September 8, 2022 • 35 mins
In this week on Beyond the Megaphone’s debut episode, Cassidy and Nathan talk about their “One Shining Moment” last spring in the 2022 NCAA March Madness Tournament!They each share their stories on what led them to cheer, what got them involved, and everything they have experience that has made them fall in love with the sport.They finish this episode with a deep dive into the world of ‘Name, Image, and Likeness’ or ‘NIL’, and how athletes are now able to profit off of their accomplishments in college athletics.They can’t wait to share the world of cheerleading with you!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Beyond the Megaphone is a production of I Heart Radio
and the College Athletes Network. Hey, everybody, this is Nathan
and Cassidy. You're listening to Beyond the Megaphone on the
College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to the podcast that you
never miss a new episode. This can easily be done
(00:22):
via the I Heart Radio app. Also, you can find
me on Instagram and Twitter at our Nathan Paris and
you can find me on Instagram at Cassy with a
double y Sarnie. All right, Hey, welcome to Beyond the Megaphone.
For everyone listening, this has been about five months in
the making. UM. If you're listening to this, it's pretty
much because something really crazy happened in March, and we're
(00:45):
gonna tell you about that. UM. We want to before
we get into it, we want to say just how
thankful we are, UM for everybody's support ever since the
crazy March madness one shiny moment happened. UM, it's been
so overwhelming but so positive at the same time. And
we can't thank each and every one of you guys enough,
(01:06):
UM for all the support thus far. And we have
so much to tell you guys about cheer and about
that and we're so excited to tell you. Um, so
let's get into it. Why don't you tell everybody about
who the Castie Serny is? Okay? Um, all right, Well
starting off with my crazy live I'm so crazy. Um.
(01:28):
I was a gymnast for a little bit and then
I just fell out of love with gymnastics and wanted
something new. I did All Star for like my eighth
and eighth grade year and my freshman year. My sophomore
year I quit. I was just it wasn't the environment
I wanted to be in my sophomore year, I just
(01:49):
did high school cheer um. But then my junior year,
I joined the same all star Jim again. Um, and
I had a whole entire new team than them I
did before. I was the oldest on my team. I
had twelve year olds on my team. I had thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
I was sixteen turning seventeen at the time. Um. So yeah,
(02:11):
I was a wide range of kids. I was like
oldest cheerleader at my gym for like that remainder of time.
Um yeah until I left. Yeah. Um. And it was
it was a big adjustment because you know, you're surrounded
by these kids who were so much younger than you
and you have like all these goals that you want
for a team. But it was a great opportunity for
(02:32):
me to take a spot as a leadership on that team.
Um and my first year I came back with junior year,
my team consisted of eleven athletes, and going into a
competition with eleven athletes on the map, it's really intense
because it's hard to make yourself look showy when you
(02:53):
don't have as many athletes. But that first competition, I
knew that team was going to be absolutely insane. Every
person on that team just has such a big heart
for cheer and wanted cheer as much as I did,
and all had goals for you know, what they wanted
to do in their season, how they wanted to end
their season, and just everyone was super driven. And I
(03:16):
think that that year sparked my love for cheer more
and made me want to cheer in college even more.
And all those girls still to this day are like
people who I am inspired by. I'm inspired by like
a thirteen year old, so weird, But um, yeah, that
was a great year and I had that same team
my senior year. Senior year got cut short, and I
(03:41):
was unable to finish with that team. But UM, I
tried out for AU College cheer made the co ed team.
I spent two years there, and now I'm an old girl,
UM studying clinical psychological sciences. I don't know what that
means or what I'm gonna do with it. I as
(04:02):
of today, It'll change tomorrow probably, but as of today,
I either want to be a professor or I went
to be a clinical psychologist. Well, yeah, I don't know.
She's smart. Smart. It's awesome. Thanks. That's well a little
bit about me. UM. I found cheer much differently than
(04:27):
I would say the average cheerleader finds cheer, but maybe
not the average male cheerleader. UM. From what I've found
at my time during cheer, especially in the Midwest regions,
and you know, especially at I, you cheers something that
starts for males in college. You know, it's not a
lot of people in high school, middle school, and you know,
(04:47):
primary school who do All Star, who do school. UM,
it's much more common for those to be mainly females,
and so so it's been really fun. Growing up. I
was doing all types of sports. I did baseball, basketball,
a little bit of track, tennis, UM A cross country
(05:08):
that was awful. UH, don't miss that at all, UM.
