There’s still plenty of time to vote for your favorite Falcons players to be named to the 2013 NFC Pro Bowl roster, but as far as the cheerleaders go, the position has been filled.

With one spot given to each of the NFL’s cheerleading squads, the Falcons cheerleaders have selected captain Sabrina C. to represent the team in Hawaii on Jan. 27, 2013.

“I am beyond excited to have this opportunity to represent such an awesome organization,” Sabrina said. “Our Pro Bowl reps in the past have done a knock-out job of showing the league what the Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders are all about. Knowing that my team has faith in me to do the same is one of the best feelings of my AFC career. I feel honored, blessed and ready to show Hawaii how we Rise Up! Aloha!”

Sabrina was informed during the cheerleaders’ practice Thursday night. The team always votes on the member who will represent the team in Hawaii.

Click here to view a photo gallery of Sabrina C.

The Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders will be a part of six metro Atlanta sports organizations participating in the Atlanta Ballet’s opening night of “Nutcracker” on Dec. 9 at the Fox Theatre.

The Falcons cheerleaders will be joined by the Atlanta Dream, Hawks, Silverbacks, Gwinnett Braves and former NFL players Solomon Brannan and Dewey McClain, who played for the Falcons from 1976-1980, at the ballet to sign autographs and take photos with fans.

“It’s a treat for us to bring some of the city’s greatest athletes to our turf to see Atlanta Ballet’s own superb athletes,” said Arturo Jacobus, executive director of Atlanta Ballet. “In addition to sharing a great night of ballet, it’s our way of showing appreciation and support for the fellow home teams and acknowledging the work they do on and off the field and court. Despite our perceived differences, we all share a commitment to strong community involvement and, of course, a love for the city of Atlanta. We look forward to this year being a success and making it an annual part of our Nutcracker tradition.”

Atlanta Ballet is also offering a 50 percent discount for all walk-up patrons wearing their favorite team’s jersey. Tickets start at $20 and are on sale now.

Tickets can be purchased by phone at 855-ATL-TIXX, in person at the Fox Theatre Box Office and the Atlanta Ballet Box Office, or online at www.atlantaballet.com. For groups of ten or more, call Atlanta Ballet Group Sales at 404-873-5811 x 207.

This year has been a whirlwind for veteran Atlanta Falcons Cheerleader Shauna K. Earlier this year, she was named the cover girl for the 2012-13 Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders Swimsuit Calendar, which was shot in Jamaica in May.

In the coming days, she prepares for another honor as Jezebel Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful Atlantans of 2012 issue hits newsstands and the Web. Shauna has been put in the elite company of 49 others chosen by Jezebel for the year.

“It’s definitely flattering. It’s been interesting. It’s a lot of things happening all at once and it’s exciting,” Shauna said. “I think it’s great for the organization. I think it just adds to all of the excitement that’s been going on with our team and brings a little bit more attention and praise for the (cheerleading) program.”

Click here to see a photo gallery of Shauna K.

Because of the recognition as one of Atlanta’s most beautiful, Shauna has received another opportunity with Jezebel’s sister magazine called Men’s Book, which will also hit newsstands the first week of November.

The magazine usually features actresses and celebrities, but Shauna said because of the success the Falcons have had on the field, the publication decided to make her their feature girl for November.

Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders aren’t new to the Jezebel Magazine 50 Most Beautiful list. Former cheerleader Brandy Kirschner and current cheerleader Natalie D. made the list last year. Former cheerleader Nikky Williams is also on the 2012 list.

Kat, who has only been pole vaulting for a handful of years after being discovered at Clemson, said last week that she wasn’t expecting all that much out of her performance in Eugene, Ore., for the trials, but apparently surprised even herself by missing first place by just less than eight inches and the Olympics by less than five. The top three finishers move on to Team USA to compete in the Olympics.

Kat’s highest vault was 14-feet, 5-and-1/4 inches.

