Cheer – Profile on Aubrey Christian

Cheer+-+Profile+on+Aubrey+Christian

 

I sat down with one of the three Lakes Varsity Cheer seniors, Aubrey Chrisitan, and asked her questions about her experiences with cheerleading. “I have been cheering for 15 years”. Christian is 18 years old, so she has been cheering since she was 3 years old. The person who has supported Christian throughout her cheer career is her Mom. “She has taught me everything I know. She taught me how to do a backbend when I was three”. Since Christian has been cheering almost her whole life, I wanted to know the question that every athlete thinks about their senior year of high school: do you want to continue your sport in college? “Yea, I am planning on cheering for Lindenwood. I’m going to try out for their team”.

Coming from the cheerleading background myself, a lot of cheerleaders will have some type of superstition when it comes to competition days. Some superstitions are as little as having to eat the same breakfast the day of, and others come down to having to sit by the same person on the bus ride there or even wearing the same pair of socks. For Christian, superstitions are not bad for her. “If I do good in warmups, I won’t do good on the mat”.

I sat down with Christian’s teammate of three years, Ari Pecoraro, to get her take of Christian as a teammate. “Aubrey pushes me to be better during the routine… Aubrey definitely encourages the team when they’re having a hard practice. Whenever anybody is down, she’s always there to help them”. Now that we know that Christian pushes her teammates to be better, we want to know if Pecoraro sees Christian as a leader on the cheer team. “Aubrey’s definitely stepped up and been a leader this year and I think that her mindset is good, she doesn’t have the ‘I’m better than you’ mindset and just really cares about everybody on the team.”

Now that we have seen how Christian’s team sees her being a leader at practices, let’s see how the Head Varsity Cheer Coach, Korrina Andre, sees Christian as a leader to the team. “I think it’s evident at practice that Aubrey is encouraging her teammates in the stunts, tumbling, and jumps, especially working with the freshmen to get over that fear of going backwards. I think in years past, Aubrey has worked and saw other seniors and she has modeled behavior of what she has enjoyed from past seniors. She really wanted to make sure this year, as with the other two seniors, to make sure that it was an enjoyable experience for all kids and that the younger classmen did not feel left out”. We now know that Christian is able to push her teammates and lead her team, but let’s see how Andre sees Christian pushing herself to be better. “Currently right now, Aubrey pushes herself and challenges herself at every practice. Today, she came up and asked if she could do a new skill and she definitely was determined to get it, and she got it on her first attempt. I would say that Aubrey has worked to get over her fears of what has held her back in the past and maybe that’s with her senior season that is helping her do that to push herself”.

This being Christian’s last year of High School cheerleading, I wanted to know what she will miss most about Lakes Cheer. “I’m going to miss the football games, the friends I have made, and the connections”.