Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
What's up everyone.
Welcome to episode 17 ofJennaPod.
Today is Saturday, april 26th.
I forgot to add my intro andoutro music last week and I
blame that on the cold that isstill going on in my head.
Editing last weekend was rough.
(00:30):
Also, can we just not snot goaway?
My voice is still on thestruggle bus.
I started White Lotus.
I really enjoyed season one.
It's deaf, not for everyone.
In the first couple minutes yousee some dick and balls and if
(00:53):
you are someone who doesn't wantto see dick and balls, then
White Lotus isn't for you.
Love all the actors and theacting.
I've already watched episodeone of season two.
Love some Theo James and westarted the Last of Us on HBO.
(01:16):
Pedro Pascal is also on thatshow.
I managed to make a steak in myair fryer, so summer body is
full on, and by summer body I amthe color of a polar bear and I
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wear jeans all year long.
It's NFL draftraft Week, so Ithought it was finally time to
tell my I was an NFL cheerleaderfor three years story.
If you were wondering how intothe NFL I am right now, I had no
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idea the Tennessee Titans hadthe first pick in the draft
Thursday night If you have everheard the term how the sausage
is made.
Basically, that's how I feelabout the NFL.
At first I was razzle-dazzledand then it's like oh, oh, okay,
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and remember, this is myexperience and all teams are
different.
Remember, this is my experienceand all teams are different.
It's really hard to condensethree years of chaos into an
informative story, but I'll trymy best and give some highlights
.
Maybe after this episode I'llhave more questions to answer.
(02:40):
I don't know.
Some of you don't care and haveturned this episode off.
I grew up in Fairfield, ohio,which I've mentioned many times,
a northern suburb of Cincinnati.
So I grew up a CincinnatiBengals fan, and by fan I mean I
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watched it if it was ontelevision, but never understood
football or paid attention.
I remember going to a game as akid and an older woman giving
me Werther's Originals theentire game.
Was that a dream?
I don't know, but I remember itclear as day.
I do remember the January 22nd1989 Super Bowl against the
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49ers, because we had a party atour house.
It emotionally ruined everyBengals fan for decades.
The question I get asked oftenis did you grow up dancing or
were you a college cheerleader?
No, ma'am.
I was in gymnastics from age 3to 12, and at one point within
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my gymnastics I rememberSaturday morning ballet classes
at Dynamo Gymnastics which wasout by Surf Cincinnati hashtag
TBT.
Even when I was a competitivegymnast my dancing was very
robotic but I could hit everymove.
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When I got to sixth grade Istarted doing show choir, which
is singing and dancing kind oflike a jazz Broadway style, up
until I graduated high school.
I did school cheerleading ineighth and ninth grade for
football, even though I didn'tunderstand the difference
between offense and defense.
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I had quit gymnastics and I wasone of only two girls in our
school that could do advancedtumbling.
So best friend Reby, who wouldcheer since she could walk,
convinced me to try out.
Learning the cheer motions wasa disaster, but I made it again
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because my toe touch was insaneand I could rock a back tuck on
the track during football games.
I didn't try out for highschool cheerleading but I did do
all-star cheerleading from 9thto 12th grade.
All-star cheerleading isnormally an outside club-style
cheer where you do all the fancystunting and tumbling and end
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up at some nationals in Orlando,florida.
I didn't love all-starcheerleading but I loved all my
friends.
Oh, and it was free for mebecause my dad owned the gym
Slay Nepo baby.
I also get asked why I nevertried out to be a Bengals
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cheerleader right out of collegecheerleader right out of
college.
I was living with my parentsabout 22 miles north of the
stadium and I worked about 37miles north of the Bengals
stadium.
I had many acquaintancesgrowing up that did cheer for
the Bengals.
But when I saw their swimsuitcalendar growing up I was like
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no way I could ever do that.
I also really didn't even knowwhat the NFL cheerleaders did,
but I knew I wasn't a sexy, sexygal.
But let's remind everyone upuntil five years ago it was
embarrassing to be a Bengals fan.
Yes, we had our Carson Palmerera, but 1989 and on until we
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got Joey B, the thought ofbecoming a Bengals cheerleader
was kind of like no thanks.