And I just kind of was trying to keep myself busy, UM,
trying different things. My main tour basic baseball and basketball. UM.
I also was UM in theater. I did theater for
seven years. UM. Loved that. That was super fun. UM.
And then I also was in the a lot of
(05:29):
the arts, the music. I was in show choir, regular choir, band,
I played the outdoor saxophone, and so I kind of
had my handed a lot of different things. And so
when I got to EYEU, this is an incredibly large
school that you know, you can't do everything right. You
kind of have your one thing and that's that's it.
So what I started out doing was band. I I
(05:50):
was in the Marching hundred for two years UM and
that was awesome. I loved it. I have such great
memories from those uh you know, best seats in the
house most of the time for all games. UH. It
was so fun. UM getting to perform again. I missed
that feeling of performing UM. And so as my second
(06:10):
year went on, during the band, we perform with the
cheer team, the dance team, the band, and the cheer
team all are kind of the spirit squad, and so
what I started noticing was how much fun the cheerleaders
were having and how much fun cheer looked. And I
vividly remember this one guy, uh, during one of the
football games, through this girl right over his head all
(06:32):
the way to the top toss extension, and after he
was done catching, he looked right back down and started
talking to somebody on the ground like it was nothing.
And I was like, this is insane. I need to
learn how to do that, Like it just seems so
um crazy to me that you could do that. And
so I reached out our head coach, Julie. I reached
(06:53):
out to her, um at the beginning of UM, let
her know my interests. She was so awesome about it. Um.
She got me into a practice, got me in contact
with some of the teammates, the team members at the time,
and it just started practicing, trying to figure it out.
And then COVID hit. So I tried out online and
it worked out. Um that might have been why it
(07:13):
worked out, because he tried out online. UM. But um,
but it's been fun and it's it's been an amazing ride.
Um Yeah, I'm I just graduated. Uh, you got a
degree in finance and information systems. Um going to grad school.
Now we got one more year here, one last ride,
(07:33):
and it's gonna be great. So what I loved about
um cheer once we first started like that. Let's go
back to that first year during COVID. Okay, the COVID year,
we couldn't regularly practice. We weren't at games, neither was
anyone else. So we were on the team, but we
couldn't do anything that the team would do. So so
it was weird, right, Um, So we had to figure
(07:54):
out ways to one figure out how to cheer. I'm
talking about me specifically. Um, I joined this thing and
I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. So
we would meet up um outside because it was it
was safe to do so outside, and we were just
trying stunt. It's over and over and over again. A
lot of the yeah, a lot of the new people. UM.
(08:16):
But I think that's how we got so close, especially
our group, the ones that would go every day. I mean,
we ended up just becoming best friends immediately outside. Yeah.
I mean I'd wake up, I go to my online classes,
and my entire day just consisted of when I'm gonna
go stunt? When is that gonna happen? Right? And then
we'd get there, it'd be like early afternoon. We wouldn't
(08:37):
leave until the street lights came home. Literally, sun is set,
like it should not be out there anymore. Everyone's asleep,
and my fresh to cheer shoulders definitely could not handle that.
Um but that was okay, um, But yeah, I mean
it's just been awesome. It was. It was super intimidating
for me because I was coming from a whole different
(08:59):
world into the athletics world. I remember, let's do first impressions. Okay,
So I show up. I thought you were like a junior. Okay,
I thought we were the same age because when I
showed up to the first stunding session, you were like
already doing all the crazy stuff, like everything was already
figured out on your end, and you were studying with Ethan,
(09:22):
who was so fro from who I know is like
the best on our team, um you know. And so
I was like, oh, well, they are returners, they're doing
their own thing. I'll hang out with the we'll just
do that. And then we finally met each other and
you're like, yeah, I'm freshman. I was like, what it's like, Okay,
(09:43):
my bad. Um. Now, my first impression of Cass was, um,
she's really nice, but she definitely knows what she's doing,
so don't slow her down. That was that was my like,
that was my impression. I was like, oh man, she's
gonna have to be really patient. Wh But what about you?
