Cheer Station National Cheerleading Training Center

We’ve been at Cheer Station about a year now and have worked with several different coaches and taken tumblng classes outside of the cheer practice. My daughter has had some excellent coaching, and I’ve appreciated the leadership the owner Brad provides to his coaching staff. He is a hands-​on owner and approachable to parents and cheerleaders alike. Thumb up to Cheer Staton!
By the way, the viewing area isn’t huge, but there are more than 10 chairs upstairs to view from as well as a couple of picnic tables and standing viewing area below at floor level. Lots of parents stay and watch and I’ve always felt welcome as a parent.

This gym has a lot going for it. The gym has experienced coaches and good equipment. The coaches and owners know their way around the competition scene, and have done a reasonable job at getting girls into competitive situations where they are challenged but also have a chance to compete. We felt that the travel was highly professional too. For these items alone, Cheer Station would deserve four or five stars from me.
I downgraded them significantly for two reasons. The first is safety. While cheer is inherently dangerous, there are things that need to be ingrained into the culture around a school or a gym to keep it as safe as possible. Only experienced coaches should do spotting. Stunt safety should be emphasized and certain stunt skills should be mastered before new ones are tried. Both fliers and bases should know how to protect themselves and each other from falls and flying elbows. This is a big deal to our family. In this area, we felt that CS let us down.
The second is that there does seem to be an attitude that emphasizes the gym and competition more than the girls at times. We didn’t hear profanity as a post above mentioned, but we did hear several comments by coaches about injured girls getting onto the floor. In at least one case, the girl had a doctor’s note clearing her from practice.
I do feel like the gym is a good one that is run with integrity. I feel that the gym does love cheer and is an effective ambassador for the sport. I think that sometimes, the individual cheerleader is not valued quite as highly.
According to the scale, three starts is A-​OK. The gym would rate much higher if we were rating on a scale of value, equipment, staff knowledge or skill, tradition, or any number of other elements. I rated two stars because I think the most important thing a gym can value is protect the safety of the cheerleaders.

We LOVE CSI!!! The gym is clean, well-​equipped, and the staff is very warm, friendly, and loving to the kids. The coaches are tough, but also very supportive and encouraging to all of their athletes. That’s what makes the teams as awesome as they are!!! Everyone works hard and it shows. I have NO complaints. Everyone is helpful and kind!!! I completely understand now why the gym stays so packed… It’s a great place! We look forward to many more successful competition seasons with Cheer Station!

My first thought when I drove up to this place was turn around and drive away as fast as you can, and I’m kicking myself for not listening to my gut. The building is hard to find in a scary neighborhood with a severe lack of parking. The outside is the back half of a warehouse that hasn’t been kept up, and the inside is worse. Insulation (and asbestos?) falling from the ceilings, bathrooms are in disrepair, there is virtually no place for parents to sit, bar a few broken chairs at the top of a rickety staircase, and a dirty picnic table at the front of the place that you can’t see the practice floor from. They will run 2 team practices and 2 «regular» classes at one time, but there are only 10 chairs for parents and they’re all broken. Are we not supposed to stick around? So every week the parents line the rickety staircase trying to watch their kids and it’s really awkward and uncomfortable. On top of that the building isn’t climate controlled. They have a few portable A/C’s, but make no mistake the building is super hot in the summer and super cold in the winter.
So I let myself overlook all that because they have been in Austin so long, though at a different location on Research until recently. I had heard decent things about them over the years and decided to try and overlook physical appearances and give them a chance. It only took a few months to figure out this is not the place for us. Not only did I get tired of all of the above mentioned items, I have regularly heard the cheer team coaches curse at the team girls loudly. I don’t care what kind of team or competition this is, you don’t curse at 8 year old girls. They yell at them and I can deal with that most of the time. But I rarely hear the coaches cheer them on or tell them positive things. Luckily my child was not on a team, but watching this was enough to let me know I didn’t want her to be. There have been times that they have put up signs telling parents of the team children that they aren’t allowed to watch practice on certain days, which in itself sent up major red flags for me. They’re paying you how much a month and they’re not even allowed to watch how you treat their kids while sitting in your broken chairs? Yeah I don’t think so. So we left a few months ago and we aren’t looking back. I want my child to grow up with self esteem and not be cursed at by some older guy if she misses a flip. There are plenty of other gymnastics and cheer places in this town to settle for that, and I am just shocked at how many parents are putting up with it.