Now, looking back, I know thatis silly, but I was working
about 50 hours a week at myAssisted Living, making $24,000
a year and commuting a billionmiles from my parents' home to
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save up and move out.
And then I was partying on theweekends.
So it was never, ever a thoughtin my head to try out.
I did read the book titled it'sNot About the Pom Poms written
by Laura Vickamanis, who was theoldest cheerleader in NFL
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history, at 40 years of age whenshe made the team in 2009.
It was a very cool, inspiringbook and I don't use the word
inspiring often, but in thiscase I will use it and she was.
She cheered for six years untilshe was 46.
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Insanity.
I met my husband in early 2006,and he was a Bengals season
ticket holder.
So then I became a Bengalsseason ticket holder In 2007,.
We moved to Tulsa and couldn'tuse them anymore.
When I say in the years to come, we couldn't even give those
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tickets away.
The Bengals were horrible.
However, from 2006 to 2013, Iwould say I watched every single
Bengals game, even going tobars in my orange and black.
Fast forward to March of 2011,when we were moving to Nashville
, tennessee.
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I was 29.
I'll use the term skinny, fatand needed some motivation to
work out.
And what could do that morethan being half naked in front
of hundreds of girls in a roomwith judges?
Now, if you are old schoolNashville, you remember how hot
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the Predators dancers were.
The Nashville Predators areNashville's NHL hockey team.
They had dancers, just like thefootball team did.
They were wicked popular,gorgeous and talented.
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My girlfriend, jillian, was aPreds dancer from 2007 to 2008,
and I remember when she made itit was the coolest thing I had
ever heard.
I was obsessed.
The hot preds dancer era fadedout and the rumor I heard was
the wives of the owners didn'tlike them so sexy, so they ended
up with more of a spirit squad,fully clothed, and they weren't
allowed to dance on the iceanymore.
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It was a bummer and everyonewas like why Jillian helped me
out so much when I startedshowing interest in trying out
for Titans.
She grew up a pageant girl, soshe gave me all the tips and
tricks and even let me borrowall her audition clothes and
dance shoes.
I had nothing going into this,so public shout out thank you to
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Miss Jillian.
Now this was 2011.
Social media wasn't how it isnow.
You didn't have access toeveryone trying out.
I was sent a TikTok this weekon a girl doing a get ready with
me for her Titans interview.
Like what?
When we cheered, we weren'tallowed to post any pictures
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unless they were like brandedTitans media.
It's not like it is now.
Anyway, you just kind of had towing tryouts by looking at
pictures from the Titans website.
I took dance classes from thewonderful Jessie Peralta
Thompson.
Jessie was my age and I hadwatched her in college on so you
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Think you Can Dance.
So I was totally starstruck.
Growing up, not a studiolifelong dancer.
I had a ways to go on learningthe style of NFL dancing and
just to get my confidence up, Ialso attended every single
workshop that was hosted by theTitans.
Yes, let me say it's not cheapgetting into this.
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I met my cheer bestie, brookein 2012 at my first workshop,
when neither of us were on theteam.
Brooke went on to make the teamin 2013 and she was very
helpful in my process of makingthe 2014 team.
We ended up carpooling toeverything for three years and,
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good lord, we needed each other.
April of 2012 came and I showedup to the preliminary auditions
at the Bubble, aka the Titanspractice facility.
It was so fucking intimidatingbut I was like I got this shit.
Looking back at pics, that girldid not have her shit.
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I remember being embarrassed totell people I was trying out.
I remember being embarrassed totell people I was trying out.
I can't even recall if morethan my parents, Jillian and my
husband even knew I was tryingout.
I guess me trying out did kindof come out of right field.
And what I learned throughthose years is that people will
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madly support you and your crazydreams if you have the right
people in your life.
During the preliminaryauditions, everyone came
together and learned a couple,eight counts of dance and then
performed them in front of thejudges.
After that they cut the fielddown to the next round of
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semifinal auditions, where youlearned even more choreography
and then performed it again.
I made it to semifinals and Iwas stoked and I totally thought
I was making it to finals.
My first year auditioning NERP.
My number didn't get called andwhen I say I sobbed the entire
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way home, I was so sad and soupset.