My first impression of you was a lot. I have
(10:08):
never been like I had someone so close to my
life now, at least at the time, we weren't that close,
but like meaning you originally you had just so much
energy from the start, and I have always been such
a very like when I'm introverted to I'm just like
quiet for most of my days. And three you were
(10:31):
the guy with the speaker, so you had your your E.
D M on just getting ready to go, and I
was so like sensory overload for like a couple of days.
And then I like figured it out and I was like, Okay,
I actually have a lot of pent up energy too,
this is perfect, dude. I didn't. I did not used
(10:55):
to be like. I have never had like a group
of friends where I could be so in ergetic all
the time and literally be like on when all the
time until like this friend group honestly, so yeah, I
mean after COVID, basically we were just like, let's just
stunt and stunt and stunt practice and practice practice. We're
(11:16):
ever going to get to the field. Fast forward eighteen
months from joining the team and we're getting ready for
our first game day. I was terrified. I mean, like,
I've never been more, um insecure, not confident, nervous in
my life, right because you gotta think, like, this is
(11:37):
my first time I ever putting this on in a
professional level, not professional, but like performing this and it's
not just practice, right, So that was that was really
overwhelming for me. But at the same time, I've never
been more excited for a performance in my life, you know,
I'm I would first tell you I definitely teared up
and got emotional before the first game. Oh yeah, gonna
(12:00):
cry but in a bad way. Oh no, this was
really good tears like the like the second we stepped out.
It was a versus Idaho, a night game. The lights
are on, the student session is packed from the crazy
season we had during um, I mean, it's filled to
the brim already pre game. That's unheard of. It at
I U football, all right, So I just look up
(12:20):
and I just lose it. Nobodn't really notice it because
I was hanging out with Tias, and but I was like,
Matias can see me cry, and that's fine because he's
emotional like me. But I was like, I can't show
everybody that I just get emotional before we even did anything.
So yeah, it was. I mean after that, I was like,
all right, we gotta we gotta, we got stuff to do.
(12:41):
Mallory looked at me, She's like, you ready to go,
and I was like, okay, yeah, I'm ready. Sorry. Um,
but yeah, after that, off the races and we never
looked back. That first season was so amazing, huge shout
out to Mallory for the whole season. I mean, she
was like my rock during all of it. When I
was like I don't know what I'm doing, She'd be like, Okay,
let's slow it down, let's figure it out. Here's what
you're gonna do. I was like, okay, cool. Um. So
(13:04):
she was amazing um start to finish. Um couldn't have
asked for a better first year with somebody, and we
were together the whole year. It was. It was just awesome.
I I replay all of our moments during the first season,
I was just like, this was literally perfect. You know. Yeah,
football season was good. Football season was really good. I
had Ethan, which is now a coach, as my stunt partner,
(13:27):
um which you obviously he's coached down. He was great,
helped me a lot through football season. He was my
stunt partner for a little bit of basketball season, and
then I got Cam. Okay, Cam, if you're listening, I
love you. He was amazing. He had never been in
this type of atmosphere before, so that was a little
(13:50):
bit of a like rocky start, but he did great.
My most iconic from like regular seasons Perdue game. That
game was in insane. I was with Ethan at that game,
and I was underneath the basket, which is like a
huge deal, and it was like the most intense game
(14:10):
ever to watch and to like have that type of
c at that game just be like in it the
whole time. There's cameras everywhere, there's people everywhere, literally the
first to rush the cores. That was intense, but it
was so fun. I was back sweat everywhere in that uniform.
My legs hurt after that game from like jumping up
(14:33):
and down. It was amazing. I love that game. That
game was that was literally a conic, that was a
piece of history. We were there. Yeah, it was almost
as cool as what happened in March. That is true.
