Spirit!

Gab:

Albuquerque, New Mexico, born as a rest stop along Route 66, the Mother Road, is a city still growing. Not as sanitized as Santa Fe, not as small as Flagstaff, not as homogenous as Tucson or Phoenix, Albuquerque felt alive last Saturday night, just ripe for exploration.

You know we like to explore. Baseball parks, football stadiums, basketball arenas – if the gates are unlocked, we are going in. Albuquerque makes it easy by placing Isotopes Park, the University of New Mexico Stadium and the University Arena a.k.a. The Pit all in one block, one block away from our hotel.

The lights were still on at Isotopes Park. Workers were cleaning up from an Arizona Diamondbacks exhibition game. We snapped a few photos and ran across the street to see the Stadium. Nice enough, a little plain. What we really wanted was to get a glimpse of the famous Pit, supposedly one of the loudest, most intimate and most intimidating (to visiting teams) basketball arenas in college sports.

Wait a minute. The Pit’s parking lot was full. People were streaming in, rushing in really. Security was posted at every door. What is going on? Michael and I quizzically looked at each other and mentally scanned through the possibilities. NCAA Tournament? Over. Gymnastics? Maybe. Wrestling? Could be. If we were curious before, we were driven now. Inquiring minds want to know!

The closest security guard filled us in. It was the final hours of the New Mexico High School Spirit Competition. If we wanted to see The Pit, he suggested that we come back in an hour or so once the crowd cleared and the event was over.

No way! What’s the fun in that? A parking lot full of people are clearly excited about something. Just what is a “Spirit Competition”? Peeking through the doors showed us throngs of costumed girls all abuzz, glitter and hairspray everywhere. Girls of every shape and size were running in groups hugging each other, saying “great job! You were great!” or getting consoled by boyfriends or just milling about looking too cool for school, talking trash about the other girls. We want in.

$6 got us entrance to The statewide competition for cheerleading and dance squads from every high school in the state. Only two hours left, but the dance squads were just beginning to compete. I love dance squads. As much as we wanted to stay in the hallway, we knew the real action was inside.

Oh yes. This is exactly where we want to be. Dancing AND a competition AND a perfect seat to observe the fascinating social behavior of post-adolescents, the $6 tickets suddenly seemed like a steal. Black, White, Hispanic, Navajo – the only colors that mattered tonight were the ones on their uniforms.

Let’s talk about the uniforms, shall we?

Cheerleading uniforms rarely digress from the standard sweater, skirt and sneakers. Dance squads, however, are a different story.

Costumes ranged from silvery or green or black full body, skintight cat suits (that were not kind) to dominatrix-meets-J. Lo combinations. Some high schools flaunted their well-funded program with matching hair extensions and fitted blouses while others looked like they ran to Wal-Mart to buy 10 pairs of identical yoga pants at the last minute. Two of the teams had the SAME costume (gasp).

Our tickets were for the bleachers. Rowdy groups from Del Norte, El Dorado, Roswell, Artesia, Gallup and Albuquerque were barely contained in the reserve seats. “Frothing at the mouth” was how Michael described them. Huge clusters of school colors erupted with applause, clapping thunder sticks and yelling to welcome each new performing group. And those were the parents!

The routine went like this: The emcee would announce the high school; the team would march out and take their positions on the basketball court while the next two teams would file into the wings. The faculty coordinator/responsible adult would crouch (as if we couldn’t see them) and run along the sidelines, taking their place at center court. For some reason, they always carried a dated boom box with them. The music medley would start; the girls (and occasional male member) would do their thing.

The first two squads were relatively tame. Dressed primarily in black, they swayed in sync to the music with an occasional risqué move borrowed from the latest music video. The next group strutted out in silver tops and matching bandanas and baseball caps. I liked the look of them. They danced to a hip hop mix and their attitudes were even bigger than their smiles.

Only 8 girls represented Gallup, a town we had just left. Their tough faux leather caps and vests contrasted sharply with their cute smiles and small frames. Adorable biker girls? Was that the look they were going for? When the music started, they showed they were not to be taken lightly. They were my favorites to win.

After a few more smaller groups performed, the large schools moved in. Now 20 to 40 girls covered the court. Los Lunas HS nearly blinded us with their silver cat suits, especially when several of their members started doing the dolphin across the floor. Albuquerque’s 12-person team featured a gyrating, salsa-dancing male member. They were, of course, a crowd favorite.

Our eyes just couldn’t keep up with everything going on around us. We kept passing the binoculars and camera back and forth as the techno music and flurries of arms swirled around us.

Del Norte, outfitted in a bizarre bright blue Swiss Miss get up, prided themselves in their precision military marching moves. El Dorado’s high kicks would have put the Rockettes on notice. These two schools definitely had the largest parent contingent present. We are guessing they also had the largest budgets. We were fans of neither.

Routines ranged from so-so to spectacular. Music selections spanned decades. One poor squad was cursed with a dated Janet Jackson mega mix. Others were unafraid to shake their stuff to the latest hip hop and dance hits.

Did those moms really cheer wildly as their little girls made their butts move at incredible speeds?

Once all of the groups had performed, we though we might have some time to check out the hallways. Not a chance. To entertain the crowd while the scores were tallied, Albuquerque’s own UNM all-girl and co-ed cheerleading squads, the UNM dance squad and Lobo Lucy strutted their stuff. Co-eds were flipped and spun three stories high while the competition’s contestants were reminded that UNM cheerleading tryouts were in just a few weeks. You, too, could be a Lobo!

Over two hours had passed. Michael and I still had not left our bleacher seats, sticky with two days worth of soda and snacks. The parents around us looked exhausted. Most had been here for the entire weekend. Cheering, consoling, primping, and trying to gauge their own child’s chances against the rest. Del Norte’s parents were the only ones that seemed confident that their squad would take home first place. We’ll see about that.

Soon the judges were ready. All the squads were invited down to the court to hear the final verdicts. The speakers played the standard pump-up-the-crowd mix as hundreds of girls danced down the bleachers and on to the floor. They clustered by school and formed small circles, holding hands, eyes closed, fingers crossed or praying as their divisions were announced.

And now, the winners…Some were totally ticked when they were called for second or third place. They could barely hide their displeasure. Others, like Gallup, were so stunned they won they couldn’t stand still for the obligatory photo. When Albuquerque got third place, there was an audible gasp from the stands, including Michael.

In just a few hours we had turned from bemused bystanders to invested participants, hoping and wishing for our favorites to win. I was so happy for Gallup whose name has been in the papers for some nasty crimes over Easter weekend to have some good news to take home. Michael was shocked that Albuquerque got robbed. We both took some mean-spirited pleasure in the fact that Del Norte went home empty handed.

And just like that it was over. The winners were asked to stay behind for press photos; the parents congratulated each other and started back to their minivans or into the hallways to find their children. We reminded ourselves to have a look at the Pit, you know, the reason we came in in the first place.

Even with half of the seats blocked off, the Pit was impressively loud. The bleachers spread down to the court – no barrier between the fans and the players. To sit in the upper deck would require some confidence in your depth perception. Seats are at a steep angle and the ceiling isn’t far above you. The roof is flat which concentrates the noise and the excitement; there is no place for it to go but to circulate. Michael reminded me that the NCAA Basketball Finals were held here 1983. That must have been electric.

But then again, what could be more exciting than the Spirit Competition? In one evening we had a retrospective of all of the New Mexico towns and cities we had already driven through and got a preview of what lies ahead. How appropriate that they all converged in Albuquerque, rest stop on the Mother Road, a city ripe for exploration.