OK, now I know that you are seriously mistaken. We had two black athletes on Wildcats at Worlds, TJ and Kareem. They were born on 4/9/89 and 5/20/89. (In order to be over the legal age limit, you had to be born before 8/31/87.) Not only were both within the legal age limit, they both have AT LEAST A WHOLE OTHER YEAR of eligibility and are on the team again. In 2006-07, one will be a senior in HS and one will be a junior. If you are going to make up something about an athlete, you might not want to pick out two of the youngest guys on the team.

I don't get how defending our gym against slander is "flattering ourselves." If you are going to anonymously make stuff up and trash our athletes and our teams, then I feel justified in pointing out your outright lies.

Jody Melton, CEO
Cheer Athletics, Inc.

should have been. . . wrote:

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cheer athletics should have been banned from the first incident. and i do believe they cheated at worlds cuz they know they could get away with it. usasf totally looking the other way AGAIN!!

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The first "incident" was NOT at worlds, so USASF had no jurisdiction in the matter. They actually commended the way that we handled the ACA situation. If we were going to try to "get away" with anything, we would not have turned ourselves in the first time and not given back the $25,000 bid. Before we declined the bid, USASF officials even told us that there was NOTHING in their rules or guidelines that would have prevented us from using the ACA bid if we chose. However, we didn't feel that that would be the right way to handle the situation, so we voluntarily declined that bid. (Which then went to Texas Lonestar.) We later got a paid bid at Mardi Gras Nationals.

I assure you that both the USASF and CA scrutinized the Wildcats' roster and everyone's eligibility more than any other team at Worlds because we knew that that team in particular would be under the microscope.

Well with every huge gym there is an enourmous amount of jelous people. These jelous people like spreading rumors to put down other gyms. You see it all the time on these boards. Unless you have hard evidence don't come on here saying ya well they cheated and what not.

It has come to my attention that someone in California named Jerry Keegan is passing himself off as a former Cheer Athletics athlete. He is claiming that he was on CA Wildcats at 2006 Worlds. I have never previously heard of this individual and he certainly has never been on any Cheer Athletics team. He has claimed that we "snuck" him in just to be on the floor and then "snuck" him off hoping that no one would see.

The person that he is claiming to be is actually Kareem Albritton. He will be a senior at Northwest HS in Justin, Texas. You can view pictures from Worlds at UniversalEventPhoto.com. You can also see Kareem on the video at Worlds.

Well, if he's going to lie about being on a team, it might as well be yours! Everyone would love to be a part of your wonderful orginization!! Is there a spot for me? I am 38 years old and I can do a forward roll. Can you "sneak" me in somewhere????

Have you noticed that he hasn't posted anything in a while????

I have spoken to Jerry. He states that he has never said that he was on a CA team. In fact, he said, he was trying out for Trinity Valley CC (Texas) the very day of Worlds, so there is no way that he possibly could have been in Orlando. If there is someone else making this claim, please let me know so that we can resolve this issue.

For the sake of our athletes, we simply want to resolve this ASAP. We all know how quickly rumors get started in this business, lets see if we can make one stop just as quickly.

I"Thou doest protest too much", Hmmm.

Last thread...then Danny, please close this topic.

Let me first start by saying this thread was NOT originated by our gym. After reading it this morning, I contacted Jody Melton with all the information that I could give him. My purpose in posting this is to clear any untruths about Cheer Athletics cheating at Worlds.

Jerry Keegan (age 20) is from Southern California. He has floated around a few Allstar gyms, including ours. He most recently attended tryouts for one of our teams. Jerry told one of our coaches that he was a member of the World Champion Cheer Athletics Wildcats. Knowing that he was too old, Jerry followed with an elaborate story of how Cheer Athletics "snuck him in" to the competition for warm-ups, and then was taken back to the hotel immediately following the performance on Sunday. He finished by saying that he was not allowed to tell anyone until after Worlds aired on ESPN.

Upon hearing this story, I watched two different videos of the Wildcats, and saw a strong resemblance. I also pulled Jerry's tryout form, which showed his date of birth (June 24, 1986), obviously too old to compete on a Senior team at 2006 Worlds. Could this really be true? Since the story came out, Jerry has not been to our gym, so I was never able to ask him in person. My husband and I sat on this information, not quite sure where to go with it....until today.

Apparantly Jerry has shared this story with other people, as it has now appeared on this board. Upon reading this thread, I e-mailed Jody. Brad Habermel immediately contacted us, where we exchanged information regarding Jerry. We faxed him Jerry's tryout form and after a few phone calls and e-mails, Jerry was located this evening (back in Texas), where he denied ever competing with Cheer Athletics. After my last phone call with Brad, Jerry called me and personally stated that he had never competed with the Wildcats. When asked how the rumor got started, he admitted that he lied about it and in short, blamed it on alcohol.

After exchanging a couple close-up photos with Jody today, I was able to clearly see that this was not Jerry on the Wildcats team. They (Jerry and Kareem) are similar in resemblance and stature, and could easily be mistaken on home videos.

I commend Jody and Brad for their immediate diligence to this matter today. They remained professional throughout it, which just shows why their program is something that we all look up to. Its not easy sitting at the top. As Brad told me on the phone today, the more successful you become, the more people claim to be a part of it.

I hope this clears up any stories you may have heard. It just goes to show you that you should always go to the source and never take the "rumor mill" as fact.

To the entire Cheer Athletics program, please accept my personal wishes of good luck this season (and not just because one of my kids moved to your program, Lauren we miss you!). And to Kareem, think of this as a compliment. I look forward to shaking your hand and laughing at how ridiculous this is.

Sincerely,
Becky Herrera
Owner, CheerForce