Maya (Virginia) Banton '24 Recruiting Profile

I began cheering my freshman year at South Lakes High School after doing gymnastics for fourteen years prior, culminating at the xcel platinum level. I made my school’s Varsity team and fell in love with cheer after the very first practice. Since then, I have spent all my free hours cheering and improving my skills while falling more in love with cheer and learning more every day. Cheerleading makes me happiest and I constantly look forward to getting in the gym and being with my teammates. Every team is a family, and no matter what college I attend, my team will be my family away from home. I feel the most like myself when I am cheering, and I LOVE performing. I want to cheer in college because cheerleading has been a grounding force and has added so much joy to my life. I believe I’d be an asset to any college cheerleading team because I am fun to watch, I love collaborating with teammates, and I am very versatile as both a flyer and a side base. My love for performing started when I was very young and competing in gymnastics competitions as well as dancing on stage for ballet. I love showing who I am and what I do best, and I believe that when I am cheering I am able to do this to the fullest extent and shine the brightest. College is something I have been looking forward to for my entire high school career and I am so excited to be preparing for those 4 years. I am open to competing for any division of cheerleading and I am so excited to meet my future coaches and teammates! My goal is to find the college and cheerleading program that is the best fit for me and to find a place that will help me to shine and grow as both a student and a cheerleader.