My Path to Success in Cheerleading

Introduction

As I think back to my past experiences of playing physical games and sports, the memories reflect the evolution of growth, maturity, and the establishment of my self-identity. From climbing trees, swinging on swings, and sliding down the slides at the playground to playing tag, hide and go seek, and having dance competitions. Playing games with my sisters, neighborhood friends, or even by myself was how I developed my physical, social, emotional, and cognitive skills as a child without even knowing it.

The pretend competitions and make-believe scenarios were a large part of my childhood. At the time, it was the most fun in the world; even if it was just a way for my mom and dad to keep me busy while they worked from home. Aside from the non-structured physical play, I found my passion for gymnastics at a very young age. My experience in sports shaped me into the person I am today, built the foundation on which my life was built, and developed my personal identity.

“When people play sports, their experiences are often remembered as special and important in their lives” (Coakley, 2017, p. 14).

Early Experiences

Pre-K to First Grade: Brandon, Mississippi

In 1999, my mother decided to put me in gymnastics, tap, and ballet classes where I was able to explore which area I was best at all in one class. We lived in Brandon, Mississippi at the time, and from Pre-K to first grade, I attended the class three times a week and loved every minute of it.

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My mom would pick me up from school, take me to Sonic to get an Ocean Water slushy, and we would go to the gym. Although my parents were separated, both my mom and dad attended every ballet recital, gymnastics meet and tap dance recital to support me. Because of their love and support, I found my true passion for gymnastics. As I turned my sole focus to my newfound talent, suddenly my mom and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia in the middle of first grade.

I remember being angry with my mother for moving me away from the gym that I grew to love, my two sisters and my father, and my school. I could not understand at the time that we had to move for my mother’s career because all I cared about was my life suddenly uprooting. However, she kept her promise that I would continue to pursue gymnastics and along the way, I discovered cheerleading. I made many friends, I loved my new school, and there were so many opportunities in front of me. I joined my friends in cheering for the Sandy Springs Saints youth football team and it was my first time being a part of an organized sports team. We went to practices, cheered on our football players, and went to competitions. I felt so important cheering on those sidelines because I knew that one day I would be one of the popular cheerleaders in middle school and high school that I looked up to. Then all of a sudden, we had to move again.

Sixth Grade to Senior Year: Birmingham, Alabama

I was eleven years old when my mom told me that we had to move to Atlanta where I had to start my life all over again. I had to make all new friends, get used to a new school, and try my best to fit in without knowing anyone. I wanted to make the best out of my middle school experience and make a name for myself, so I decided to try out for the cheerleading team at Oak Mountain Middle School. Although I was very confident in myself, I was so nervous because, for the first time, I was competing for a spot on a real cheerleading team. After working hard every day during the tryouts, I ended up not making the team and I was completely devastated. I wanted to give up, but instead, I joined a cheerleading gym and continued to work on my skills to try again the next year. The following year, I did not make the team once again.

Instead of giving up, I spent the next two years devoting myself to gymnastics at the competition gym I attended until I was “good enough” to try out for high school JV cheer. All of my hard work paid off and I made the team. I spent the next four years of high school doing what I worked so hard to accomplish, made many friends, and made the name for myself that I always wanted. I faced failures and accomplishments along the way that strengthened my self-identity that allowed me to become the woman I am today.

Connection to Early Experiences

Age

I was five years old when I began taking gymnastics, ballet, and tap-dancing classes. I was leaving my toddler behaviors behind and developing the motor skills necessary to engage in the activities that required coordination and balance. This is when I learned about expectations and began to develop my sense of identity. By the time I moved to Atlanta and became involved in youth cheerleading, I was between the ages of seven and eleven where I was beginning to develop physically and emotionally. The spirit of competition truly came out during this stage, allowing me to understand the concept of winning and losing.

By the time I moved to Birmingham, I was eleven and very mature for my age. As if going through puberty wasn’t enough, I was starting middle school as “the new girl”. In the beginning, my self-confidence was low, I didn’t have any friends, I wanted to fit in, and most importantly, I wanted to be a ‘popular cheerleader’. “The daily peer interactions that typically occur within their school activity group are highly significant to teens and contribute to and underlie their definitions of personal identity and social reality” (Barnett, 2006, p. 515). I wanted to make a name for myself and it wasn’t until I began high school, at age fourteen, that I finally made the cheerleading team and my teenage years began. Being on the team gave me a sense of purpose in high school and I became obsessed.