After not making it, I decidedto dedicate another year of
working towards becoming an NFLcheerleader.
I started doing CrossFit to getthat soft body in shape.
I started tracking my food andmy fitness pal.
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I would end up tracking everysingle calorie I ate and
weighing myself for the nextfour years.
When I say I ate baked chickenand steamed vegetables every
night for dinner, I am notexaggerating.
If I drank one McUltra, it wasin the app.
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It took me up until about twoto three years ago to be to even
be able to open up an app andtrack food again.
It was.
It was kind of PTSD for me.
I also started stalking everycurrent Titans cheerleader with
their online presence as much assomeone could do in 2013.
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I tried out again in April of2013 and I made the finals.
I was just happy to be thereand really had no idea if I
would make the team.
Titans cheerleading finals usedto be held at the Wild Horse
Saloon and it was a show.
I think now it is Luke CombsBar on 2nd Avenue, I'm not even
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sure the name of it.
So we had big hair, makeupgalore and dancing on a giant
stage with lights blaring onyour face.
I, in fact, did not make theteam, but I wasn't distraught.
Sure, I was bummed, but I waslike cool, I did it.
During the dancing I made thesecrazy ass facial expressions
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and I think it scared everyone,but really the girls that made
it in 2013 were top tier talent.
A couple of months after the2013 finals, I ran into the
director of Titans Cheerleadingat a local salon and she said
hey, come on back and try onemore time.
So I went home, talked it overwith my husband and I was like,
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okay, one more year dedicatingworking my ass off for this goal
.
Listen, some girls make ittheir first time.
Shout out to my girl, johnsy,who I think tried out five times
.
I also had to learn a lot aboutthe glam side of it learning
hair and makeup and the look.
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I never managed to learn how toput fake eyelashes on and still
cannot to this day.
By the time the final tryoutscame in 2014, the director told
me don't make any weird facialexpressions at the wild horse
and you should be good to go.
Well, as we know, I made thedamn team in 2014 at 32 years
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old, which for the next threeyears, I would be the oldest
person on the team.
My rookie teammates were 18, 20, and the rest were low to
mid-20s.
I was a mama bear.
It's 100% a differentexperience going into it older
way into my career and married.
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I always say if I had made theteam at 22 instead of 32, I
would have been crazy.
I would have been partying withthe players.
I probably would have gottenkicked off the team.
When I made the team, I couldmaybe have named five people
playing.
You are just so busy.
I couldn't keep up.
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And let me say, when you are ina relationship as NFL dancer,
nba, what have you?
You have to be with someone whois comfortable with you being
half naked and also never home.
For three years I lived off tokind bars, coffee and five hours
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of sleep.
I worked my full-time jobdowntown, coached CrossFit
classes and then was gone from 7to 10 pm every night we had
practice.
You miss weddings, vacations,special life events.
We had practices onThanksgiving.
We had games and practices onChristmas Eve, christmas Day,
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new Year's Eve and New Year'sDay.
Now, in 2025, things may bemore chill.
I have no idea, but ourschedule was not chill.
There is one thing I have heardthat has gone away from a lot of
teams and those are weigh-ins.
Yes, we had to weigh in duringmy tenure on the team.
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At the beginning of the season,you weighed in and that was
your goal weight for the year,and then you had to weigh in
every Tuesday night before theSunday home game.
If you didn't make weight, youcould possibly be benched.
I never failed a weigh-in, butby the third year I was having
to take more extreme measures tohit my goal weight, like
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juicing for 48 hours before andeven turning the heat on into my
car to make myself sweat.
Luckily, we always had girliesin the locker room messing with
the scale to our favor.
And you heard me say we weighedin at night.
Imagine having to be skinny at8pm, starving.
Imagine having to be skinny at8 pm, starving, and also having
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to learn a dance.
It was madness.
My famous story was I weighedin and then immediately started
eating a chicken sandwich in theback of the room where we were
dancing.
I didn't care, I was hungry.
There was a Taco Bell on theway home to my old house from
practice and I may as well havehad a punch card.
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And guess what?
You will never be skinny enough.
Like I have said, if you saw mein person in 2025, you'd
probably think she's fit andtrim.
Now imagine my rookie year andme being 24 pounds lighter.
