Twirling advice?
 

One of my younger daughters says she might want to twirl instead of cheer. That's okay but we don't know much about twirling.

Are there any twirlers out there? Is it true that there are lots of scholarships for good ones? I seem to recall they got them at the universities I went to.

One of my first cheering coaches was a twirler . . she implied there were scholarships and stuf available but short of a net search i don't really know.

Designing Women
 

Carnation, I have no "advice," but your question did remind me of my favorite episode of Designing Women !

The Beauty Contest
JULIA: Excuse me, aren't you Marjorie Leigh Winnick, the current Miss Georgia World?
MARJORIE: Why, yes I am.
JULIA: I'm Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker's sister. I couldn't help over hearing part of your conversation.
MARJORIE: Well, I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was here.
JULIA: Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie --- just so you will know --- and your children will someday know --- is the night the lights went out in Georgia!

twirling
 

There are scholarships for twirlers of varying levels. I was the feature twirler at Vanderbilt for 4 years. PM-me if I can help. :)
Silver

We have 5 major twilers in the band. One of them competes nationally. She recently has been to Vegas, DC, LA, Austin, TX competing for titles and scholarship, and awards!

I was a twirler in high school, but got "Tanya Harding-ed" at the State Championship. :( Thus ended any chances I had for scholarships, etc...

It's a wonderful form of discipline, though. I only cheered 1 year in junior high, so I really don't have much to compare the two.

As was a former Miss Iowa. She was the twirler for the Iowa State Marching Band for 5 years and was very accomplished despite being born with a birth defect that left her without a hand (right or left, I don't remember). She was also a proud and active member of Delta Delta Delta and I'm fairly certain had many scholarships. Good Luck!

I twirled for a little while. I still have my baton. The bruises it gave me have healed fortunately. It was fun. :)

I took some twirling classes over the summer when I was in grade school. It was fun. Didn't ever do it at any other level.

And for the record, that is THE BEST designing women episode ever.

Re: Designing Women
 

I just get chills when I read these wonderful Designing Women quotes!! Is there a particular website for the better ones (such as this one)?

I twirled when I lived in Omaha and I'm kind of sad that I quit because I had a lot of fun with it.

I know the University of Nebraska offers scholarships to twirlers, but you have to be a twirler in high school for them to offer you the scholarship. Most of the larger universities offer the scholarships as well, pretty much anywhere that has a marching band would probably be negotiable even if they don't already have a twirler.

I was a majorette also! I started when I was 8 and twirled up until I was 15. My high school didn't really have majorettes in the band and I was way past the rec level that I was participating in. So I stopped twirling and continued on with my cheerleading. (I did both during the same time periods.)

I don't know much about scholarships, but I just wanted to respond to the thread to wish your daughter good luck. I had lots of fun and went to lots of competitions around the USA. I still have all my batons, knives, flags...and whatever else we twirled! And I still have all my awards displayed in my old room at my parent's house! :D

NutBrnHair I'm with honeychile. Wasn't that one great show! I remember the episode you quoted.

Carnation, I'm not in the know, but I thought they had scholarships too.

How about a real sport?

-Rudey

My babysitter was a twirler, and I did it for quite a while, but got sick of it and quit to focus on my pitching. She got a scholarship to a Big 10 school for it, as I recall.

Now Rudey, you know that a real sport just isn't CUTE enough. :p

How about an academic scholarship? If for some reason you get injured in a tragic twirling accident, the scholarship is *poof* gone. :(

Carnation, I twirled just for the fun of it when I was in 4th - 6th grades. Now you know I am not making light of twirling, but check out:

www.texastwirler.com

all about the girl who was UT's feature twirler for 8(!!!) years!! Yeah, she has her own web page, fan club, etc.
BTW, she's an Alpha Chi Omega.

Oooh, thanks for all the links y'all have posted...I'm about to go check them out. :)

We hope she will have an academic scholarship, of course--she usually makes straight As--and both being teachers, Mr. C and I stress scholarship strongly. However, we have found that unless you have over a 1300 on the SAT, the big state universities around here aren't gonna offer you much except loans. Therefore, we're trying to give our children every scholastic advantage--such as teaching them how to study, how to take tests, etc.--but also make them desirable to colleges in some other way. So far, it's worked with the first 3.

However--most of our daughters are tiny and probably have little hope of getting "typical sports" scholarships. That's why we're focusing on areas like twirling, dancing, and cheering.

Thank you again!

Re: Designing Women
 

YOU ROCK! i love Designing women and i loved that episode. I can even hear julia saying those words in her julia way!:D

Carnation,
On a random note, UCLA's twirler, who just graduated with me, was a Pi Phi.

She was AMAZING and yes, I believe that she did have a scholarship or some financial assistance.

Partial Hijack:

Hey Carnation,

It is a little known fact that the University of Oklahoma at Norman highly recuits National Merit Scholars (including finalists), and is often number one in the country in National and Hispanic Merit Scholars and Rhodes Scholars. (Yes, I found that hard to believe, too) There were 192 National Scholars in our son's Freshman class.

If your daughter (I assume) gets to finalist, and chooses O.U. as number one on her college list (this is NOT a committment), they generally offer at least $55,000 in stipends and fee waivers. Included is a FULL out of state tuition waiver good for five years, and a $1000 waiver on basic tuition. That is nearly a full academic ride there. Students can also get other scholarships (from O.U. or other sources) and they do NOT affect the $55K number -- in other words they aren't subtracted from the base scholarship. In theory, he actuallyl made money his first semester.

In reality, when including incidental expences, he is now at about $65K in scholarships, and it cost us about $500 out of pocket for his Freshman year. It will be slightly higher this year because of increases in basic tuition and fees -- and the fact that he took higher than a full load of credit hours -- although they also gave him another scholarship to offset them somewhat.

If you would like, I can give you a contact at their National Scholars Office.

We now return you to the "Twirling" thread, already in progress.

Wow! I was a NM finalist, and I didn't get jack from my school.

I should have gone to OU!

Why not colorguard? It's more of a team based form of pageantry. From my years of being in the marching arts it seems twirling is more of an individual activity. With guard it's focused on both team and individual effort.

Where's AngelPhiSig? She can give more info about guard.

Son had already been accepted at his top four choices, including three "highly selective" schools.

We nearly threw away the offer without opening it, because it came in a standard letter head type envelope.

We had been throwing away everything he got (tons, as I'm sure you know) from other than those four -- but for some reason Mrs. DeltAlum pulled the envelope out of the waste basket and opened it.

Thank goodness for that.

And they want to twirl?

-Rudey
--Otherwise you're pushing them into something for money really...

I was an NM Finalist too, and I got jack shee-it. I didn't really expect anything. For me, it was just another thing to slap on the old resume. I don't even think my college would have offered me anything.

I thought Georgia had a merit scholarship for all students who did over a certain score on the tests. Florida has one, and it's full-tuition (I obviously didn't take it), and there are always local scholarships that can make up for the dormitories, etc.

One of my good friends has a little sister who just started college (guess she's not so little anymore!). They realized that they would pay less out-of-pocket, and she would be saddled with fewer (or no) loans if she went to a small liberal arts private school instead of a big state school. The state school may be cheaper, but the private school usually has more money to give.