Jess14

Lol! I knew a family growing up who had seven kids...finally baby #7 was a girl, and she was of course, the last one. They were rich though, so no issue affording all of those kids.

Not all of us! I think their punishments were fine. They willingly agreed to follow the rule and then broke it. However, outside of the rule-breaking, I have no problem whatsoever with either of them or Paige or anyone else having a consensual relationship with a player. I should say that I think Suzanne(?) was likely trying to make the best of a bad situation, knowing that she couldn't control Jerry Jones, but the notion that women bear responsibility for men's bad behavior is part of what the #MeToo movement is trying to root out.

My comment about inexperienced girls was in response to the post that was quoted, which mentioned that some of the girls are only 18 and haven't experienced life. However, if the rule is designed to protect the women from being sexually assaulted by restricting their, the potential victim's behavior, while putting zero restriction on the potential perpetrators of the harassment, that is archaic. It is what it is, and the girls all agree to follow it, but I think that is how the discussion came back up - a poster mentioned being frustrated that people think its an archaic rule - it's because it is, IMO. It's just like young female workers being told not to go out to lunch or happy hour with the male boss because he's skeevy, all the while the male colleagues are going on these outings and getting ahead of the women. Or the "avoid this male superior at work because he likes to make inappropriate comments" (I've definitely gotten that one). In most cases, people mean well and are trying to protect the women in the job, but at the end of the day, the fact is that there is not the will to either put these men in their place, so they will behave or to part ways with them. So, the women are forced to take steps to keep themselves from being harassed or find another job, while men are given free reign, and it's treated as reasonable- archaic. In the case of fraternization with players in the present time, I question how effective this even is. I doubt a football player who thinks he is entitled to any woman he wants could give two craps about the DCC's little rule. If anything, it seems they're likely just stopping potential consensual relationships.

To be clear, I think any young, inexperienced girl, cheerleader or not, is well-advised to steer clear of pro athletes. But if the rule is in place because the assumption is that the girls are too wide-eyed or immature to make good decisions, and that they need to be protected from the men (who are explicitly not subject to the same rules), then I think that’s exactly why people call the rule archaic and old fashioned, even though it may be well intentioned.

Why does anyone need to be punished? These are adults, and they’re not even in each other’s chain of command, nor do they work together on a daily basis. At the high school and college level, athletes and cheerleaders often date each other, so I don’t even think the public would be surprised or think anything was amiss if a cheerleader was dating a player. I agree with @dreamcatcher that pimping cheerleaders out to players and other male associates (which is gross and sexual harassment, IMO) is a totally different thing than prohibiting them from dating players if they choose to.

Basically my thoughts. I think the odds of her going far are pretty much zero, but hey, it may be a good and valuable experience nonetheless. It’s very possible that she still has the same entitled attitude bad thinks that she’ll waltz right in, but if she’s approaching it with clear eyes, knowing full well that failure is a very real possibility, but is still willing to put herself out there, I respect that.

Didn’t Gina, herself, make some sort of comment about being from California and how that would help her? Am I just imagining that?

Yeah, no doubt she was bitter, but the lawsuit wasn't about cheerleaders generally being undervalued, which I do see as a "if it's so bad, why did you stay for so long" sort of issue. However (legitimate or not, I'll never know since it was dismissed quickly), the lawsuit was primarily about wage and hour violations. The law is the law. She could be there for 25 years, but if they're not paying her correctly, there's nothing frivolous about the claim. Also, lots of people are not going to realize that they may have a legit FLSA claim unless they have a reason to look into it- ie. a co-worker or other employee files a suit/raises the issue or the employee gets pissed off about something and actually starts looking into potential legal claims. Many people are just going to assume that the law and regulations are being followed when it comes to their paycheck, and I would think that would be especially true with the DCCs, since they seem to have such an unusual set-up (paid a flat rate for some events and hourly for others).

Beyond injuries, I can only imagine the toll that it takes to stay "uniform ready," especially for the girls who are not naturally stick thin. Add to that the long practices that, at least in training camp, go into the wee hours of the morning, and I'm surprised that everyone (and primarily those who have a job outside of DCC) ins't exhausted.

