Cheerful, Regardless

For the past nine years of my life, if I were to be asked how to describe myself in one word, I would answer without hesitation: cheerleader.

When the heavy gym door closed behind me after my last cheer tryout this March, I felt a surge of confidence. The idea of being cut never crossed my mind — I could already see myself leading cheers for the crowd along Mission Road from the top of the float on Lancer Day.

I would end my senior year of high school and 10th year of cheerleading sporting my columbia blue and black skirt on the SM North track, in Olathe West’s gym and center stage in Topeka at the state competition in front of the judges panel.

I was mentally preparing for 6 a.m. practices prepping for our next competition season. I already planned my vacations around the summer practice schedule — two-hour practices, five days a week, for six weeks spread throughout June and July.

But four hours after I walked out the gym doors, every thought was no longer in reach. The preparation was all for nothing.

The blank space where my name should have appeared on smecheer.com at 9:30 p.m. on March 29 mirrored exactly how I felt: my identity was missing.

I was cut from a program I had devoted the past three years of my life to — a sport I had been involved in since I was 10-years old. My sophomore year I was chosen from JV to be on the competition team, and my junior year, I devoted at least 12 hours a week to both competition and varsity.

When cheer was taken away from me, my chest tightened and it became hard to breathe. My heart felt as if it were being physically squeezed. Thoughts shot through my head as I tried to figure out where I went wrong, how my tryout wasn’t good enough. Every cheer-related memory flooded my mind. The comforting words and sympathetic embraces my friends encompassed me in served as background noise to the searing pain of the realization of all I had lost in a matter of hours.

After my mom received a phone call from the coaches informing her of cuts, she had a friend drive her to a party I was at with my friends to tell me the news. The hostess told me that my mom was waiting for me in the driveway.

She didn’t have to say a word. I knew I was cut when I read her face and found the look of pain and hurt, one that only a mother can feel for her daughter. I collapsed. Alternating between sobs of hurt and screams of disbelief, all I could do was repeat “No, no, no, this is not happening.”

Wearing that skirt and shaking those pom poms stood for who I was — my energy, my love for SME and the experiences which shaped my entire high school career. They symbolized dark Friday night bus rides home from Leavenworth after an exhilarating, too-close-for-comfort win over the Pioneers by the basketball boys. They symbolized who I had grown to be over the past 10 years and the unexpected yet irreplaceable friendships (Megan, Kimball – I’m talking to you.)

All of us — my friends, parents, fellow cheerleaders and teachers — were blindsided by this revelation.

If I was no longer a cheerleader, I didn’t know who I was. My mom deemed the loss of cheer in my life equivalent to a death of somebody dear to me. And in a sense, it was. My identity had shifted.

“You’re Gracie Kost, you’re a cheerleader, it’s who you are,” marketing and DECA advisor, Mercedes Rasmussen said. “Yes, it’s a hard thing to lose, but I know you and I know you are going to be able to excel in new things, like focusing on DECA. This was meant to happen so you can find other ways to define yourself.”

After hearing the news, I tried to fill the hole with an outlet that would allow me to express my enthusiasm for East as passionately as cheerleading once did. Exactly one week after being cut from cheer, the pep club executives were announced – which I had applied for – my name did not show up on the list. Again.

While I still plan to run for senior representative for pep club, exec is now out of the question. I have decided to giving Harbinger my all.  I’ve found a foreign amount of time on my hands, leaving me time to adventure to new places like Wyandotte County Lake Park with my friends for the day or go on TJ Maxx splurges with my mom. But there is always the faint noise in the back of my head wondering who am I now.

I will learn to accept that a white ribbon strapped into a wispy-free ponytail and place on a track do not define me as a cheerleader. I will carry the traits that cheer built up and radiate positivity in other environments in my life, I will continue to love the basketball boys – but from now on, I’ll be supporting them from the stands. A cheer uniform will not define my school spirit: it can be found in the American flag Converse high-tops tucked into the corner of my closet waiting to be broken in at my first football game in the student section next year.

I can only hope that this seemingly world-ending situation was in the cards for my life. Next year I will be given my first chance to get decked out in camouflage or grill out with my friends before football games, rather than making sure my pom poms are packed and heading to East two hours before the game starts. Now I will prioritize myself over the boys’ football team and allow myself the opportunity to focus on DECA, Harbinger and whatever else life throws my way.

The program can take their uniforms back and my name off of the varsity roster. And knowing I will never wear my banged-up white Varsity cheer shoes on the SMN track, I will finally take my seat in the senior section at pep assemblies. I will continue to show those around me why the team needs me. You’ll still see me at every football and basketball game, this time in the front row of the student section, cheering on my beloved Lancers.

Nobody wants the title of “cheerleader” more than I do. It’s who I am, was and will continue to be.

I will find myself.