It could well have been Howard County's Kangaroo Kids auditioning for television's "America's Got Talent" several weeks ago instead of a rival team from the Midwest.
The Colorado-based precision rope jumpers waited 10 hours to perform on the popular summer program, but errors soon set off the dreaded triple buzzers from the judges. In less than a minute, they found themselves trooping back off the stage beneath three illuminated red X's, said local coach James McCleary.
He commiserated with the other team's bad fortune as if his own team had been axed.
"I know they'd nailed it before because I'd seen their routine," said McCleary, who is also national jump rope chairman of the Amateur Athletic Union and board member of the USA Jump Rope Federation.
"But that's how it is with jump rope - you make a few mistakes and it's all over."
McCleary certainly knows from experience. He has coached the 150-member Kangaroo Kids for more than a quarter-century and is one of seven county residents recently chosen for induction into the Howard County Community Sports Hall of Fame.
Also to be inducted Oct. 20 are Stan Ber, Karen Brelsford, John Dye, Phil Lang, Patricia Muth and Ray Page. A 12-member committee organized by the county Department of Recreation and Parks made the selections.
"People sometimes ask me what kinds of events there could possibly be at our competitions," said McCleary, a physical-education teacher who travels among the county's public schools assisting special-needs students. After all, anyone can jump rope, right?
"I tell them it's mind-boggling what these kids do," he said. "I'm their coach, and even I can't believe it."
He described a trick called "The Subway," which involves one youth doing push-ups while moving forward low to the floor under another teammate who is also doing push-ups as a third flips over both of them - all the while timing their movements to the rhythmic slapping of two jump ropes turning like an eggbeater.
Hip-hop, break dancing and gymnastics have all influenced the sport, which was brought to New York by the Dutch when the city was called New Amsterdam, and is the origin of the term for turning two ropes together known as "double dutch."
"There is no limit to their imaginations," said the 36-year veteran teacher about the kids' innovative choreography.
Having no boundaries is exactly what has kept Scott Simpson involved with the Kangaroo Kids for 12 years.
