This past weekend, December 2nd, the DCHS dance team traveled to Sevierville, TN, to compete in the Smoky Mountain Showdown hosted by UDA and Varsity. They traveled about 5 and a half hours from the high school to the hotel they were staying at. Earlier that week, while spending hours practicing to prepare for the competition, Varsity sent out the list stating the group’s sign-in, practicing, and performance times. DCHS dance was initially scheduled for sign-in at 9:22 a.m. and performance at 9:54 a.m. 

However, later that week, two days before DCHS left for the competition, Varsity sent out a last minute notice that all times had changed and DCHS was now signing in at 4:52 p.m. and performing at 5:24. This was a surprise for all families seeing as most families planned on driving back after the early performance and awards. But now that the performance was around 5, awards wouldn’t be until 10 that night, leaving families rushing to find last-minute hotel rooms. This caused last-minute chaos in everybody’s schedules. Trying to make the best of things, DCHS did the traveling, got there and ate an amazing supper, and went to bed. The next morning the team got to go out with their families to go shopping and do other activities until they had to meet before the competition. The team got ready and went to the competition site. 

They competed, then waited anxiously for the results of what place they got. The team stayed for 5 hours until the awards, just to go on stage and not get recognized. The team waited for their name to be called, and it wasn’t. Why did 7 teams compete in the Varsity Pom category, and only 5 got recognized? Most of the girls on the team believed they just didn’t place high enough, which was upsetting, but understandable. They were told by Varisty that they had placed 6th. Once awards were finished, the dance coach went to receive the score sheet, to see any mistakes the team made or any corrections. When she went to look at the corrections, she found the teams column, and below it said “No Record of Performance”. This confused everybody. Why did the paper not give us a score? What happened to our scores? The DCHS dance coach went up to the judges concerned, asking about our scores. The judges simply said that their scoring mechanism is all electronic, and ours and another team’s scores glitched through the system and were no longer there. It’s almost like the team didn’t even perform. 

This infuriated not only the team and coach but also the parents and friends who traveled miles away from home to watch us get nothing. The dance coach asked to speak with the higher people in charge to get whatever this was, fixed. Varsity kept saying they couldn’t do anything about the scores from our team and the scores from the other team being missing. The team was released with their parents to go back to hotels and get supper. The coach texted them later on stating that they asked for refunds from the competition or even credit for next year’s competition. Varsity stated they would look into it since they had made a mistake. After lots of anticipation, Varsity suddenly released a statement claiming they had randomly “found the scores” that were lost from the two teams. After looking at the list, the team saw that they had put DCHS dance in last place. 

This infuriated people more, knowing that they had put so much effort into that routine, just to place “last place” after the competition losing and suddenly coming up with random scores. Parents were angry knowing that the only reason Varsity came up with these scores was so the company didn’t have to refund us for our trip. All of the parents and friends have gotten in touch with Varsity, only to receive the same automated message. DCHS dance is devastated and is hoping to receive some form of credit from UDA. Do you think that Varsity should give the dance team some sort of credit? Do you think Varsity actually lost the scores?