So when we come back, we'll take you through um,
our crazy one Shining moment um, start to finish, the
full story, um, everything that you want to know and
(14:56):
need to know. Um. You may have heard it or
may have read about it somewhere, maybe on Instagram or
or bleach your report or maybe, but we'll take you
through everything starts to finish. So, um, this is Beyond
the Megaphone. I'm Nathan and and this is the College
Athletes Network. Welcome back to Beyond the Megaphone on the
(15:27):
College Athletes Network. I'm Nathan and I'm Cassidy. Subscribe to
our podcast so that you never missed another episode. Okay,
the moment, the one, shining moment um, the stunt heard
around the world. Let's get into it. Okay, So where
does the story start. We could start it at the night,
but I think there's more to that story. Let's start
(15:48):
in dating. Okay, So to give context, this is the
first time I had ever been in the tournament. UM
for like the past five years, four or five years
since we've been in the NT double A tournament. Um,
and so it was a big deal. We were excited
to go. Um. And so we land in the playing
game during the selection Sunday. So we go to Dayton. Uh,
(16:09):
this game is packed. We're playing Wyoming. We know nothing
about this team. Um, but they're talking some smack, not
gonna lie like they definitely came in thinking they were
gonna win by like a lot. They didn't think it's
gonna be kind of made me a little nervy. Yeah, no, yeah,
and yeah the game was pretty close. It so we
wont it. It It doesn't matter. But um, so we go
(16:30):
through that game. Um. The game starts at like nine
because we're the second game, of course, and it doesn't
get out to like eleven thirty at night. So here's
what's crazy. After that, we don't get We don't go
home and take a night and then get up and
go to Portland. No, no, no, no no. We get
on a plane and go straight to the airport from
(16:51):
the game and fly out to Portland overnight. Yeah, I
remember that game. The game ended. We're literally renting out
of there. To get to the airport because we had
you know, we had to get there on time or
plane would leave right no wrong. Um. We waited at
a charter airport for like two hours. The first two hours.
(17:15):
The first two hours were on a plane. They're not moving.
Nobody knows why. Find out that there's too much luggage
on the plane. I don't know what to do about it.
So we're just sitting there waiting to see if they're
going to figure something out. It was hot. It was
so hot. I was sitting next to j P and
then the aisle next to me was Matthias, Jonah and
(17:39):
Andre I'm surrounded by what is it buy you guys?
You like by the basketball team. So I was okay.
I was like, this is awesome. I'm talking to Dane
five and some of the other players. I was like,
this is crazy. I was like, we can stay here
all night, and that's fine. I would not stay there
all night. I wanted to sleep. But that two hours
(18:00):
later passed and we're still waiting, and then they're like, okay,
never mind, we're moving to another plane. So we moved
to another plane. Get on the plane. We wait for
like another two hours because it was too heavy. Again,
that was the thing. It was the same exact plane,
So I don't really know what the whole switching thing was,
but I have no clue. But then they just decided, okay,
(18:20):
well cheer and banned because it was basketball, cheer and
banned all on the same plane. And they decided to
leave our luggage behind because it was the heaviest and
they were gonna send it at a later day. So
we didn't leave Dayton until like three four thirty UM,
Indiana time, and so that was like um, one thirty
(18:44):
a m. Portland's time, because we're going out to Portland.
So then we finally get into the air. It's five
and a half hour flight, so we don't really get
to our hotel and I think it was seven thirty,
which was ten thirty our time, and we hadn't really slept.
I think I slept two hours on the on the plane. UM.
And so we get there. We're all tired, but like
(19:07):
it's fine whatever, it's spring break. We're out, we're hanging out. Um,
We're like we can sleep later. It's fine. I slept
when we got there. Some of them did not. Um,
they out, they went out and yeah, they just needed
some caffeine. So we get there, we're hanging out. Portland's great.
It's a really fun time with our team and everything
like that. Um. Fast forward to game day. Yeah, we
(19:30):
get up, we're ready to roll. Um, we're excited. I mean,
social media's going crazy for are you, Like we said,
this is a big deal. Um. We get there. Um,
we get situated, and we get into our warm up
area and we get on the court and um, we're
playing in Portland, so we're in the Trailblazers stadium. Um.
And so as we are getting ready and get situated,
(19:52):
Andy katz Um comes up the reporter and uh, I
don't I don't think I actually told you this until now.
But before that game started, me and Mallory went up
to him and was like, Hey, if you need any
like extra content during the game, let us know, we'd
be happy to an interview. I'm so mad. I didn't
know about that. So I kind of predicted our own future.
