Double Jeopardy-Alive and Kicking on the PVHS Cheer Team

Here's the skinny:
There was a cheer clinic scheduled.
Each of the girls on the squad were given tickets to sell.
They had 10 days to sell 10 tickets.
Or get 4 demerits.

If you get 21 demerits between May and Feb, you are off the team.
Late to practice or game =2. Miss a game assignment=4.
Not wearing the right bow or hair-do=?          (We don't need to worry about this one.) etc.

Koby forgot about one game, slipped his mind. (They cheer for volleyball which has two games a week, JV football, and Varsity football.)
Kyson couldn't find his uniform one day, and made Koby late to the game.
Koby got 2, and Kyson got 4 that day.
Somehow they are adding up quickly.

We found out late on day 5 of the ticket sale that my boys were supposed to be selling tickets also.
They got their tickets on DAY 6!

Here's my beef.
1.  My boys and MW are in the same ward.
All 3 are competing for the same 15ish girls that they know of to sell 30 tickets to.
2.  Only girls are invited to come to this clinic, so my boys are at an automatic disadvantage since they don't keep tabs on who/where all the little girls are.
(ALL the cheer leaders agree that it seems a little creepyish for them to have to go find little girls to sell tickets to.) Not to mention the fact that MW has probably babysat all the girls in our ward, knows them well and, they would do it cause they like her.
3. My boys have 4 days to sell them, not 10.
4. My boys only know of the same girls, and don't want to go door-to-door, nor do they have time.
We called many on the phone. Koby rode his bike a mile away to try to sell them. Everyone was too busy.
5.  The team was promised that they would get demerits if they didn't get all 10 sold.
We decided that the demerits would be worth it to not have to worry about it anymore, since we weren't even getting close.
The task seemed impossible, and all the girls were complaining everyday that it was impossible.
Only 6 of the 22 cheerleaders got all 10 sold. (There were still 200 girls at the clinic.)2

When the cheer team showed up on judgement day, the demerits were handed out.
Then, somehow, the punishment changed.
6.  Now, it was going to be that the non-10 sellers were now going to be punished by having to cheer at the volleyball games on Tue. and Thurs.
And the sellers, had those days off.

How do you like that, volleyball players?
The cheer team cheers for you, because it is their punishment!

Well, certain boys on the cheer team have COLLEGE classes.
with REAL college professors.
Okay, both of them do.
The Senior has 16 college credits!!
And he has to go to 4 hours of high school on top of that.
And 2 hours of cheer "practice"1 every morning.
Not gonna mention that there is also 2 hours of swim team practice at 5 am every morning.
He has his college professors dictating his life pretty much.
He has tests scheduled that HAVE to be taken by a certain day.
He has to take this test on Tuesday night.
Oh, wait, he has to CHEER? on Tues. night in Hurricane (an hour of drive time) as his punishment.
7.  With only a day's notice!
Wait, his punishment was the 4 demerits that he had agreed to previously.

So, my boy being the smart boy that I raised him to be :), decided that he didn't want to get a 0 on the college test, so he had to miss the game.
I had called the coach and told him there was no way Kyson could make it, and it was ridiculous for him to expect him to miss the test to go, and that Kyson shouldn't be getting punished for missing the game for a COLLEGE test he already had scheduled.
Kyson didn't have time to call them, so I called every cheerleader that wasn't "punished" to see if someone would "take his place," since this would get him off the hook for getting demerits for missing the game. Four couldn't cover, and 2 wouldn't cover.
8.  I told the coach that potentially, Kyson could get 12 demerits for missing that one ridiculously unfair assignment if, by chance, he couldn't go to the game on Thurs.
9.  The coach didn't see it that way.
He said he'd talk to the cheer advisor and Kyson in the morning about it.
That didn't happen.
He just simply told Kyson that he got 4 more demerits for missing the game.
10.  Key word there being MORE. He had already been punished for the non-sell.

Here is where I throw in the definition of double jeopardy:

The defendant may not be punished twice for the same offense. In certain circumstances, however, a sentence may be increased. It has been held that sentences do not have the same "finality" as acquittals, and may therefore be reviewed by the courts. Sentence increases may not, however, be made once the defendant has already begun serving his term of imprisonment.

(The sentence in this case was added to after they got their demerits.
My boys both think that the girls who sold the 10, got to decide the harsher punishment of the added two volleyball games after the promised punishment of demerits had been given out!)
Kyson never even had a chance.
He already had this college test scheduled.

The 5th Amendment: just in case you had forgotten.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.


1 Practice is in quotes, because it isn't what you would think of as a practice. My boys explain it as a lot of talk, talk, and more talk, about the same issues over and over. Drama. Drama. and more Drama. Mind you, the cheer coach is MALE. Shouldn't be drama, right? According to both of my boys, he creates 80% of it.
And, he is constantly telling the team that they suck.

2.  The clinic had no adult supervision.
Several of the moms were mad, mad, mad to see their $25 had bought them Duck, Duck, Goose games. They taught them the dance for Friday's half time and for the breaks, they would play DDG games.
They didn't even spend more than 10 minutes teaching them cheers.

In case you are wondering, Kyson thinks he is up to 18 demerits now. Three more and he is OFF THE TEAM!!! All because he was expected to sell to little girls in less than half as much time as the rest of the girls who couldn't even do it.

Can you imagine him not on the team? He is the ONLY reason to watch them. He is in on EVERY good stunt performed. He is one of only 3 on the team that can tumble decently. The crowd LOVES him. The crowd responds better because of his constant "LOUDER" and "YELL IT" through the megaphone. The parade crowds only respond to our cheerleaders after he does his 10 back handspring-in-a-row passes down the road. Everyone on the team loves him to pieces!

In case you are wondering, if Kyson is kicked off, I will be pulling Koby off the team, too!
He can't tumble anyway, because of his injured elbow, and I will be in no mood to support the cheer team at all anymore.

PS. The coach couldn't make it to the game in Hurricane, cause his dog had surgery, and it couldn't be alone, so he called me to go act as the supervisor. You would have been appalled to see the girls as they showed up. They all looked like they were there as a punishment. Some of them even barely went through the motions for the cheers. They booed silently to each other when our team would score, because it meant that they had to stay longer. Four girls were late, 3 by 7 minutes and 1 was 40 minutes late. The cheer girl in charge told coach everyone was good.

PSS One of the girls on the team is there only cause my boys are there.
She would quit if they weren't.
She is one of them that wouldn't sub for him the other night.
Oh, the irony that if he gets kicked off, it would be partly just because she wanted to go to YW.
And then he won't be even be there for her anymore.