After preliminaries were canceled due to weather, Kat and her competitors for the team all made it to finals. She alluded to possibly hanging up her cleats if she didn’t make Team USA this year, but tweeted the following after her vault Sunday night:

“5th place. Not half bad for 3.5 years of experience. Thank you everyone for your support. Cant quit now, can I!? #soclose #london2012″

Kat is participating in the USA Track and Field Olympic Team Trials this week at the University of Oregon and is hoping to earn a spot on Team USA for the Summer Games in London later this summer. A pole vaulter with just three years of experience in the event, Kat is one of the best in the country and primed to make a run at a Team USA spot.

“It has been a dream of mine to go to the Olympics since I was little, but I just never thought that my best chance at that would be in pole vault,” Kat said. “I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast since I started at age 4. It wasnt until I transfered to UGA and qualified for the NCAA National championships that I realized it was a possibility in track and field. I know that this week the odds of me finishing top three are slim since I am far less experienced than any other girl out there.”

The top three finishers in the event will get that coveted spot on the team for the London games, and Kat is currently ranked in the late teens. Not bad for just a handful of years experience.

Kat discovered pole vaulting when she was cheerleading at Clemson. When the Tigers scored during a game, Kat was doing back flips in the endzone. She caught the eye of the assistant track coach at the time and decided she looked relatively athletic and taller than most of the other cheerleaders.

Running into him one day, a conversation was struck about Kat’s background in gymnastics (she was a Level 10 gymnast by the age of 11) and the topic switched to pole vaulting. She came to the track for a tryout and the rest is what she hops to be Olympic history.

“It’s going to be one of the best experiences of my life and I just want to go out, do my best and hopefully make it to Finals,” Kat said. “As of now, I’m planning on hanging up the spikes after trials, but who knows? I might change my mind. There’s always Rio.”

Click here to see more photos of Kat M.

“We’re really excited. We’ve added more bling and we’ve added more color,” cheer coordinator Chato Hendrix said. “This year, we’ve added a third look, just to add more red. We think red is just very exciting. It’s beautiful. It’s bold, and we know that our fans are going to love it on the ladies. It’s very classy, but fun, as well.”

An alternate uniform for the year includes the black top from previous years but with red straps instead of black.

Facing two rounds of cuts, about 270 ladies learned a portion of a routine and then performed in groups of six in front of a panel of judges, including the AJC’s D. Orlando Ledbetter and 790 The Zone’s John Michaels. Oh, and me.

The large group was reduced by about half before learning more of the routine and stepping in front of the judges once again. The semi-finalists either became finalists or were left looking ahead to next year’s auditions.

The 65 finalists chosen from Sunday’s auditions will join Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders veterans for final auditions Thursday night. Cheerleaders who were with the team last year and plan on returning automatically get a bye into the final auditions.

AtlantaFalcons.com will have live streaming coverage of the finals Thursday night. Check back during the week for more details.

For now, here’s a photo gallery from today’s auditions.

Brandy, a casting director for the TLC show “Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids,” is looking forward to a big night tonight as the second season of the show premieres at 9 p.m. ET.

She’s no stranger to work on the show, filling the same position for “Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta” last year. Brandy’s responsibilities include sorting through the thousands of applications that come in for brides wanting to be on the show and then conducting hours of phone interviews.

“Finding the perfect bridal parties to film and predicting the potential madness that might ensue can be challenging,” said Brandy, who represented the Falcons at the Pro Bowl in February, “but I couldn’t see myself working in any other industry.”

But Brandy’s not the only member of the Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders family being represented on the show. This season features former cheerleader Nikky Williams, who appears on the show as a bridesmaids consultant. Williams, who cheered with the Falcons for four seasons, has worked in local TV and radio in Atlanta and is slated to make her appearance on the show May 11, during the season’s 10th episode.

Williams, on the left in the photo above, has been a bridesmaid 17 times in her life, which surely makes her qualified to help indecisive brides and bridesmaids.

For a sneak peak and more information on the show, check out TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress” page.

Sabrina has become a bit of a favorite over on BleacherReport.com, as is evidenced by her third appearance on the sites various “hot” lists. In a post published Wednesday on the site, Sabrina was named No. 1 out of the top 50 hottest tomboys in all of sports, beating out fan favorites like US Women’s Soccer’s Alex Morgan, MMA’s Gina Carano and various members of the Lingerie Football League.