(20:15):
But it is what it is. Um. So we get
there and it's it's totally fine. Um. Mom and dad
of course are like the first twenty people, some of
the first twenty people in the whole stadium. Um. So
they're going crazy. It's just awesome. Game starts, it's not
going great for the Hoosiers. It's okay, it's fine. It's
(20:36):
not going great, um exactly. And so first half comes
and goes, and then right after halftime we're into it
and Trace puts up this shot and the ball is
not coming back. Ball stuck. They go through the mop.
They try and get us stool. The poor ref who's
(20:57):
like five eight, tries to stand on a chair. That's
not gonna work. They don't let the players down the
chair that would have probably actually gotten the ball off,
that would have been tall enough, but it's a liability thing.
They can't stand a chair. So then what happened they
I remember the St. Mary's player looked over at us.
We're like all intensely watching what's going on, and St.
(21:17):
Mary's players looks over at us and motion to throw
up a stunt. Basically, I saw that and just shot up.
It was like, someone put me up, Someone put me up.
Our coach and Ethan are like, we need the tallest
guy if we're going to actually do this, so we
don't look dumb. And if we wouldn't have been talling,
(21:38):
Oh my gosh, no, no, absolutely not. So Nathan's tallest
starting team. UM stands up and we literally built our
stunt right where we were and walked over because I
was nervous. I was like, I was like, okay, I
can go. And so I wasn't thinking like we should
go to where the ball is. I was just like,
(21:58):
let's just put stunt up and then they'll know we're
doing something. UM. And so we put the stunt up
an hour or seven ft away, and I was like, well,
I didn't really think this through. Probably should have done
this at the ball. So again our drummonds hyped up.
I've never really walked with a stunt until then. I
no thoughts in my brain. I had no clue like,
(22:19):
oh yeah everything. I was blacked out every time. Yeah.
And so we put the stunt up. I walked like
seven to ten feet with her in hands, not at
like his shoulders or anything like that. UM, and then
I pressed her to extension, UM grabs the ball, gets
it down. What were you thinking when you, like, when
you touch the ball at the top of the bagboard,
(22:40):
what were you like? Um? It was it was cool
hearing like people make a big deal out of it
because it's just something that you know, we knew we
could have done easily, but everyone was going nuts just
because the build up to get the ball down was
so intense and nothing was working until we stepped in. Um.
(23:00):
I don't really really remember anything that I was thinking.
The only thing I remember vividly after that was I
came down through the ball. I got a high five
from c Johnson. Do we deal or anything. That's probably
the best part for you. That was the best part
for me. I don't care about the interviews of my
n I L. Johnson gave me at Zavia Johnson gave
(23:23):
me a high five. So that's the end of the story. Yeah,
so we bring the stunt down. Everything's cool, crowds going crazy.
We kind of thought it was just like a moment
for the stadium, right we're on the jumpbo Tron got
our five seconds of fame. Oh that was crazy. You know,
we might have a there might be a tweet or
something like that, or I think maybe my mom got
a video, because you know, like that's the most of
(23:45):
what I was thinking, right, So then we get back
down like that was really fun. That was that was
cool to see the team's laughing because we're like, I
can't believe that just happened. And then I get a
tap on the shoulder. It's the same guy Andy Cats
right behind me said hey, um, Nathan right and I
was like yeah, and um he was like, hey, where's
(24:07):
where's just a partner who you just lifted up? And
I was like, she right here, and so um grabs
us and as did a full interview. The game was
literally going on fift away from us, and we're giving
this interview about which has happened. And I was like,
maybe this wasn't just a little moment for the stadium.
I'm pretty sure this was televised on national TV. And
(24:31):
so the whole second the second half, we had two
more interviews um in the stadium, one during the second half,
one right after, and then we got on our phones.
It was just the floodgates were open. I mean, I
thought was going to break. Yeah, I've never seen so
(24:51):
many notifications. Um yeah, it's it was just crazy. So
you know then, so even even still we get through
all that, we get I get all of my notifications,
looked at all this crazy stuff. We go back to
the hotel, We're like, wow, that was crazy. We just
got onto TV for a couple of seconds. That's crazy.
