Personal Narrative Cheerleading

When I was 12 years old, I made it onto a cheerleading worlds team. Essentially, if my team got a bid, we would get to go to the Cheerleading Worlds competition at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Disney World. I am a part of the competitive cheer community along with 3.3 million other athletes in the U.S. alone. My teammates and I were ecstatic and could not wait for this moment to compete. Our team name was the Cheer Eclipse Comets. This was my tenth season doing competitive cheerleading. People have always told me that Worlds is the most prestigious competition that I will ever get to experience. You don’t realize how amazing it truly is until you see it for yourself. When I made this Worlds team at such a young age, I felt honored and amazed that I got to represent such an amazing team. The division I was in was a large coed level 5. This division, along with the large all girl division, is considered

This complex is a baseball stadium that can seat nearly 10,000 people. Competing under these lights in front of all these people would genuinely be a once in a lifetime experience. It was 8 P.M. in Florida and we were in the warm up room. When we got done warming up, my team and I started our long walk down the stairs. These stairs are well known at Worlds to be horrible and full of anxiety. The cheer world made this up because when you’re walking down the stairs you feel like you could pass out from being so nervous, scared, and excited all at the same time. The staffer that was taking us down the stairs turned and said to us, “Are you all ready for worst few minutes of your life on these stairs?” We all thought this was funny. This walk felt like I was frozen in time and everything else was moving around me. I didn’t know what to expect. We finally arrived upon the stadium and it was unreal to see everything out on the field for my team and our