I am shocked when I seepictures now, 11 years later.
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That girl needed some snacks.
It took me a long time post NFLcheer to quit weighing myself
and it took a long time to letgo of those goal weight numbers.
To let go of those goal weightnumbers.
Now, maybe twice a year, I getmy body scanned from an in-body
machine and that's good enoughof a check-in for me.
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Remember, ladies, being strongis cool.
I get asked often if I misscheering for the Titans.
I mostly, without a doubt, Imiss my friends.
Mostly, without a doubt, I missmy friends goofing off.
There were many perks I can'teven name all the perks and, yes
, it was just a fascinatingexperience.
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Game days were actually not myfavorite part of it.
Yes, you got some sick picturesafter, but it was exhausting
and the Titans sucked.
When I cheered, we draftedMarcus Mariota in 2014 and
thought we were going to theSuper Bowl.
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While I cheered, we had 14 winsand 34 losses.
We had to arrive at the stadiumon game day, I think around 7.15
am for the noon games Remember,we'd be on that central time
Maybe by 8 to 8.30,.
We were on the field practicingour quarter break routines.
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Then we had to rush back to thelocker room, sweaty as hell, to
get glammed up by 10.30 am tostart game day appearances.
This could be greeting fans atgate one, going out to the
tailgates or dancing on thestage within the stadium with
the DJ.
By fourth quarter I couldbarely move my arms and I just
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wanted a cold beer.
So Brooke and I would startplanning where we were going to
dinner.
I think we would get out of thestadium around 4 pm.
It was a long-ass day andremember we wore tall
white-heeled go-go boots.
We def got our 10,000 steps in.
Now I mentioned pictures.
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Every Monday morning I wouldscour the internet for photos of
myself.
Well, hell yeah, I mean Iworked my ass off for this.
Whatever, give me the evidence.
I cheered I'd be on AssociatedPress, getty Images, sports
Illustrated, local sportsoutlets, etc.
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One of the funniest picturemoments was my dad texting me
saying, and I quote your ass ison the MSN homepage and, by
golly, when I got to msncom,there was my booty in our
cowgirl outfits with the jeanshorts.
I guess that could be a funfact about me when I play two
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truths and one lie during ahorrific icebreaker for work.
Ask on search engine homepage.
At one point when I was on theteam, we were called strippers
on the ESPN Mike and Mike in theMorning radio show and online.
They even had one of our dancesfrom practice on Instagram and
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I was in it.
I was like cool, I'm on ESPNassociated with an article being
called a stripper.
I think kind of the temperatureof NFL cheerleading is chilled
out.
But like every couple years, anarticle has to come out and the
headline is either number onethese sexy sluts are too much
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for football, or it's number twoNFL cheerleaders aren't
appreciated and paid enough.
It's one side or the other.
I had a good experience.
Some girls across decades andprograms had shitty experiences.
Yes, we were paid and we wereeven part-time employees of the
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franchise.
Did we get paid a lot At thetime?
No, but I think it's betterthese days you ain't doing it
for the money.
Or maybe you cheered for thePatriots and you got to end up
dating Rob Gronkowski.
Did I say that right?
Maybe you're dating him for thepast 10 years.
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Bless that cute little blondemodel girl.
I'm glad I cheered when I did,because I think the social media
aspect of it now would be toomuch to handle, too much.
You'd have people picking youapart left and right on the
internet.
One of my other funny storiesduring every third down in the
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game we would spread out and tryto get the crowd pumped up.
My rookie year I was doing thisand punched a Houston's kicker
in the head.
I was so fucking embarrassedand I thought I was going to get
fired.
I literally was like this is it?
I will be kicked off the team.
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And I'll tell you someone whoworks their ass off during the
games and that is the mascot.
On those 95 degree days theyare in those crazy hot costumes
and our mascot had to have theEMTs come to him after every
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game for an IV because he wouldsweat so much and be overheated.
After my rookie year, they werelooking for a mascot and when I
found out how much they couldpotentially make, I almost quit
cheer and pursued it.
Make and bank if you do it longenough.
Not saying it's an easy job,I'm just saying good career
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Again.
There are so many stories, buta lot of them wouldn't make
sense unless you were there toexperience them.