(25:12):
And then so that's what I just thought, that was it, right.
We thought it was just that day. Then we got
our first phone call for an interview from Good Morning America.
They were like, hey, could you be um we'd like
to have you on your show tomorrow and I was like, oh,
oh okay, um yeah sure. What time? They were like,
(25:34):
how does seven am sound? We were like, well, a
little early, but it's worth it, you know, it's Good
Morning America. And they're like, great, so we'll see you
at seven am Eastern and I was like, oh, hold
on that, it's a little bit of that's four am
Portland's time. Um. So basically, once again, we didn't really sleep. Um,
(25:54):
we got up around three to get ready. We had
to get Game Day ready because we're gonna be on
on the TV. And then I don't know, it was
just kind of like a snowball effects. I think, well,
the Good Morning America one was live, so then like
everyone every news channel was like, oh, they were just
on Good Morning America. Let me get them on my show.
(26:16):
They're like dm ng me you, Julie Megan, like everyone
just wanting to see if they could get in contact
with us, and when we thought it was over, it
just kept going. It kept going until we literally had
to leave. Yeah, we were heading out because we had
lost the game. Um, we were heading out that morning
around eight thirty. We got up around three thirty. We
(26:39):
never went back to bed. From three thirty we were
interview after interview. I think we ended up doing fourteen
interviews in the span of two days. And it was
it's crazy, you know, for hands extension, right for one
of the easiest skills we do on a on a
during a game. Still to this day, I can't leave it.
(27:00):
It happened, but um, yeah, it was a lot, especially
when we were like at the arena, still letting it
all happen. But I remember when we were walking back
to go get our phones, Julie was on the phone
with Megan and telling us about how she thinks we
can make money off of this, like referring to n
I L stuff. Um, and that did happen. She was right.
(27:20):
So when we come back, we'll get into the n
I L deals that we got some stories about our
experience with the N I L and our shirts all
that fun stuff. We'll see what we got. Um. So
you're listening to Beyond the Megaphone. I am Cassidy and
I'm Nathan and this is the College Athletes Network. Welcome
(27:53):
back to Beyond the Megaphone on the College Athletes Network.
This is Cassidy and Nathan. Subscribe out to this podcast.
You don't miss our show. So n I L l
UM Basically n I L is SO and I'll started
I think during Oddly enough, it's only been around for
(28:14):
a couple of years UM. And it's an I L
stands for Name, Image and Likeness UM. And so it's
basically a chance for college athletes to make money off
of things that they do in their sport UM. And
so it's not really something that you would think about
for cheerleading. It's mainly for basketball and football, UM and
maybe baseball and some of the SEC programs, maybe some
(28:36):
Western Coast programs, but UM. Yeah. And so we got
to have our a couple of experiences within I L UM.
A couple of days after we got UM a couple
of offers from some representation. We ended up working with
Brand New, Brand New Sports. Big shout out to Richie
and David uh They've been awesome. Everybody else at Brand
(28:59):
new have been so helpful and the opportunity we've gotten
have been just crazy. Um, and so that's been really awesome.
We got some shirts we've done. We've done some shirts,
two shirts, a red one and a white one. Um,
they're pretty dope, not gonna lie. Um, not to plug
or anything. Yeah, if you needed one, you could probably
(29:22):
find one. Um No, but they've been awesome. And I
think my favorite thing about n i L has been
our whole day of trying to fulfill all of the
things required for Sparkling Ice. So Sparkling Ice was our
first ever n i L deal. Um, and we did
not do it well. Um. We first off, we forgot
(29:44):
when it was due. Um. And we're like right during
a break, so like campus is empty, everything is locked. Um,
we can't get into the room that we're gonna try
and film it in. Um, we just need to make
one little video, but we could not find anywhere. So
we end up going outside on our like recreational basketball
(30:04):
goals with just kids walking down the street just looking
over and being like, well, this is weird. It was freezing.
We're trying to do this ten second video. I remember
setting up a camera in the crevice of a tree. Um,
So definitely definitely a learning curve with n I l um.
