After serving six years as head coach for the Bridgeport High School cheerleaders, Emilee Stout is stepping down.

 

“Basically, what I told the girls at the end of January is that I’m in a different point in my life now and ready for the next chapter,” said Stout, who has a long history with the team, cheering from 2000 to 2004. “I just felt like it was time. I had that feeling deep down and it just seemed to fit. Honestly, with this group I had this year, it felt like the perfect ending. We didn’t have the result we wanted at competition, but that was very minor to how great our year was. I just had a perfect group of girls and parents and everything went beautifully.”

 

Stout and Natasha Estok-Sabatelli – who has also resigned her position as assistant coach – broke the news to their squad at the last home basketball game of the regular season. The girls’ reaction reinforces how Stout feels about this particular group of cheerleaders.

 

“We sat down in a classroom just off the gym and I told them,” she said. “We talked maybe 10 minutes and, of course, there were tears everywhere and all that. We were all crying and I walked over to get a tissue when I noticed the girls had formed a single file line, waiting to give each of us hugs. It was like a movie. They didn’t have to do that.”

 

Since then, Stout’s boyfriend Matt Yurish, head baseball coach at Alderson-Broaddus College, has become her fiancé. Estok, with whom she has worked for the past six years, gave birth Sept. 23 to her first child, Giada Lin.

 

As they both concentrate more on their personal lives, they hope they have left behind more than cheerleading technique. Stout said she hopes they have learned to be punctual, to hold themselves accountable, push through tough times and build from mistakes.

 

“I’ve always told my girls that what I want for them to learn is they  need to be disciplined, work hard and expect good things – that even if things don’t playout the way they want them to, to keep going and keep trying until you  get what you deserve,” Stout said. “In our competitions, as well as football and basketball, there are wins and losses all over the place. It’s important to learn that when you fail, you pick yourself back up. So that’s been my overall message for them all these years.”

 

The last six years have been a roller coaster. Competition-wise, the most memorable are 2013 and 2014.

 

“We were state runners-up both years,” Stout said.

 

“The girls hit like the best routine ever. It was like an absolute best for last and I’ll never forget those two years,” she said. “They ran off the floor and back into that hallway so excited because they did a perfect routine. That’s what you shoot for in this competition and to hit it is the best feeling. Oh gosh. It felt so good hugging all the girls and crying. Those are among my best memories.”

 

Stout said she felt her tenure as coach got off to a good start and as the years went on, things became better and better. Each year was challenging in its own way and cheer season was always a long one.

 

“We held our camps in June, practicing two or three  weeks and getting a feeling as to who was going to try out and getting some groups  together, then we didn’t regroup again until the first of August for tryouts,” Stout said. “We held a tryout every year; some years keeping everybody and a couple of times we made several cuts. Then we dove right into football season, heading into competition and cheering through basketball season.”

Competition starts with regional competition and if the team places first or second, they go on to state competition, held at Charleston Civic Center in early-December. While preparing for competition, the team practiced about five days per week.

 

Both coaches started with the team in 2011, but Estok came along a little later than Stout.

 

“When I got hired, I didn’t have an assistant for almost three months,” she said. “It was Toni Miller (assistant coach under Coach Shelly Mazza) who thought of Natasha. We called her at random and asked her if she was interested in the position.”

 

Estok, too, was an Indian cheerleader, but cheered after Stout graduated from BHS in 2004.

 

“I hardly knew her, but remembered her being a cute cheerleader,” she said.

 

The two proved to be a good match.

 

“We worked well together and balanced each other out,” Stout said. “I guess I was the tougher one – the harder coach; more stern on the girls and kind of strait forward and Natasha always seemed to have the lighter touch to things. If I was getting excited or worked up, she had that nice little touch to make things better.”

 

Even their thought processes seemed to coincide. When Stout mentioned a year ago that she was considering serving as coach for just one more year, Estok-Sabatelli – who had married in 2015 – said she had been considering the same.

 

“I felt even better about this whole decision because I felt like we came in together and we were leaving together,” Stout said.

 

As this past year played out, she said she felt confident she had made the right decision and looks forward to the next chapter in her life.

 

Stout, who teaches driver’s education and health at BHS, will continue to coach the school track team. On November 25, she will become Mrs. Matt Yurish.

 

Bridgeport High School Assistant Principal and Athletic Director Matt DeMotto said Coach Stout did an excellent job for BHS.

 

"She placed the discipline and character of her cheerleaders above all else," he said. "She does things the right way. She expected and demanded that her ladies work hard and they lived up to those expectations." 

 

Cheerleading has evolved into a very demanding sport - physically, mentally and emotionally, not to mention that it has the longest season - beginning in the fall and ending after winter sports, DeMotto said. 

 

"We appreciate Coach Stout's dedication and look forward to her leading our girls' track team this spring," he said. 

 

The cheer coach position has been posted. In fact, Wednesday was the deadline for application. The name of the new coach will be announced following the next meeting of the Harrison County Board of Education, said BHS Principal Mark DeFazio.

 

Editor's Note: Pictured top/cover and center are Emilee Stout and Natasha Estok Sabatelli with this year's  BHS cheer team. Also pictured are other BHS cheer squads from recent years, Stout and Sabatelli and Stout with senior members of this year's BHS cheer squad.