Sabrina gets her “tomboy” tag from her love of the outdoors. She’d much rather spend hours and dollars at Bass Pro Shops than at some designer clothing store. Oh, and she has an affinity for animals, including her pet snake, Monty, who we profiled along with Sabrina recently on AtlantaFalcons.com (see below).

But that’s not where things end for Sabrina. She came in at No. 7 on Bleacher Report’s top 25 singles in sports and — get this — No. 1 Bleacher Report’s 2011 power rankings of the top 100 hottest cheerleaders.

Yeah, the top spot.

All these honors aren’t lost on Sabrina, who is about as humble and laidback as they come. She’s extremely proud to be recognized in such a way.

“All of these lists are not something I ever could have expected. I call it a string of good luck,” she said. “I feel honored to be mentioned and represent an awesome organization.”

So far, it’s given rookie cheerleader Jamie K. the chance to appear in a new music video. Jamie was cast as a waitress in the new Rascal Flatts video for the song “Banjo.”

Jamie was involved in a couple of different shoot locations, including one out in the country that was tough to get to.

“(We) literally had to walk down a gravel road for a substantial distance and jump over puddles,” Jamie said. “It had just rained the night before, so at times you were ankle-deep in mud.”

Jamie appears in the video around the 2:15 mark and then again near the end of the video. She says this appearance likely won’t be her last.

“It was my first music video, which was super exciting and I hope there’s more,” she said. “Maybe I’ll play a love interest next time instead of wiping down tables.”

Jamie was also the 2011-12 Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders Swimsuit Calendar cover girl.

Click the photo below to watch the video.

Only 50 make Jezebel’s 50 most beautiful Atlantans list each year. I feel bad for No. 51.

Anyway, three Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders have made the list.

Captains Shamea M. and Brandy K., and veteran Natalie D. all made the list. Yours truly, D. Orlando Ledbetter and Knox Bardeen were all left off the list. Although, I have to believe we were in the running for the last few slots.

Check out the digital version of the magazine here to see the awesomely beautiful pics of beautiful people.

Stay here to see a photo of me. Please?

Last week was a grueling one for the 40 ladies that currently make up the 2011 Atlanta Falcons as they went through several difficult rounds of auditions. Now, you can put some names with the faces you may have seen during our coverage last week.

Below is the team photo taken after names were announced, with names attached for easy identification. Click on the image to see a larger version of the photo.

We’re back for another round of Photos of the Week. It was an interesting week with Falcons cheerleader auditions taking place, so I tried to get a good mix of things.

Enjoy:

These are the doors on the left front side of the Flowery Branch facility. If there was any question about whether “Rise Up” would stick around for a while, here’s your answer. The door decor is all brand new. I come in this door every morning for work, and now I’ve got a gigantic reminder of my task for the day.

Fridays are pretty casual around the office, as events marketing guru Hamzah Ahmad shows by (foolishly) working with his sunglasses on. His optometrist would not be happy with this.

Last week’s post featured a photo of the fields. So does this one. Now, you can see the progression. Who says watching grass grow isn’t exciting?

There was a bit of time to kill Thursday night after getting everything set up for our live auditions show. Videographers Matt Moore and Robert Gilkes chose to sit and chat. Niki Noto, however, opted for other forms of entertainment.

After the 2011 Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders team had been named, Falcons team photographer Jimmy Cribb had the task of shooting the group shot. I imagine for most photographers, this process would be like herding cats. With 40 extremely excited people to get organized and doing the same thing at the same time, the task might as well be impossible. Jimmy, however, does a fantastic job of getting people to do what he needs them to regardless of the situation. He’s good at what he does. Here’s a link to Jimmy’s shots from Thursday night.

Which Photo Is Your Favorite?customer surveys

Last week, I shot a blog post out about the numerous ways you can get your questions about the Falcons, or anything else for that matter, answered.

The response was overwhelming and I received a lot of good questions during the weekend, which allows me to start a new feature I’ll call Mailbag Monday (because, around here, we’re pretty big on alliteration; i.e, Wordle Wednesday, Photo Friday, etc.).