(30:24):
But like it's fun, you know, and for for cheer
and for our moment. It was very short term, right, Um,
So we really were trying to milk the n C
Double A Tournament as much as possible. So we ad that, Yeah,
we wanted to. Yeah, I mean that was the whole
the whole purpose of the Sparkling ice deal. Um. But um,
(30:47):
yeah it was just fun. Um what do you think?
What did you think of like the whole start to
finish and I'll like contracts, this, any other, Like, how
do you feel about all that stuff? Uh? The business
side of it could care less. I don't know anything
about business. Don't ask me about anything business related. I
will literally give you my money if you were trying
(31:10):
to convince me to, like, I'm so bad with the
business side of it. The like principle of it, although,
is something that I was very very interested in. I
as like someone who's been around this cheer environment for
so long and like seeing how the media looks at
cheer This was like the one opportunity that I was
(31:31):
involved in that could bring more light to cheerleaders and
you know what, like what we can do bring more
opportunities to my team hopefully, like stuff like that, promoting
our program and I you in general like that. That
was what I was really interested in. And I didn't
care about, you know, the money part of it. Really,
(31:52):
it was more just the I'm a cheerleader and I
got an n I L deal like being able to
be one of the very few sports outside of football
and basketball, which are you know, and I was pretty
much targeted for. It was a big opportunity and a
great way to just get the I U cheer program
(32:13):
out there. Yeah, it's been fun, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy insane. Um. Yeah,
I think that's the the best thing, is like trying
to just give cheer a positive voice, um, put here
in a positive light. You know, there's a lot of
stuff that has come out recently about cheer, and you know,
(32:36):
there's there's really kind of two types of cheer. Um
you have like competition, you have game day And what's
really awesome about this opportunity is we get to give
light to game day cheer, yes, which often gets overshadowed
by competition style chere all star style chere um and
so and really, when you think about this whole podcast, like,
(32:56):
this is a chance for us, and this is why
we want to do it, is to of future athletes
a vision of what college cheer looks like inside of
college chere and not just the like competition side of
it all. I mean, like the game day part of
college cheer is such an important part. And you know,
as a high school cheerleader, I had absolutely no idea
(33:17):
about anything college cheerleader, just because it's so hidden about
all of that stuff. So I think, you know, this
is a great opportunity for us to be able to
share what we know so far. We're not experts, but
we're experienced it as we're talking. The biggest thing for
me is we're doing this because we love it, right, Like,
(33:39):
like this whole cheer has changed my life. I was
in a really dark spot UM during COVID and cheer,
and everybody around brought me out of it, UM, specifically Maddie, Mattias,
Jonah and you that first year UM we joined. I've
(34:01):
never been around more positive people in my life. UM.
I've never been surrounded by people who are always building
me up quite like you forehead that first year UM,
and I could go on for hours about every single
person on our team. UM, but those are just the people.
I remember that that first couple of weeks UM really
(34:22):
helped me out and really showed me, you know, how
amazing life can be in the context of cheer. UM.
And that's what's kept me around, is what's kept me here,
that's what's getting me to do it during grad school. UM.
But uh, it's changed my life. And and this podcast
is is just a representation of how much we care
(34:43):
about cheer, how much we care about our team and
our program, and how much we want to share what
we've learned. So upset better myself. We can't wait. We
we can't wait to share everything that we've learned and
every think we've experienced UM over the next several episodes
(35:03):
during our first season. So stick around, you won't regret it.
As always, thanks for listening to Beyond the Megaphone on
the College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to you don't miss
an episode. I'm Nathan and I'm Cassidy and we'll talk
to you soon. Thanks so much. Beyond the Megaphone has
been a presentation of I Heart Radio and the College
Athletes Network.
Beyond the Megaphone is a production of I Heart Radio
and the College Athletes Network. Hey, everybody, this is Nathan
and Cassidy. You're listening to Beyond the Megaphone on the
College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to the podcast that you
never miss a new episode. This can easily be done
(00:22):
via the I Heart Radio app. Also, you can find
me on Instagram and Twitter at our Nathan Paris and
you can find me on Instagram at Cassy with a
double y Sarnie. All right, Hey, welcome to Beyond the Megaphone.