Social Class, Race, Community, and Family

Growing up, it was just me and my mother. My parents divorced when I was two years old, separating me from my two sisters. Although our family was separated, my mother and father co-parented to make sure they were both present for every recital, competition, and football game to cheer me on. However, once we moved, it was just my mom who was able to cheer me on.

Raising me as a single mother, in the lower middle class, we could not afford for me to participate in every youth sport and extracurricular activity there was. Good thing cheerleading was the only sport I was interested in. We were not rich, but I never went without. My mom worked hard to make sure that I could pursue my dream of being a high school cheerleader by putting me in every camp, clinic, competition, tumbling class, etc. Birmingham was a community with an abundance of money and power and youth sports meant everything. In this community, it was never race that separated children in athletics; it was social class differences.

Most, if not all, of my friends, belonged to the upper class or upper middle class where money was never an issue and never discussed. When I did not make the team in middle school, I took tumbling classes at Ace which is a competition team that also offers tumbling classes. The girls on the cheerleading team and other friends of mine went to this gym as well, but unlike them, we could not afford for me to be on the competition team. I was only able to take the classes they offered. In the end, the classes paid off and I made the same high school team that the other girls were on. We were equal.

Personal Ideas

The most significant outcome of being involved in sports as a child was my emerging personal and social identity. “As early as elementary school, participation in organized activities has been shown to shape children’s self-definitions and their most salient peer group and this continues into and accelerates during adolescence” (Barnett, 2006, p. 515). From being on the youth cheerleading team to being a varsity cheerleader in high school, I participated in connection with the ideas of my own personal, social, and school identity. This idea of building a specific image of myself came from the self-esteem and body image issues I faced during my childhood.

I have struggled with my weight and self-esteem in my entire life. Throughout elementary school and middle school, I was made fun of by other students and was told many times that I could never be a cheerleader because I was ‘too fat’. After failing to make the cheer team two years in a row, I realized that I was allowing these people to influence the pattern of my tryout experiences. This pattern brought emotions of devastation and I became obsessed with my weight and how others viewed me. Barnett (2006) did a study on successful and unsuccessful cheerleading applicants and the girls who failed used descriptive words such as depressing, sickening, heartbroken, and disgusting to relate their reactions to hearing the outcome. Although it hurt me in ways that I cannot describe, I never gave up and I never let that stop me from achieving my goals. I worked hard every single day (until I was better than the majority of the girls) and I finally made the team.

Although the corresponding label to being on the team was what I always wanted, I realized that the label was not a part of my self-identity. I began looking to the competition to help shape my self-perception of myself. Barnett (2006) found that girls who tried out and made the cheerleading team for reasons other than popularity had quantitative anxiety measures that showed they were considerably more anxious at the start and throughout the auditioning process. The girls related their anxiety to the importance of the outcome to their developing sense of their own talents and abilities.

By the end of my freshman year of high school, I let go of the feelings of lowered self-worth, feelings of incompetence, and doubt about my previously held identity. Once I began cheering and competing for myself and my own satisfaction, I excelled in all aspects of my life including gymnastics, friendships, school, and most importantly, my happiness. Coakley (2017) explains the definition of socialization and how it involves forming ideas about who we are and what is important in our lives (p.52). Once I discovered who I was, I knew that my success and self-identity was not held in the hands of anyone other than myself.

Personal Environment

Gender

I expressed my feminine identity from the moment I began to crawl. “Gender ideology consists of interrelated ideas and beliefs that are widely used to define masculinity and femininity, identify people as male or female, evaluate forms of sexual expression, and determine the appropriate roles of men and women in society” (Coakley, 2017, p.14). These interrelated ideas were not pounded into my head; my female identity was displayed through my choices in toys, games, and physical activities to my clothing, hairstyles, and social behavior. Growing up with two sisters and girl cousins, we had dance and cheer competitions, ‘American Idol’, owned a make-believe restaurant, and of course, we took our Barbie dolls everywhere. I was never interested in playing softball, basketball, soccer, or any other activity including a ball. I only wanted to dance, cheer, tumble, and do ballet. Even during P.E. in middle school, I dreaded playing any masculine sport. I simply was not blessed with that kind of athletic ability, but I can do flips around you all day. If I had lived with my father, I would have been involved in many other sports as my sisters did (he always wished for a boy). Good thing I lived with my mom!

