Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

 

For the second year in a row, the Newtown High School cheerleading squad competed at the National High School championships but – alas – for the second year in a row failed to make it out of the qualifying round.

The Lady Nighthawks competed in Large School, Group A, against teams like Hatboro-Horsham, Ouachita Parish, Houston High, Alamo Heights, Thunder Ridge, St. Catherine Academy, Havorford High, Penncrest, Stephen F. Austin … and Masuk High School of Monroe.

But going to the Nationals is still a nice reward for a team that has worked so hard for the past five or six months and a nice bonus for a team that got – well – cheated at the South-West Conference championships.

Hey, it’s not just my opinion. Others are of the same mind.

Now, I admit that I don’t understand the judging in a cheerleading competition. I don’t understand how a technical fault with too-large signs or music than runs a few seconds too long can be more damaging than a fall during stunt, but apparently that is the case.

What I can judge, for myself, is whether or not a routine is crisp and clean with a moderate level of difficulty and the Lady Nighthawks performed spectacularly well at the SWCs … so well that I had Pomperaug, Newtown and Lauralton Hall as the top three squads in my book.

But Bunnell, whose routine, I thought, was not nearly as good as those three schools and not nearly as fall-free, came in first and Newtown – HAMMERED because of some problem with their signs – finished fifth. And, apparently, even if their signs were perfect they still would not have finished any higher.

That’s just wrong. I mean, how complex does judging have to be? What kind of stuff, what kind of minutiae, are they scoring for crying out loud?

Now, I can go to any swim meet and score diving just as well as any official on the deck. I could never, even with a gun to my head, tell you the dive that was announced was the dive that was performed or that the dive was performed correctly, but I sure can tell you if it’s a 4, 4.5, 5 or 5.5 dive. The only time I’m even a point off – usually on the low side – is when I think the officials are being too generous.

And just like that, I felt the Newtown High cheerleaders performed a great routine at the SWCs, a routine worthy of at least a third-place finish … if not second or first. But fifth? Jeepers, I give up.

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I find it amusing that many of the writers and on-air talking heads skewering Wayne Gretzky for his second-hand involvement in a betting scandal involving his wife and his assistant coach with the Phoenix Coyotes have, probably on more than one occasion, placed an illegal wager of their own. Remember, people in glass houses …

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What a way to start the 2006 Winter Olympics – with the biathlon!

For those who don’t know what the biathlon is, it is a marriage between two of the most electrifying sports ever … cross country skiing and target shooting. Wow. Of course, I am being just a little bit sarcastic here.

Cross country skiing and target shooting seem unspeakably boring to me. Difficult, no question. Boring, absolutely.

I understand that the biathlon has a history dating as far back as 5,000 years, to the Neolithic age, when Norwegian hunters used bow and arrows while moving on sliding timber. Ancient Romans, Greeks and Chinese have written descriptions of hunting on skis dating back to 400 B.C.

Historical descriptions of warriors on skis also date back to before the time Christ and include writings from Xenophon, Strabol, Arrian, Teophanes, Prokopius, and Acruni. Traditional military patrol races came into being in the Middle Ages as skiing regiments were active in Scandinavia and Russia in the 16th century. By the end of the 19th century, Germany, Austria and Switzerland also had soldiers on skis.

In general, a biathlete is required to ski with his or her rifle over a set distance to a shooting range, where he or she takes up a prone position and takes five shots at targets 50 meters away. Missed shots are not good. The racer then skis another circuit and returns to the range for another set of shots … this time while standing.

But does all that make it a sport?

Michael Ventre of the Los Angeles Daily News once wrote, “I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun, and then you continue on. In most of the world, it is known as the biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter.”