I was a cheerleader for 5 years of my life; I started when I was in the 8th grade. I was ready to start my freshman year when I heard about my high school’s cheerleading tryouts. I had no experience, but my best friend convinced me to try it. Trying out for cheerleading may have been one of the best things I ever did for myself.
When I walked into cheer tryouts for the first time, I was timid, quiet, and anxious. Like many eighth grade girls, I had little confidence in myself. Once I started cheer, I had a real goal to work toward. I worked on skils every day to improve, and in order to actually see progress, I had to step far out of my comfort zone. Cheerleaders aren’t quiet or timid; we are loud, we are proud, and we are able. Being shy was the first thing to go. As I became more skilled, I became more confident in myself. I felt like I fit in with the others, but because I proved to myself that I could achieve goals that I once thought impossible. I became so dedicated that nothing really mattered except school and cheer which was good for me because I had a lot of time to work on myself.
I spent three out of five years of my cheerleading career in a leadership role; I was captain my sophomore and senior year of high school and President in my collegiate cheer club. Now, I’m a paid youth cheerleading coach. All of the leadership experience I gained was extremely beneficial not only on my resume, but also in my day-to-day life. When I first started cheer, I did not have any of the makings of a leader. However, my coach and my peers believed in me and helped me on my way to becoming an effective leader. Over time, I learned a lot. I was never perfect, but I didn’t need to be. I learned as much as I could about each and every girl and did my best to always support them in the same way everyone supported me. It’s true there could be a lot of conflict within an extremely competitive and diverse pool of girls, and there were a lot of challenges to leadership. However, I wouldn’t trade those challenges for anything.
Cheer really changed my life because of the friendships I made. The team was comprised of nearly fifty young women and their presence in my life affected me greatly. As a woman, having a support system that was made up almost entirely of other women helped me along my journey to find my identity. We were like a family: we argued, we had hard times, but above all, we supported each other. When girls had problems at home or at school, everyone knew and everyone was there to support each other. When girls’ grades fell, someone else would tutor her to help pick it back up. It was an amazing feeling of community and love. Most importantly, they were the key to learning new skills. Without the girls who took me in when I was a freshman, without the girls who supported me while I walked the journey from beginner to teacher, I would never have made it this far. In the end, it even affected what I did with my free time. Now that I am a coach, all I want to do is spread the importance of female community to the next generation so that young girls like me will have an opportunity to experience what I did. I want the next generation to know that the girls they practice with are there to help and aid them rather than compete against them. Female community is essential to our growth as a whole. My hope is to use what I’ve learned during cheer to foster the same kind of community and in my own small way, make a difference in all of my student’s lives.