Leaving it on the floor

'Smile like you mean it, sell your routine to the crowd and leave it all on the floor.”

- Julie Rastetter, Head Coach of the Clayton Ridge Drill Team

By Noelle Hines, Clayton Ridge junior

GUTTENBERG - It is in the drill team tradition to prepare for months on end, giving 110 percent and not quit until it comes away with a Division 1 plaque and a high-ranking trophy.

Clayton Ridge is a small school, therefore it competes in the small-school division and ultimately shares dancers with several other sports, including volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, cross country and softball throughout the beginning and right through the state competition.

Often these girls learn the routines at different times and will come to practice (if they are able to come at all) knowing only half, if any, of the routine they will do competition.

Tryouts were held at the end of October to determine who would be taking the floor only a month later. At the time their military routine was not finished and the prop routine had only been started. Despite that, a team was selected and moved forward to write, rewrite and clean their competition pieces.

The team trained for two months, struggling to get every girl together. Three practices a week with only half the team present proved to be quite difficult and this was by far one of the team's hardest and most demanding years. Spread thin, and working hard, the last official practice took place on Dec. 3, at 6:30 a.m. After a complete week of two-a-day practices, the team boarded a school bus and left for the largest state dance competition in the United States.

The competition took place on Dec. 4. The teams routines consisted of a Navy Seal prop, complete with large anchors that could be rocked and small anchors that could be handled. A back drop stating 'USS Clayton Ridge” grabbed the audience's attention, and the girls finished their routine with 'we want you as a new recruit!”

The military routine was a visual, country-themed routine done to a techno version of Cotten Eyed Joe.

'It's an oldie, but a goody,” Coach Julie Rastetter said.

It certainly is.

The day started later than usual with prop competition scheduled for 3:40 p.m. and military, the third to last routine of the night, at 8:45. The crowds were exceeding 2,000 for prop and 6,000 for military, but the team never faltered.

'We are trained professionals, if we are scared we won't show it,” Rastetter said. 'We can break down, only after we've taken home our trophies.”

The award ceremonies drag on, but only because of the anticipation of what is coming.

'We go in confident, not cocky,” Rastetter said. 'We don't expect to win, or to even place, we just want to do our best. Wether our best is enough, is up to the judges.”

After putting their all into the routines, the day has come to a close. The CRDT left the Iowa State Dance/Drill Team Competition with two Division 1 ratings, an excellence in academics and a first-place trophy in small school prop.

No doubt these girls are extremely proud of themselves - and have every right to be. They truly left it all on the floor.