If you’re interested in having your questions answered, check me out on Formspring, where you can anonymously submit questions to me without having to sign up for anything. You can always ask your questions on Twitter and Facebook, if you prefer those methods.

I’m just going to select a few questions this week and keep a few for the next few weeks, so if your question isn’t answered here, don’t be discouraged. You’ll likely see it in the next few weeks.

One more thing, I’ll always take the questions and apply them here as you write them. I won’t edit them at all, so that in most cases we don’t lose the meaning or context of a question. Therefore, if you’re a stickler on grammar, spelling and punctuation, check your question before submitting. If not, no worries. I can decipher darn near anything.

Anyway, on to the mailbag:

Question: do u know u r the luckiest guy? to be able to hang with th Falcons all the time? Jay i may not know every single detail about the guys but i have been a Falcon fan since i was little. i love my Falcons…..

Answer: Yes, I do know that I’m extremely lucky to be doing what I’m doing right now. Every morning I walk in the building, I take a moment to remind myself of where I started out and the dreams I had and how I’ve accomplished those goals I set for myself. It’s an amazing feeling when you get to a point you’ve always hoped you could, so if you’re currently working toward a goal right now, I highly recommend seeing it through, no matter how difficult things get. The payoff is totally worth it.

Q: Will Gonzalez be back next season?

A: Yes, from all indication, Tony Gonzalez will be back for the 2011 season.

Q: What is the status of Jerious Norwood? Will he be back as a Falcon this year?

A: I’ve heard nothing new about Jerious since he went on injured reserve, so I don’t know if he’ll be back this season. As soon as I know something, I’ll be sure to post it, but as of right now, he’s still a Falcon.

Q: do you have any inside information on the Falcons cheerleaders?

A: They’re currently in a very busy time of the year. Preliminary auditions took place yesterday and the field was cut down to, I believe, around 40 finalists. Those finalists will audition again Thursday night and then the final 2011 team will be named after that round. We’ll be streaming the final auditions live Thursday night, so definitely check that out. That’s all the inside information I have on the cheerleaders, but something tells me that wasn’t the purpose of the question…

Q: What position would you personally like to see the Falcons address in the first round?

A: I’ve said several times that people are going to have a hard time pinning me down to one pick I’d like to see the Falcons take in the first round. Positions are another story, but I doubt my answer is going to be all that satisfying to folks who want to get that one, solid, concrete answer from me (which, by the way, would likely be incorrect come the first round anyway). I’ll say this: I could see defensive end or offensive line addressed in the first round. I’ve looked at all the mocks and the roster and I’ve basically narrowed it down to these two positions. Is that what will happen? Possibly not. Well, probably not. The front office doesn’t ask my opinion on who we should draft, and rightfully so. But those two positions seem to make the most sense. I’ll also say that I could see a trade-back scenario or a best-player-available scenario happening. It’s too soon to tell and we’re picking too late to get a good read on something so specific.

Q: When did you decide you wanted to cover sports and why?

A: Honestly, I don’t know if it was ever a conscious decision. Sports have always been a huge part of my life. You name it, I played it. I played offensive line throughout high school and a year at the D-III level, but decided I was way too short to get any significant playing time, so I hung up the spikes. I guess a huge part of me wanted to keep sports in my life in some capacity, and since I was in school to become a writer, covering sports just seemed to be the natural fit. I spent six years in newspapers, covering every sport under the sun — from wrestling to regattas — but pro football was and will always be my passion. Covering sports allows you the leeway to have fun with what you’re doing. After all, at the end of the day, these are just games. What’s more fun than that? If you’re looking to get into covering sports, my biggest advice to you is to not take yourself too seriously.

Q: The extra draft picks the Falcons receive from the Quinn trade to NE and the Chris Houston trade to Detroit (especially) are all over the place. Which picks do the Falcons get, per the Falcons?

A: Excellent question, and to preface, the asker is referring to the compensatory picks the Falcons are due to receive because of the trades of Quinn Ojinnaka and Chris Houston. The answer is that there is no answer yet. These picks are usually named during the owners meetings, which are occurring this week in New Orleans. What I’m hearing is that those picks will now be announced at a later date. So, sit tight. We may not know for a bit.