Why moving a flyer to base isn't a demotion
I've been coaching for 12 years, and there's still one conversation I dread every single time. The conversation where a flyer becomes a base.
It's also, hands down, the question I get asked the most, and what's interesting is who's asking. Because, it's not just coaches. It's parents too.
The parents say, "My daughter's coach wants to move her to base. Is that right? Should I be worried?" And the coaches say, "I know I need to move this kid to base, and I'm terrified to do it."
Parents and coaches don't agree on much when it comes to position changes. But they agree in my DMs, because everyone is wrestling with it from their own side of the exact same decision.
I'm going to be brave and talk about it, because I don't think it needs to be this hard. But I should tell you something first. I was never a flyer. I'm fully a backspot.
And as backspots, we spend the entire routine staring at ankles and, honestly, at butts. It's the least glamorous view in the sport. However, it's also the only view of the whole floor. A top girl, the position everyone envies, actually sees the least of what’s happening on the floor. She can tell if the stunts around her are up, but she can't see a grip slip, can't see who caught late, can't see the group next to her starting to go. Backspots can. From the back, I could see all of it. Every stunt, every grip, even the groups beside me.
And since the backspot has the most visibility of any athlete on the floor, it is exactly why we're the ones trusted to make the calls. When a stunt starts to go wrong, the backspot is in charge. We see it first. We have to fix it before anyone else even feels it.
I've often stopped to wonder if taller athletes are just the more natural born leaders, because the backspots are usually the tallest kids, and somehow they usually end up the leaders of the team. I don't know if it's the height, or if it's that we hand them the whole view and all the calls and they grow into it. Probably the second one. But the position nobody romanticizes is the one running the floor.
But, the position everyone romanticizes is the flyer. And when a stunt falls, nobody says "that group fell." They say her name. The flyer's name. The flyer is the most watched, the most exposed, and the most blamed athlete out there, by name, every time it goes wrong, and she's doing it while seeing less of the floor than the people holding her up.
I don’t want anyone thinking that I don’t respect the flyer craft, because top girls are incredible. What they do is insane. The body positions, the flexibility, the baskets, the inversions, the core strength, all of it made to look effortless while everything underneath them is moving.
I always joke that I marry my top girls to their backspots, especially for inversions, because it's a partnership, almost like a coed pairing, and it only works if they truly trust each other. When I was the backspot, there was nothing like a top girl trusting me with her ankles, trusting me to keep her safe. That's the real job back there. We're the ones responsible for the head, the neck, the shoulders, the parts you don't get back if something goes wrong. We catch her. We keep her safe. I don't know much more trust than that, and I felt honored every single time. I love a good top girl. I am not shaming the position at all.
But, what I don't understand is the fascination.
Look at the cheerlebrities. 95% percent of them are top girls. We built a whole culture that idolizes one position and treats the rest as support. I get it, I guess, because we do it in every sport. We worship the quarterback and forget the offensive line even has names. A backspot is somewhere between the two. We do the grunt work, we call the plays, and we get the recognition of neither.
When a kid says "I'm a flyer," they say it like it's who they are. People tell me on social media, "I was a top girl," the way you'd tell someone your hometown. I love that they love it. But that's where this gets hard, because somewhere along the way the position stopped being a job and became an identity. "I'm a flyer" instead of "My position is a flyer." And you can't build a team out of kids who've each decided they ARE one position and nothing else.
Especially in high school, where I coach. We don't recruit. There's no portal, no bringing in a base from another school, no shopping for the piece you're missing. You get the kids who walk in your door, and you build an entire competitive team out of exactly those bodies. Sometimes that means turning a base into a flyer. More often it means turning a flyer into a base, because that's the piece the puzzle actually needs. It's not a judgment on the kid. It's a coach solving a puzzle with the only pieces she has, and someone's daughter is part of what makes the whole thing work.
The kids who get this are the ones who go the furthest. I can't even count the flyers I've moved to base who became incredible at it. There are two basing at the University of Mississippi right now who flew when they were younger. I had a girl who flew her freshman year at Ravenwood, moved to base her sophomore year, and became one of the most technically correct bases I've ever coached. That's not an accident. The precision a flyer builds, the obsession with doing everything exactly right, transfers straight to basing, and a technical base is a consistent base. When they get tired, their technique doesn't break. That kid is basing in college now.
What actually decides it is this. The kids who became great bases are the ones who, when I said "let's try something new," said "okay, teach me." The ones who stayed stuck are the ones who said "no, I can't, I'm a flyer." Same talent, sometimes more. The only difference was whether they could hear a position change as an opportunity instead of a punishment.
And that usually comes down to the parent.
I'll say this with love, because I do understand it. There's a specific kind of attachment to a kid being a flyer, and I feel it most from their parent. I won't pretend I fully get it, maybe because I was never up there myself. Part of it is real and fair. It takes genuine guts to be a flyer, to be judged by name, as yourself, in front of everyone, and I sympathize with that completely. But somewhere it tips from "I'm proud of my kid" into "my kid is a flyer, and that's who she is." Once a position becomes an identity, any change feels like a loss instead of a step forward.
So if I ever have this conversation with you, here's what I need you to hear. I'm not telling you your kid isn't good enough to fly. I'm telling you that from someone who used to have the one seat that saw the entire floor, I know where she's going to shine, and I know what the team needs to work. Moving her isn't taking something away. It's me trusting her with a different job, often a harder one, usually a more important one than anyone gives it credit for.
And to the coaches who are scared to make this call, I see you, and I feel it too, even after 12 years. Make it anyway. You're not demoting a kid. You're building a team, and you're teaching her something she'll use long after she's done competing, which is that she's bigger than any one title she's ever been handed.
The question was never flyer or base. It's whether your kid, and you, can love the team and her growth more than a title.
That's the whole thing. It always was.
Stay coachabull.
— Mel B
Train for your position. I built strength programs for backspots, bases, and flyers, for the exact demands each role puts on the body. [See the programs → here]
Be Coachabull issues drop every Friday.
Coaching insight from lived experience, not psychological or medical advice.
@becoachabull | www.becoachabull.com