Morgan Short '25 Recruiting Profile

Overview: 

I am in the graduating class of 2025 at Libertyville High School in the northern suburbs of Chicago. As a base and featured tumbler, I cheer both sideline and competitive and was the only Freshman on the Varsity team this year. I have been cheering since I was 5 years old and began competitive cheer 4 years ago when I hung up my soccer cleats because I kept doing flip-flops in the backfield while playing defense.

Background:

I’d like to begin by telling you a little bit about myself and my background in cheer. I started in gymnastics when I was three years old, my current tumbling coach “discovered” me tumbling on the sideline of my sister’s soccer games and asked me to be a flyer for her junior-high team to practice with. I fell in love with cheerleading on day one. My family was a big soccer family so I continued to play competitive soccer while keeping cheer as a side hobby for several years. In sixth grade, I committed to cheerleading full time and began focusing on improving my stunting, jumping, and tumbling skills. I competed in IRCA both sixth and seventh grade, with the team I was on qualifying for state both years and winning state in sixth grade. The training and competition experience paid off as I was selected to the varsity cheer team my freshman year while also being selected as captain of the competition team.

Lessons Learned:

Cheering for eleven years has made me appreciate the athleticism and mental toughness required for this sport. It is not easy to lift someone over one hundred pounds or to throw a standing tuck, these skills require hard work and dedication which I have demonstrated being in the gym six days a week for the last four years. In this sport, it is common to have injuries and mental blocks which I have faced and learned how to overcome.

Challenges:

My own personal challenge was trying to convince my family that I was serious about cheerleading and wanted to focus solely on this sport. I had to prove my dedication by going to the gym in the evenings on top of soccer and school in order to make progress on my tumbling skills. I had to demonstrate to my family that I had what it took to be a varsity athlete in this sport.

Goals:

My goal for high school cheerleading is to stay on varsity for all four years and to master my full to help my team be more competitive. I also intend to maintain above a 4.0 GPA and take approximately nine AP classes in order to make myself as competitive as possible for college admissions. In addition to cheering in college, I want to study language and communication sciences to pursue a career in speech pathology.