It was blood, sweat and tears,lots and lots of tears.
I will say the most memorableappearance I attended was the
2016 televised fundraiser thatDolly Parton put on for the
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wildfires that happened inGatlinburg, tennessee.
There were five to six of usjust standing around with
celebrities as they answered thephones to collect money.
Some people were famous, but Ididn't know who they were, but I
did get to stand next to ChrisStapleton and his wife for a
while.
We also got to meet the queenherself, dolly Parton.
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I snuck a video of her on myiPhone, which I still have.
She was so glamorous and nicewe weren't allowed to take
pictures on our iPhones, butsomewhere out there in the ether
there is a group photo with herthat we never found, even
though we reached out to hermedia team Boo, in 2017, after I
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decided to no longer cheer, Istayed on and worked all 10 home
football games as a part of theTitan Up team.
I really got more background onhow game day works and got to
attend the game day meetings.
I shot t-shirts out of thet-shirt cannon and got to help
with all the on-field sponsoractivities and games.
(26:24):
You see sometimes, like whenthey bring down a fan to try and
kick a football into the fieldgoal uprights, whatever and win
something.
The biggest thing I was incharge of was the Kroger race.
They had a Kroger mascot race.
We had four guys, including myhusband, dressed up as the M&M
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Bread, bunny, chester, theCheetah, and I can't even
remember the fourth one andobviously it was all scripted.
So like okay, guys, today theM&M wins and everyone in the
stands gets a free pack of M&Msat Kroger, the gentleman in
charge of marketing was veryserious about the skit every
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game and would tell me to myface, don't fuck this up.
Aye, aye, captain, the Titansactually had a home playoff game
that year and won it for thefirst time since 2008.
But I was so burnt out on gamesat that point I could just stand
on the field.
I could go anywhere in thestadium.
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I wanted to watch the action,but instead I would go into the
mascot lounge and watch the gameon TV, counting down the
minutes until I could go home.
I knew after that year I wouldnot be participating with this
anymore.
I remember at my first gameever, when I was getting my hair
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and makeup done and seeing allthe chaos of behind the scenes
from us management, concessions,janitorial staff, just everyone
working I was like this is alljust theater.
We may as well be getting readyto put on a Broadway musical,
but our musical will involve 22men on a field playing a game.
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It's all about the money.
I have been to two NFL gamessince 2017, and that was last
year.
I went to Kansas City to watchthe Bengals play New Year's Eve
and in 2018, I got to see one ofmy dear friends, brianna cheer
in her very first game as aDallas Cowboys cheerleader at
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Jerry's World in Dallas.
When Bree cheered for Dallas, Ivicariously lived through her.
Let's just say being a DCC isvery different from being a TTC.
I mean, they have a dangNetflix show which I loved.
I thought they did a very goodjob representing what it was
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like to cheer in the NFL.
My biggest takeaway from Titanswas my friends, ladies I still
talk to on a daily basis and amstill lucky to see, quite often
at lunches and life events.
These girls will be in my lifeforever.
These girls will be in my lifeforever and don't be scared to
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try new things at an age whereyou may feel out of place.
I cheered from ages 32 to 35,and I also started a podcast at
42.
Now we have the new TitanStadium being built that
allegedly will be ready by the2027 season.
That allegedly will be ready bythe 2027 season.
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It's going to have a roof.
No longer will these beautifulladies either be sweating their
makeup off or freezing theirlittle booties off.
I cheered at the third coldestgame in Titans history.
Monday Night Football, november17, 2014, when it was 25
degrees, and I worked.
The second coldest game,december 31, 2017, when it was
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23 degrees, I think.
At both the wind chills werenegative digits.
Imagine being in a leotard andwanting to cry for three hours
because you can't feel your body.
10 out of 10.
No, thank you.
If tryouts are at the newstadium, I will totally, at the
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age of 45, go down and sign upbecause I just want to see the
behind the scenes.
Who's with me?
We start training this week.
Thank you for listening.
Go Bengals, go Titans.
Jennapod is directed, producedand edited by me, your girl,
(30:54):
jennifer.
Please rate, review andsubscribe to this on Apple
Podcasts, spotify or whereveryou are listening to my lovely
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