Team Feature: Sandburg

Whether it’s halftime or state trophy time, the Sandburg Eaglettes bring tons of energy to the big stage.

 

by Norm Ramil, 8 Count Audio chief.music.officer & dance.fan

Some of you English teachers might disagree with me on this, but I’d say that the two biggest names in Illinois literature are Hemingway and Sandburg. Those dudes worked words like dancers work calypso turn. But Hemingway had a minimalist style. If he were a dancer, he would’ve been extra bad at lyrical. Sandburg, though, was a poet, and so it’s kind of fitting that the high school named after him has a successful dance team. And isn’t a dance routine a lot like putting poetry in motion?

Varsity Coaches Heidi Sims and Jill Roberson split the job of running practices depending on the day of the week during football season. It’s a busy time of the year for Sandburg, since football games have a collegiate atmosphere here. Coach Roberson’s got the team today—a sunny, humid September afternoon that feels way more like summer than football season. We head into their dance room, loud and buzzing with the energy of both varsity and JV.

Practice starts with a “Hey!” from me, and then both teams take up the task of running laps outside in the July-like weather, something they’re used to doing as a team (they’ve completed a 5K together). Coach Roberson, along with just-arrived JV Coach Angela Kenney (who drove over from her day position at Andrew High School), point out all the quirks of the dance room. It’s a place not built originally for dance but converted into something usable. Besides the front wall mirror and sound system, the back wall is not only at an angle but has a weird nook in the corner, perfect for stashing all of varsity’s and JV’s bags, shoes, and poms. Then there’s the huge pole in the middle of the room that does a great job of holding up the ceiling and a bad job of making formations easy.

The Eaglettes come back from outside and start an organized warm-up led by their captains, Toni and Emily . The speakers release an eclectic music mix out into the oddly-shaped dance room: there’s ’80s Chicago house music legend Marshall Jefferson’s “Move Your Body,” some country by Brad Paisley, and some chill EDM by Kygo. Warmups and stretches end about an hour after practice starts, something that’s not uncommon but that always amazes me. Next up are some tech drills, one of which has the girls prep a turn but then hold in passe, seeing who can go the longest. Then the JV and Varsity Eaglettes run through their “combo dance” as one big group.

On a varsity team of 16, having just a pair of seniors sounds like a disadvantage. But with almost half of the team returning from last year’s roster, and with six juniors and seven sophomores, you can be sure that this team knows how to handle the emotions that come after the announcer says, “the floor is yours for competition.” And these dancers have three coaches and a student teacher to lean on, a staff loaded with experience (more on that later).

At this point of practice, Coach Heidi Sims has arrived on the scene and the dancers now have four sets of eyes on them (Sims, Roberson, Kenney, and student teacher Hannah). The huge combined team makes for a crowded dance space, so alignments and formations get tricky. JV Coach Kenney reminds her girls, “If you feel you don’t have room to turn or toe-touch then just jump as high as possible,” a good way to stick with a full-out mindset. “There’s always columns and diagonals!” Coach Sims reminds her dancers, critiquing the alignment. She later wryly tells me, “That pole does come into play sometimes.”

Trying out to be an Eaglette requires a triple, secondes, a capezio, and a spinning disc. Girls also have to go both left and right with splits, leaps, and leg holds. While it takes work and dedication to gain these skills, aspiring dancers in and around Orland Park have lots of choices for studios–these southwest suburbs have a thriving dance culture. This year’s Eaglettes have studied at Willow Street Dance Studio, American Dance Studio, TNT Extreme, Street of Dreams, Dance Workshop, Stage Door Dance Academy, and Prestige Arts Academy. It’s a safe bet that their studio classmates have made it onto other dance teams, making the Orland-Palos-Tinley region a tight-knit dance zone.

The Eaglettes transform from tryout candidates into a close flock over the summer at pool parties and team breakfasts. Team workouts involve strength training, technique, and tabata—a high intensity interval workout based on repeated cycles of going hard for 20 seconds and chilling for 10. This summer workout regimen is a good thing since the team-bonding activities in the fall involve food. Besides the pasta dinners and ice cream parties, the Eaglettes get together for team outings and sleepovers. The girls also ran in the 2nd annual Jane Caliendo memorial run. “Last year we ran as a team and crossed the finish line together,” remembers Coach Roberson. “It was an awesome moment!”

Football games are big events for most schools, but Sandburg takes it to the next level with a well-organized student fan section, a drone flying overhead, and a big production for pregame and halftime. So to help charge up Sandburg’s 3,100 kids, the athletic department had its first-ever scrimmage game to launch the school year, complete with ziplines and inflatable obstacle courses. Best of all, the Eagles sports community got to see their Eaglettes perform. The girls also danced at Sandburg’s freshmen “first day” event, where the newbies learn all about school spirit and organized noise-making. For homecoming, the senior Eaglettes take on the challenging and possibly frustrating project of teaching a routine to the senior boys to perform at the powderpuff game.

The Sandburg dancers work on their routines twice a week during football season, and they mix in a third day for technique and strength training.  These valuable technique days are for both varsity and JV, coming after a conditioning workout and wrapping up whenever Sandburg’s Orchesis starts their practice in that room (it helps that Coach Sims also runs orchesis). Eaglette practices turn more intense once competition season rolls around—they want to maximize their time together, since they meet just twice a week for routines. There’s no taking-turns for the coaches during comp season—“it’s all hands on deck,” says Roberson. But thanks to sitting in on enough athletic facilities meetings, the Eaglettes coaches get to run practice in the gym at least once a week.