While some people speculated that she wouldn’t want patients in her care to view the calendar, I don’t remember it being said that it was specifically about her job, but just a personal preference. I absolutely agree with the second point though. I have no insider info as to whether they were truly ok with her sitting out or not, but if they were annoyed about it, I imagine that they would do what they did (bring her along and put on a happy face), but then also quietly drop hints that she may want to move on at the end of the year. Kelli isn’t stupid. She knows that in the current climate, it would be ill advised to try and force a girl to do the swimsuit shoot. However, I could see how they wouldn’t want that to become a pattern - girls opting out of things (especially non-cheer related activities that are already somewhat questionable) - for fear of impacting their image.

Yeah, if I was trying to make a quick exit from Dallas, and California was home, I know where I would be headed lol.

Perhaps that's how it started, but moving to Shreveport (not exactly South Beach lol) long after you're done cheering would be some sort of dedication to keeping up a front that you're not fraternizing - something that no one other than K&J and Charlotte cares about in the first place. Whatever happened, must've been dramatic to delete everything like that. Of course, some people are fine with everyone knowing the status of their relationships. I can't count how many times I've found out about break-up and even divorces because all social media references and pictures suddenly disappeared (and the people involved were fine with people finding out that way), but I prefer to be a bit more discreet.

Yeah, I think it’s just pro sports where “cheerleaders” are basically dancers. I would imagine that many, if not most, college cheerleaders would have a hard time making a team like the DCCs. They just don’t dance that much. In my experience, stunting, tumbling, and jumps really determined if you made those teams (and for the co-ed college teams - size - all of the girls were short and skinny). Dance was a small factor. I would be curious if many college dance teams have male dancers. I don’t remember ever seeing that, but it’s possible that it may have become more prevalent recently.

I’m not disputing that at all. I’m saying that I (personally) did not know that because I don’t follow Jenn on social media. Hence, I wasn’t ok or not ok with Jenn posting stuff last year because I don’t recall seeing it in the first place.

I don't recall seeing posts of Jenn K at Pro Bowl last year. I don't follow her on social media, so unless the posts were posted here or on the DCC pages, I wouldn't have seen it - but to answer the question, I'm not a fan of Jenn K at all, and I find her to be about 100X more annoying than Kashara (who I don't have a problem with), so yes, I probably would have found it annoying had I seen it lol. With that said, if she was at Pro Bowl with a large group of the previous year's PBC, then I think that is fine as well. It seems like a tradition, so I expect Lacey to travel there next year too.

I initially had a "dang Kashara, can you let Lacey have the limelight" impression when I saw DCC retweeting all her posts (I don't follow Kashara on social media, so that's how I saw it), but in actually looking at her page and stories, it seems like a big group event with many 2018 PBCs. Therefore, I think it's fine. Had she went down there on her own to relive the glory days of last year, I would think that was kind of pathetic, but it seems like a reunion-type thing.

Interesting, per that excerpt from the article, a fourth year girl gets paid $150 more to stand around at Wal-Mart and speak to people for a few hours than she does to actually perform with the Show Group...

Hell, if the rate of pay is that high for a one hour appearance, that's put her at a higher hourly average than any young lawyer and most experienced ones (there are certainly many attorneys in big cities and certain practice areas who can charge rates over $1k/per hour, but I doubt there are hardly any who are below 30 who do so). If I were an upper vet, I would be begging Shelly to send me to every appearance if the pay rate is that high lol. Jenna and Sydney staying for 6 and 7 years make more sense now if they were truly making that sort of money on these little appearances at Albertson's, etc.

This, I totally buy. Honestly, had they used Angela having constant weight issues an an impediment to her not making show team, that would have made more sense to me. “Turning down appearances” never struck me as a real reason, but more of “let’s just come up with something for the show” reason.

