youbetterwork

Let me tell you the story of a cheerleader by the name of Royce Tisdale. Royce isn’t a “cheerlebrity” or even part of a big name gym.

 

Royce Tisdale showed up to American Cheer Xtreme, or ACX, one day in summer during an open gym session. After coming to a few sessions, he started acquiring tumbling skills. I’m not talking about cartwheels and forward rolls, Royce was a pro at standing handsprings on the spring floor and was working his way towards tucks. One session, the owner of ACX, Randy, noticed Royce marking through routines on the cheer floor with headphones plugged into his ears. Royce wasn’t on a team, so the fact that he knew the concept of a routine was amazing to Randy. Randy approached Royce and asked him how he knew all of these routines. His answer was simple. He had learned them on Youtube. Royce knew routines such as Stingray Orange, Cheer Extreme Senior Elite, Cheer Athletics Cheetahs, and Maryland Twisters. In August, Randy asked Royce if he would like to become a part of ACX and cheer on a team. Royce gladly accepted. Royce cheered on the youth 2 team called y2k.

 

This past fall, Royce received some heart-crushing news. Royce had been diagnosed with cancer. The first question he asked the doctor wasn’t “How long do I have?”. It was “Can I still cheer?”. Doctors discouraged cheering during chemotherapy sessions as his body was already weak. Royce, a fighter, refused to stop. He told Randy not to find someone to replace him, as competition season was quickly approaching. Even through the chemotherapy, Royce went full-out at competitions and all practices. He made sure all of his doctors appointments didn’t coincide with cheerleading. If he did miss a practice, he either came earlier or stayed later the next practice to make up for it.

 

This past week was NCA Nationals in Dallas. Royce went with his Youth 3 team. Sadly, Royce didn’t win first place. One of his dreams was to get a NCA jacket. His dream came true. Paige from World Cup Shooting Stars gave up her NCA jacket and gave it to Royce. Royce’s dream came true because of Paige.

 

In my opinion, Royce and Paige deserve more recognition than Maddie from CEA or Gabi from Top Gun. Paige gave up her jacket not for the fame, but because she wanted Royce’s, a boy who may not live til next NCA, dream to come true. Those are two true cheerleaders in my eyes.