The Eaglettes consider their specialties to be contemporary and pom, much like other dance teams in the southwest suburbs. “We used to focus just on pom routines but then we had to conform,” explains Coach Sims. A choreographer handles that single points-earning routine, while the captains and returning varsity members take turns designing the football and basketball dances. No matter what style of dance they bring to the floor come winter, you can be sure that the heart of the Sandburg dance program is pom. You can see it even as they practice their halftime dances. Even before a full-out run-through, there’s this hint of showmanship that comes through in their casual pom work.

Coach Roberson sees an influx of talent down the road for her dance team since one of their feeder schools, Century Middle, just started a dance club. “We would love for the middle schools to develop teams to help promote our program at the high school level,” she says. Experience on a uniformed team comes in handy, since the Eaglettes have to memorize around seven different routines each year on top of their competition dance.

Like a lot of good coaching staffs, Sims and Roberson bring different strengths to the table. The Eaglettes benefit from the combination of Roberson’s fitness expertise and Sims’ artistic acumen. Both have a ton of coaching experience, and they each spend plenty of hours in this dance room—Sims as the orchesis director, and Roberson as a dance teacher in the P.E. department.

Now in her 10th year coaching the Eaglettes, Heidi Sims is a rare link between the Chicago and St. Louis dance scenes. She danced on the legendary Triad dance team before dancing at SIU. The Family and Consumer Sciences teacher is a pom and jazz specialist. Her years of dance experience at both ends of the state give her an almost overflowing amount of dance wisdom, something I found out first hand when she graciously stopped to chat with me about the state of dance in Illinois on her way out the door.

Coach Roberson brings the added dimension of a voluminous (SAT word!) cheer background. She cheered in college where she earned her kinesiology degree and has taught dance classes at Sandburg for 13 years. Roberson’s been an Eaglettes varsity coach for four years. Although immersed in dance during the day and after school, Roberson stays connected to her original sport, somehow finding the time to coach youth cheer.

Under the guidance of their experienced coaches, Sandburg’s dance program made several appearances at TDI state, mainly performing in the open pom (and occasionally open dance) categories. And if you wanna go old school for a sec, Sandburg’s pom teams took a novelty category routine to IDTA state in 1986. And the Eaglettes are used to soaring above their conference. Besides looking for a 3-peat South Suburban Conference title this season, the Sandburg dancers are targeting Day 2 at state. “Cheer is big here, so making the top 10 means different things to each fan base,” reveals Coach Sims. Their IHSA state stats include a 6th in 2013, 24th in 2014, 16th in 2015, and a 13th last January.

Besides the numbers, you can usually gauge a dance program’s strength based on where their alums end up dancing. Former Eaglettes have landed spots on dance teams at Illinois, St. Ambrose, Western Michigan, UIC, SIU, ISU, Loyola, and Grand Valley State, “from what we can remember,” adds Coach Roberson.

“As coaches we feel that it is important to be one program…we spend a lot of time on creating relationships,” writes Roberson about the link between varsity and JV. Coach Sims reveals that recently promoted JV dancers sometimes have trouble with formations and transitions, so that becomes a special focus during fall varsity practices.

Once the combined varsity-JV dance makes good progress, JV heads to their own space while varsity turns its attention to other halftime dances. With more space suddenly available, the girls have room to not only be picky with formations and alignments but also to later do planks to their routine music. Coach Roberson takes video from the side and the whole team, after a water break, watches their performance for evidence of alignment issues. She and Coach Sims make sure that their dancers practice with purpose. “Any time spent at practice should be spent getting better.  No wasted time!” she proclaims.

Last on today’s agenda is learning more of the varsity homecoming dance, especially the opening counts which include a tricky “and” count. Team announcements and a huddle wrap up this afternoon’s work…along with the obligatory 8 Count Audio team picture.

“We’ve got a good group…they always look on the bright side,” Roberson tells me as we both observe varsity. They’re led by the two seniors, Toni and Emily, a pair that has no trouble making themselves heard at today’s big, loud practice. A natural jazz dancer, Toni started on her path to captaining this team when she took classes at age 3. Emily also started dance at that age, and while she likes all dance styles (except pointe!) her favorite is hip hop because of its sharp movements. Both girls have a music background which undoubtedly helps them as dancers—Emily has piano and trombone skills, and Toni used to play the violin until dance took over by 8th grade.

Toni describes herself as an animated leader, while Emily is talkative and funny. The best part about being on this team? “The bonds you make with your teammates. With different class schedules, we normally wouldn’t get to know these girls, but this team gives us that chance,” Emily explains. Toni adds that “the best part is dancing in front of the school at assemblies and games,” which makes sense, given the crazy football game atmosphere at Sandburg.

It’s almost dizzying to try to appreciate all of these coaches’ ties to other schools. Coach Sims danced on Triad’s team. Coach Roberson cheered at Argo and has a sister on the Lockport Porterettes coaching staff. Roberson’s student teacher for her dance classes last year was Jordan Fandrey, current coach of Lemont’s dance team and a dance teacher at Neuqua Valley. JV Coach Kenney works at Andrew (not dance-related, but I just thought I’d throw that in to further confuse everyone). And don’t forget student teacher Hannah, who danced on Lincoln Way Central’s team. Besides all that, the Sandburg Eaglettes made friends with the dancers from Crystal Lake South at last year’s state hotel; Roberson adds, “AND they have cool team Nikes.”

It’s all too easy to overlook the dance scene in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, especially since the pom traditions that are so strong in that area are taking a backseat to the contemporary craze in the Illinois competitive dance. But the dancers at Sandburg can show you pom work at its best—if you’re willing to sit among the ultra enthusiastic fans in the bleachers on Friday nights! And they’ll show you some premium-quality contemporary work once comp season starts—skills that are backed up by a solid history at TDI and IHSA state and multiple conference championships. The Eaglettes know how to excel in two different worlds, bringing spirit to the football turf and bringing poetry to the dance floor.