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Lions, monkeys and silver medals, oh my!
RB's new drill team sees stars in Sun City
by Jason Dietrich
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The natives have a good laugh at Redondo Star coach Alicia Carr's strange get-up. Photos by Lisa Weisman. |
Traveling to the other side of the world, Redondo Beach's independent drill team represented the United States at an international competition in Sun City, South Africa, and took second in both the squad's events.
The Redondo Beach Stars placed third in the overall competition, ahead of teams from New Zealand and The United Kingdom.
"The girls looked really good, they looked like they were representing the United States. I don't know what happened, they really turned it on. They were on fire," said Alicia Carr, coach of the team, which returned to Redondo July 18.
The six-girl team finished behind a 30-girl team from South Africa and a 64-girl team from Australia.
"It made me feel really good to have represented my country so well, and that I had done something my country could be proud of," said Sophia Elhatem, a 19-year-old student at El Camino College.
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Redondo Beach Star Sarah Wingate cuddles a future king of the jungle at a lion park outside of Sun City, South Africa. |
The Stars were formed this spring by Carr, the former drill team instructor from Redondo Union High School who was replaced in January. Parents and students protested Carr's reassignment to another position in the school district.
Though drill team's roots are quintessentially American, its popularity has leaped-frogged over national borders. The Miss Drill Team International competition pits high school drill teams from the United States, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and South Africa against one another in pep arts.
Teams face off in events like baton, cheerleading, prop, flag, novelty and military drill. The contest is different from most high school drill team competitions, as it includes a solo event resembling a traditional beauty pageant with modeling and speech categories. Over 5,000 drill team members from all over the United States gather annually at the Long Beach Convention Center in March to take part in the Miss Drill Team USA competition.
Carr recruited a half-dozen of her former drill team members to attend the international competition. They were joined by Marcia Moreno, this year's Miss Drill Team USA champion. The competition was held in Sun City's Superbowl in front of up to 5,000 spectators. The girls arrived several days before the event, while the South African national competition was still going on. Stopping by the arena early to check out the competition, the U.S. team was amazed at the warm welcome they got from the South African fans.
'Like prom queens'
"When they first walked into the arena, they announced it over the loudspeakers. Everyone started cheering. The girls were waving like prom queens. We felt like movie stars," Carr said.
"They were asking our coach for her autograph. Whenever we went into a room, everyone would start chanting 'USA'," said Elhatem
In the competition, the bare-bones U.S. team competed in two categories, prop and flag. For their prop routines they used Hoberman Spheres, a neon-colored child's toy that expands from a 9.5-inch spiky ball to a 30-inch lattice globe. The South African team used ladders as their prop to get a leg up on the Redondo Stars and ended up outscoring them. The South African team also came out ahead in the flag routine.
"Our scores were really close. But it's overpowering when you have more girls on the floor. They really looked like they knew what they were doing," said Carr.
The U.S team was happy to have been able to place third overall, behind much bigger teams that competed in more events, said Carr.
"We're just happy to have done as well as we did," said Redondo Union Senior Sarah Wingate. "We were so scared before we went on, watching the other teams. You never really get a chance to see yourself perform, so it was kind of intimidating to see how good some of the other teams were."
What surprised the girls most about the competition were the different styles that each country brought to the field.
"Each team has their own way of dancing," said Elhatem. Our flag technique has a little more difficulty, we do more tosses, they do more angles and movement."
Animal magnetism
After traveling halfway across the world, the team wasn't about to go home without doing a little sightseeing. Sun City itself is a tourist destination similar to Las Vegas with its large themed hotels and legalized gambling.
They team also took a couple safari tours, seeing lions, elephants, antelope-like kudzu, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses. Sometimes the animals got a little too close for comfort.
Their second closest encounter with the area's flora and fauna was on a walking tour when the group was chased off by a monkey. The drill team members and their chaperones were taking pictures of a group of cat-sized monkeys who were minding their own business in a tree off of the main trail. A few of the girls were mimicking the noises the primates were making to each other. One of them must have said something offensive in monkey, because an aggressive member of the troop dropped to the ground and started after the group of a dozen Homo sapiens. The humans turned tail and ran back to the safety of the road, leaving the monkeys chattering in the bush.
But the most intense experience with South Africa's wildlife was at a lion park outside of Sun City where the girls met the top of the savanna food chain face to face. They got to hold a few of the cubs and play with some of the juvenile lions that were on their dinner break.
"We got to go in the cages with some of the younger lions. They were gnawing on this big cow's leg. You could definitely tell they were going to be lions pretty soon," said Wingate.
"You could touch them on the back or the tail while they were eating," said Carr. "But one girl touched them too close to the head and it turned and snapped at her. She ran out of the cage."
The team also stopped in a native village that made some extra money catering to tourists. There they got to try some of the local delicacies, including warthog, ostrich, kudzu, and crocodile meat.
"We kind of got nauseous from the Ostrich. The crocodile was definitely the best, maybe it was the way it was cooked," said Carr. "It tasted like chicken." ER