If Angela had reason to believe that turning down appearances in the past would hurt her for show group auditions, then absolutely, she should've went to them. Im just not convinced that she did. In 13 seasons, I've never heard past attendance at appearances being mentioned as a factor for making show group at any other time, but it's certainly possible that it's been discussed internally. I've said before though...I have no reason to give Kelli and the rest of DCC management the benefit of the doubt on this type of personnel issue. Based on the show, they absolutely seem like the type who would decline to mention something to a girl in person and then use it in deliberations against her. Mileage certainly varies though, and others can their judge managerial abilities differently than I do.

Agreed with the bold. Being a group leader should require a higher standard of past behavior than making show group. If a lack of dedication (which basically seems to what is being implied) kept her off show group, then it should have kept her out of one of the top 4 leadership positions on the team. Now, if it wasn't a "she's just choosing to turn down appearances for no reason", but rather a job related or non-trivial personal issue, which kept her out of her performances in the past, then I'm back to the "why not just talk to her and see if something has changed that would allow her to be able to make all of the appearances now when she couldn't before" position. Just my two cents.

I'm not suggesting that being a group leader means that a girl should automatically be on show group. Theoretically, if a girl is good enough to be point of one of the 4 small groups, then she should be good enough to be on show group, but it's certainly possible that someone could be an amazing leader and not a top dancer (thus a group leader and not on show group) or could decide that she has enough time for group leader but not show group. However, you seem to be suggesting that Angela was some slacker who refused to pull her weight, was turning down appearances that she could have gone to with no excuse, and wasn't holding up her end of the contract. My point is that person - if that is an accurate description of Angela - has no business being a group leader. Same as above. If the implication is that Angela either had no reason to be missing appearances or that she did have a good reason but simply refused to communicate with K&J, why is she then made a second group leader and then a group leader. It's just not logical. That should be the last type of person (someone who isn't pulling her weight and can't communicate) as a group leader, which is supposedly the most prestigious position in DCC, along with Pro Bowl Cheerleader. I guess that's my issue. I don't recall all of this being said about Angela on the show (I just remember the comment from Shelly that Angela had turned some many appearances), but if it's as you say, I agree she shouldn't be on show group, but show group is the least of it. She shouldn't be a group leader or really, someone who gets brought back year after year, if she's only doing the bare minimum.

This is taken over from the discussion in the DCC Audition thread. I honestly don't see why Angela turning down some appearances in the past was a big deal. I think it basically rules out anyone who has a real job and can't run to every appearance at Costco from ever being on Show Group. The girls who are doing nothing but teaching zumba in their spare time (nothing against zumba, by the way) should be the ones to take more appearances - just like I don't have kids, so it makes sense that I go to more social events for work than the people who have young kids. Yet, those same people may well have time down the road and will want to get the face time with clients/etc, and it shouldn't be held against them that they didn't go to every banquet when they had a 2 year old at home - that's my opinion at least. Regardless Angela was group leader - So turning down appearances in the past doesn't hurt her for second group leader and group leader (which presumably is just as time consuming), but it's a dealbreaker for show group? That makes literally zero sense. Of course, this is the same crew who apparently thought Jenna not showing leadership should result in losing point but not in losing her group leader position (you know, the actual leadership position), so logic is not their strong suit. I honestly just don't see anything that says Angela was some absent cheerleader who only went on glamorous appearances and didn't put in the grunt work. If that was the case, she had no business being made a group leader. I will say that if it's clear that turning down voluntary appearances for whatever reason will hurt you down the road, then that's different. It's just seemed like a made up reason, as opposed to "she's not one of the 12 best," which from what I understood, is what show group is supposed to be.

Deleted...will move to Former DCCs thread.

If that was the concern, then it seems easy enough to ask her if she has the scheduling ability and the will to be on show team..... She was in her fifth year. If the communication channel wasn’t there to ask one of their most senior girls that, then something is wrong (with management, not her). As for the rest, i don’t recall anything being said on the show about her going on glamorous performances and not others, so i don’t know anything about that. This is the audition thread though, so I don’t want to derail it with talk of Angela lol.