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This is a story about following your dreams, even though you might be swimming against the current. Collin Hadley, a senior at Koshkonong High School in south-central Missouri, says he used to be shy, and wasn’t very social. One thing he loved to do was flips. As in…
“Tumbling, back flips, front flips, side flips, wall flips,” Hadley says.
He did these “flips” at a nearby gymnastics studio, where his instructor said he should try cheerleading. There was only one problem—he wasn’t aware of any male who had ever been a cheerleader in this tiny town.
“I never really wanted to do that, because, you know, guys don’t really cheerlead.I wasn’t really comfortable with that,” he said.
But then, he and a buddy were approached by a couple of high school girls at a baseball game. The girls wanted Hadley and his friend to be on a cheer team. That did the trick.
He said he’s endured a little bit of teasing from the guys, but he has credibility, he says, because of his gymnastics skills.
“Like, if we’re cheering for other schools, you know, our community has kind of adjusted to it by now. But other schools aren’t used to that. We’ll walk out with the cheer team, and [they’re] giving us looks and stuff, then we start flipping around. And all of a sudden, their reactions are completely different. They’re like, ‘Wow. Look at these guys. That’s pretty awesome,’” he said.
The tiny town of Koshkonong has a population of 212, and the high school is a stone’s throw away from a cow pasture. In small rural Ozarks towns like this one, it’s pretty unusual to have a male cheerleader. Over the summer, Hadley left Koshkonong and drove to attend a three-day-cheer camp. It was there, you could say, that he was discovered.
“They just said, ‘Hey, you’ve been nominated as All-American, and you have the chance to try out,”’ he said.
Hadley did try out, and he made it as an All-American cheerleader. With that honor came the opportunity to go to London…if he could raise the money.With the support of his community, he did.
Even though he’s never been on an airplane before, he’ll fly to England in a few days, where he’ll perform in London’s New Year’s Eve Parade, and see the sites.
For KSMU News, I’m Jennifer Davidson.