We spend our entire season practicing and preparing for a single competition, the NCA Collegiate Cheerleading National Championships in Florida. As much as I love cheering for football and basketball and being so close to all the action, there's something exhilarating about competing and knowing that everyone in the crowd is there solely to watch you.

To find out that the only event we had been preparing all season for had been cancelled was surreal. Hundreds of hours of practice, of figuring out travel and financial logistics, of conditioning, and all the sacrifices made along the way to make time for these things all went down the drain. While getting to compete at Nationals for an 8^th and final time would have been an incredible way to end my cheerleading career, there's not a single minute I dedicated to Harvard cheer both this year and throughout all of college that I regret.
 
Thank you to Harvard cheer for teaching me resilience and how to push through when every hurdle imaginable is thrown your way (No practice space? Last minute injury the week of nationals and having to redo our entire routine? Not being able to hire a coach until the day before tryouts? Check, check, and check). Thank you for letting me be captain and everything I learned that came with that, from learning how to be more caring and empathetic, how to be a better leader, how to step up to make the hard decisions when they're needed, and all the real-world skills like budgeting and planning. Thank you for teaching me how to trust others, (and thanks to my teammates for always being there to catch me as well). Thank you for making more disciplined, from the 6 AM practices and report times to making sacrifices in other areas to juggle cheer with schoolwork and other activities. Thank you for teaching me how to be more responsible, (a lesson I learned quickly freshman year after showing up to a game in the wrong uniform and having to sprint from the river to the yard and back in record time). Thank you for every other life lesson learned, for every door opened, and for every priceless memory.
 
Most importantly, thank you to Harvard cheer for giving me the most incredible friends that I could have ever asked for- friends who will drop everything to come over and check on you when you call them crying in the middle of the night, who will send you videos of puppies when you're feeling down, who will send you cute good luck texts before exams, who will adopt you into their blocking groups when you transfer houses, and who will support you no matter what, including in your ridiculous ideas like tackling a 20-scoop sundae. Thank you for being my family these past 4 years.
 
Finally, thank you to everyone else who has made these past 4 years possible. Thank you to Alex from Athletics for all his help, to Katherine and everyone else from Marketing for being a pleasure to work with, to Coach Beth for everything she's done this year coaching the program for the first time, to Coaches Meg and Ally for always being so supportive throughout not just my first three years but this year as well, and to the Friends of Harvard Cheer for their financial support. Last of all, thank you to my family and my high school coach, Mrs. Mayer, for their constant support.