About Shannon!,  Cheerleading

Cheerleading is who I AM

Cheerleading Evolution

This is going to be long, so bare with me as I give you all the details on my cheer career! I have always wanted to be a cheerleader ever since I was 4 years old, and my mom put me in gymnastic classes as soon as we moved to Texas. The gym where I was enrolled in gymnastics also had a cheer program connected to it, and I could never pay attention in my mommy and me classes because my eyes were always glued to the cheerleaders in the back of the facility. I couldn’t help but want to be one of them instead of a 4 year old gymnast. I stuck with being a gymnast for about 2-3 more years, but after that I really wanted to be a cheerleader. One day, I was in one of my classes, and a cheer coach, JJ, came and swept me off of a beam and held me by my feet, and told me I should be a cheerleader. Ever since that day, i nagged my mom over and over again to go watch a competition to see if it would be something I actually wanted to

do….and sure enough it totally was! My mom signed me up for the next seasons tryouts, and you know the rest is history.

I started cheering at the cheer gym connected to my gymnastics place called CheerNation, and I started on a level 3 team my first year. I broke my elbow half way through the season, and had to get surgery, but didn’t stop me from still wanting to be a cheerleader even though my first year was a little rough. After a few more years of cheering at CheerNation on their junior level 5 team, the program merged with a gym called Prodigy Allstars where I ended up being on their junior level 5 team, Moonlight! It was such a crazy year with the merge happening, being in a new facility, having new coaches, and having new teammates, but i stuck with it and ended up

finally being on my first senior worlds team in 2012, Prodigy Midnight. This team is where i grew maturity and the grew my love for cheerleading! I started excelling even more and realizing what the cheer world really was, and I had this huge dream of being on a team in Dallas that was 4 hours away

 from my home in Katy, Texas. After being on Midnight for 2 years, I decided I was randomly going to ask my mom if I could try out for this team in Dallas… and sure enough after a few conversations later, my mom allowed me to drive up there and attend tryouts just to see what team I would make. After a few weeks of waiting, I finally got my call, and I made the team I always dreamed of being on, Cheer Athletics Cheetahs! I drove 4 and a half hours to practice and back for 2 years, I won 2 majors titles with them, which are two of the rings I got- that are shown in my homepage picture- and I truly fell in love with Cheer Athletics.

My senior year of high school, I wanted to do school cheer as well as drive 4 and a half hours to Cheer Athletics to be on an international team, Wildcats. Unfortunately that was not possible and I had to choose one or the other, and I ended up choosing School cheer and I was going to be done with Allstar Cheer since I was going to college

the next year. I attended a Woodlands Elite Cheer Company Showcase to watch my friend Ashley Wilson, one weekend, and ended up in tears because I missed doing Allstar cheer so much. Later that week, I got a phone call from one of the Woodlands Elite Black ops coaches asking if I wanted to be apart of their team since it was only 45 minutes away from my home.After one practice with them, I said yes to being apart of their program and never looked back! I won my first NCA title with Black Ops which is truly a memory I will never forget, and a great way to end my allstar career….so which I thought…

During my senior year of high school, I finally decided where I wanted to go to college. I chose Oklahoma State University!

OSU has always been known for their amazing cheer program, and I thought since I was not going to be doing Competitive cheer anymore, I wanted to go somewhere where the cheer program was at a high caliber! After spending a semester at OSU, I sadly realized Oklahoma wasn’t home, and was not where I wanted to spend the next 4 years of my life. Leaving my best friends I had made there, and leaving the amazing cheer program definitely wasn’t easy, but it was something that had to be done for my own sake. I stayed living at home for the spring semester, and doing online classes at a community college in Houston, but soon got bored out of my mind. I reached back out to Cheer Athletics asking if they had any available spots on a team, as I would love to come back for nationals season. Brad Habermel had told me that Panthers were looking for someone and I didn’t blink an eye. I was so excited to be on an all girl team, as I have always been on coed my whole life. I absolutely loved being apart of panthers 2017, where I placed 2nd at the Cheerleading World Championships and that was the first time I had ever placed top 3..but with my drive and my attitude, 2nd place at Worlds was not good enough for me. I couldn’t stay away from Cheer Athletics, so I decided to tryout the next year again and attend somewhere close to dallas, so I was able to cheer again, and hopefully get that Worlds Win!

My sophomore year of college, I ended up attending Navarro College, which has one of the best cheer programs in the World, and I was so excited I was able to do their cheer program, as well as be apart of Cheer Athletics again on Wildcats 2018! I got another NCA win, as well as a 2nd place again at the World Championships with wildcats, and a Collegiate NCA win with Navarro which was outstanding. I had a rough year on wildcats unfortunately, and getting second at worlds again kind of dropped my confidence, so I decided

I was going to focus just on Navarro the next year and give up on my allstar career. I stayed at Navarro for a second year to hopefully win another Collegiate win, and it is so far one of the best years yet! I started missing allstar cheer greatly, as all my friends were apart of it. I got a call asking to come be apart of Cheer Athletics Swooshcats, and I couldn’t say no…( i seriously can’t stay away). I am hoping this is the year for my Worlds Win, but if not, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be!

Cheerleading holds such a special place in my heart, I truly don’t know where I would be without it. The person I am today is thanks to all my coaches out there, teaching me how to be a decent human being, as well as coaching me in cheerleading. I definitely feel like I have conquered so much with cheerleading, and it has stepped me in the right direction in life.

Below you will find various pictures of me from all my years of cheerleading!♡

 

 

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