Spirit of a Nation
By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
Rafu Sports Editor
Saturday, Jan. 12, 2007

As captain of the L.A. Clippers’dance team, Kristin Egusa is always ready to pick up the fans, even in a thus far disappointing year.

Photos by MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS/Rafu Shimpo
Kristin Egusa pauses before Wednesday night’s Clippers game at Staples Center. Now in her fourth year with the Clippers Spirit Dance Team, she is one of the team’s captains and said there’s nothing she’d rather be doing.

Egusa performs for the crowd during
a break in the game.

STAPLES CENTER.–6:45 p.m., and a thin crowd is trickling into the Clippers’ home arena. These are lean times for the Clipper Nation, as their team, wrought with injuries is languishing in the cellar of the NBA’s Pacific Division of the Western Conference. Trying to excite this audience must be a tough job.

Or maybe not.

“It’s not difficult at all,” Kristin Egusa said with a stern confidence. Now in her fourth year as a member of the Clippers Spirit Dance team–second year as captain–there’s no place she’d rather be.

“Our people want to be here,” she said. “Our fans are the best in the NBA. They want to be here and to support their team and have been part of the Clippers family forever. That goes for me as well; I’m sticking with them whether they’re having a great season or not.”

Undoubtedly, that’s precisely the inclination that got Egusa hired by the Clippers in the first place. The graduate of Cal State Long Beach is having the time of her life after initially being uncertain if she had what it takes to make the squad.

“The first year I auditioned, I didn’t think it was a tangible goal, to be on a professional dance team,” she admitted, “but I decided to shoot for the stars and hope that luck and God were on my side. I was really blessed.”

Having begun dancing at the age of 9, Egusa also had visions of perhaps becoming a professional soccer player. During her years at Notre Dame in Sherman Oaks, she was also a member of the swim team.

But the dancing stuck. During her first year at Long Beach, an instructor guided her toward a career in professional dance. She took an approach that is 180 degrees from the usual course: she began with hip-hop styles of modern dance, then plied her trade in cheerleading, eventually focusing on the rigorous course of jazz dance. All of this proved to be elemental training for a dancer hoping to work in the NBA.

“The audition is a very intense process,” Egusa said. “It covers a week of hundreds of girls competing for 18 spots, so you can see where the sweating comes in. We have to go through three routines and there’s an extensive interview process. They want a well-rounded dancer, not simply someone who can work it out on court, but who can also interview and meet people and present herself well.”

Sitting in the stands and chatting, Egusa was instantly recognized by fans filing in. Wearing a form-fitting velour jumpsuit with hot pants that would challenge the self-confidence of most people, she carried on through the interview as if we were slumped into a couple of easy chairs in her living room. She’s one of three team members who share a Japanese American heritage, along with UC Irvine graduate Lynae Hashimoto and co-captain Taylor Hooks.

Hooks, who works as an MRI technologist during the day, joined the Clippers Spirit along with Egusa.

“We started together, so we’re very close,” Hooks said. “We both know each others’ strengths, so we’re able to help each other out.”

Twenty or so years ago, it may have been a novelty to find dancers or cheerleaders of Asian descent at an NBA game. Not so these days, and that’s a role Egusa said is something to cherish, adding that working for the Clippers has helped her meet a wide array of people in the Japanese American community. It has also given her perhaps a more potent voice in encouraging anyone she meets to embrace his or her own culture.

“I think a lot of people, both here in the Japanese American community, and also when I went to Japan, really look up to me in a sense. We’ve come a long way in the dance world and in the world as a whole,” she said.

Last summer, Egusa took a trip to Japan to conduct professional dance clinics and teach English to kids. While she admitted her language skills were less than stellar, she said the value of the interpersonal contact was immeasurable...except for the encounters with what she described as “unbelievably large bugs” in the resort town of Kiyosato.

Her sense of community will likely be heightened later this season, when the Clippers host their annual Japanese American Community Night on March 5. The pre-game and halftime festivities will give fans a chance to meet several of the Clippers Spirit team members, along with the 2007 Nisei Week Queen and Court. Notable personalities from the community will be recognized and a taiko performance will take place at center court.
She noted that her heritage may have played a small role in her being selected to the team in her first year, but eventually, it all came down to her individual skills.

“I didn’t really feel any advantage; I was one of hundreds of girls out there,” Egusa said. “But on every dance team in the NBA, it’s very political. You have to reach out to a certain demographic, and the judges are aware of that. It doesn’t make everything go around, but it’s definitely taken into consideration when selecting a dance team.”

And it’s no easy ride to stay on the team. That nightly pizza? Forget it. These women have to stay in top physical and mental condition. Rehersals are preceded by one-hour sessions with a personal trainer. Team members need to have their lives away from the squad balanced so that when they hit the court, it all about connecting with the crowd. Those pressures are emphasized for team captains.

“As captains, we really have to be on our game,” Egusa said with Hooks nodding in agreement. “We have to be ten steps ahead of everything and make sure that everyone is feeling comfortable with what they’re doing.  Our job is to make sure everything runs smoothly and to communicate with our director, Jessie Christensen.”

They also have to be able to absorb the hits that come with projecting a public persona. There is a valid argument that cheerleaders and dance teams of pretty girls are a means to objectify women, and have little logical connection to a sporting event. This is a topic Egusa first dealt with some time ago.

“Growing up as a dancer, I’ve found that’s something each person leaves to her own discretion. As a dance team, I think we here at the Clippers take a very classy approach to what we put out here on the court and how we present ourselves as women as well as dancers. We try to meet people and to take initiative to interact, so that fans know we’re a diverse, dynamic dance team and more than just girls on the court.”

And like all things sacred and mundane, nothing lasts forever. Like professional basketball, professional dance in the NBA is ultimately a young person’s game. Now in her 20s (Spirit team members decline to reveal their ages), Egusa was asked if she feared being pushed out of the job, perhaps in the way that members of the 1980s teen pop group Menudo were sent packing once they reached a certain age.

Egusa sat silent for a moment, as a tear began to well in her eye.

“I think this may be my last year. I’m planning on applying to graduate school next year. It’s not set in stone, but that’s something I want to do in the future,” she said, revealing that although it’s been in her mind for a while, she hadn’t yet vocalized her plan.

“I was telling a friend the other day, if I don’t quit sometime, it may become one of those things you see yourself doing for ten years or more, because you love it that much. It’s the best job anyone could have, being around fun people all the time.”

She hopes to earn an advanced degree in dance education or dance business, adding that life has its series of small victories that lead to a lifetime of self-satisfaction.”

“There are certain points in your life when you feel a sense of accomplishment more than at other times. When you accomplish anything–when you make a dance team, when you graduate from school, when you’re with your family, laughing and enjoying being together–those are the times when you really feel it. Making this team, I felt very accomplished and each year, I’ve grown and taken a big step up.”