Race

I lived in Atlanta, Georgia when I began getting involved in athletics. The city of Atlanta is one of the most diverse cities in the nation that includes races and ethnicities of all kind. Being that I was only six or seven years old when I moved there, I grew up embraced by many different cultures. Race was never a factor that influenced the sports I did or did not play. Keep in mind, I also never wanted to play a sport that involved a ball or a bat. Once I moved to Birmingham and started taking gymnastics classes and cheering, there was not a single African American, Hispanic, Asian, or any other ethnicity on the team. There were also only two white women on the basketball team. It was just an aspect of our culture that was never discussed. “The roots of racial ideology are so deep in U.S. culture that it still influences patterns of sport participation, beliefs about skin color and abilities, and the ways that people view sports and integrate them into their lives” (Coakley, 2017, p. 16).

Social Class

“Social class largely defines the types of sports individuals choose to participate in, their level of involvement, and affects their chances of success in the sport” (Hall, 2016). In my case, being a part of the lower middle class has never held me back from achieving success. I only wanted to play one sport that I devoted all of my time and effort to and that meant my mom only had to devote all of her money to cheerleading (sorry momma). I was able to go to the same competitions, wear the same uniforms, and attend the same classes as every other girl on my team. The situation where our social class (income) was an issue was when we could not afford for me to do competition cheerleading and high school cheerleading at the same time. I believe that not getting everything I wanted as a child allowed me to see the world from a different perspective than the individuals in the upper classes. I worked hard and turned my focus to one goal and I appreciated every opportunity that was given to me along the way.

Family Connections

Throughout my childhood, my parents have always been my biggest supporters. They made sure that I had the confidence within myself to achieve anything I set my mind to. Growing up with divorced parents and raised by a single mother, I understood at a young age that both my mother and father did their best to be present at every game, competition, recital, or practice. “Parental support was characterized by not becoming ‘over-involved’ with their child’s development and ‘providing emotional and tangible support’” (Quinton, 2016).

My father and my sisters were not able to make it to every football or basketball game due to the fact that they lived in another state and I was okay with that. My dad always called to stay up to date and he would travel four hours to make it to the events that meant the most to me. I also did not reprimand my mother for not coming to every single event and practice. I was supported in every endeavor and I am glad that my parents were not ‘over-involved’ because it allowed me to embrace my independence at a young age. Of course, the role of importance that parents play in youth sports is unquestionable, but I was always encouraged to develop my own self-awareness of skills I have gained, and I was constantly provided emotional and tangible support.

Life Influences

Being active in athletics has had a number of positive life-long effects on my life. It was how I developed important social skills, improved my self-esteem and view of body image, my, and overall fitness, and so much more. The social benefits of doing gymnastics and cheerleading have lasted well beyond my childhood. I gained lifelong friends that are still in my life today and learned so much from many others. Being a part of a team helped me develop the skills that I will use for life. It taught me to cooperate, be a team player, and to take constructive criticism in a positive way.

Playing sports helped me learn to control my emotions and channel my negative feelings in a positive way. It also allowed me to develop patience and understand that it can take a lot of practice to improve both my physical and mental skills. At times, I faced disappointment but over time I was able to develop better ways to cope with the wins and the losses. I took that disappointment and learned to become a ‘good loser’ through maturity, practice, and a lot of patience. The support of my team, friends, family, and coaches allowed me to be the confident woman I am today.

College Involvement and Future with Sports

Although I decided to give up cheerleading when I made my decision to go to Southern Miss in 2012, athletics remained an important part of my life. During my undergrad, I was involved in student organizations associated with athletics. I was the intramural sports chair in my sorority (Phi Mu), I assisted with football recruitment as an Eagle Ambassador, and I was the marketing chair for the Student Eagle Club.

I am currently a graduate assistant for Athletics Development and the Eagle Club. I am also an event coordinator for the Athletic Department and I run the Student Eagle Club (JOIN TODAY!) Once I graduate, I plan to continue my career in collegiate athletics where I hope to excel and gain the experience necessary to one day work as the Event Coordinator for the NFL Foundation.