AGAIN this week gave an exact count of how many are remaining (38) & that the squad needs to get to 36; she has made no attempt to be vague about numbers in an attempt to keep TV viewers in the dark. So I do think that there will be at least a mention that a veteran has had to leave the squad due to a long-term injury, with perhaps a bit of video of Erica.

There is no way to know what Courtney's situation was, EXCEPT that viewers were told that she needed some medical attention. My comment about drug addiction was not in reference to Courtney specifically, but to the post that essentially said that bad/illegal behavior does not happen with prescription drugs. To the contrary, the road to addiction for far too many people doesn't start with illegal "street" drugs; it starts with doctor/patient mismanagement of painkillers prescribed for a medical condition.