For everyone listening, this has been about five months in
the making. UM. If you're listening to this, it's pretty
much because something really crazy happened in March, and we're
(00:45):
gonna tell you about that. UM. We want to before
we get into it, we want to say just how
thankful we are, UM for everybody's support ever since the
crazy March madness one shiny moment happened. UM, it's been
so overwhelming but so positive at the same time. And
we can't thank each and every one of you guys enough,
(01:06):
UM for all the support thus far. And we have
so much to tell you guys about cheer and about
that and we're so excited to tell you. Um, so
let's get into it. Why don't you tell everybody about
who the Castie Serny is? Okay? Um, all right, Well
starting off with my crazy live I'm so crazy. Um.
(01:28):
I was a gymnast for a little bit and then
I just fell out of love with gymnastics and wanted
something new. I did All Star for like my eighth
and eighth grade year and my freshman year. My sophomore
year I quit. I was just it wasn't the environment
I wanted to be in my sophomore year, I just
(01:49):
did high school cheer um. But then my junior year,
I joined the same all star Jim again. Um, and
I had a whole entire new team than them I
did before. I was the oldest on my team. I
had twelve year olds on my team. I had thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
I was sixteen turning seventeen at the time. Um. So yeah,
(02:11):
I was a wide range of kids. I was like
oldest cheerleader at my gym for like that remainder of time.
Um yeah until I left. Yeah. Um. And it was
it was a big adjustment because you know, you're surrounded
by these kids who were so much younger than you
and you have like all these goals that you want
for a team. But it was a great opportunity for
(02:32):
me to take a spot as a leadership on that team.
Um and my first year I came back with junior year,
my team consisted of eleven athletes, and going into a
competition with eleven athletes on the map, it's really intense
because it's hard to make yourself look showy when you
(02:53):
don't have as many athletes. But that first competition, I
knew that team was going to be absolutely insane. Every
person on that team just has such a big heart
for cheer and wanted cheer as much as I did,
and all had goals for you know, what they wanted
to do in their season, how they wanted to end
their season, and just everyone was super driven. And I
(03:16):
think that that year sparked my love for cheer more
and made me want to cheer in college even more.
And all those girls still to this day are like
people who I am inspired by. I'm inspired by like
a thirteen year old, so weird, But um, yeah, that
was a great year and I had that same team
my senior year. Senior year got cut short, and I
(03:41):
was unable to finish with that team. But UM, I
tried out for AU College cheer made the co ed team.
I spent two years there, and now I'm an old girl,
UM studying clinical psychological sciences. I don't know what that
means or what I'm gonna do with it. I as
(04:02):
of today, It'll change tomorrow probably, but as of today,
I either want to be a professor or I went
to be a clinical psychologist. Well, yeah, I don't know.
She's smart. Smart. It's awesome. Thanks. That's well a little
bit about me. UM. I found cheer much differently than
(04:27):
I would say the average cheerleader finds cheer, but maybe
not the average male cheerleader. UM. From what I've found
at my time during cheer, especially in the Midwest regions,
and you know, especially at I, you cheers something that
starts for males in college. You know, it's not a
lot of people in high school, middle school, and you know,
(04:47):
primary school who do All Star, who do school. UM,
it's much more common for those to be mainly females,
and so so it's been really fun. Growing up. I
was doing all types of sports. I did baseball, basketball,
a little bit of track, tennis, UM A cross country
(05:08):
that was awful. UH, don't miss that at all, UM.
And I just kind of was trying to keep myself busy, UM,
trying different things. My main tour basic baseball and basketball. UM.
I also was UM in theater. I did theater for
seven years. UM. Loved that. That was super fun. UM.
And then I also was in the a lot of
(05:29):
the arts, the music. I was in show choir, regular choir, band,
I played the outdoor saxophone, and so I kind of
had my handed a lot of different things. And so
when I got to EYEU, this is an incredibly large
school that you know, you can't do everything right. You
kind of have your one thing and that's that's it.
So what I started out doing was band. I I
(05:50):
was in the Marching hundred for two years UM and
that was awesome. I loved it. I have such great
memories from those uh you know, best seats in the
house most of the time for all games. UH. It
was so fun. UM getting to perform again. I missed
that feeling of performing UM. And so as my second
(06:10):
year went on, during the band, we perform with the
cheer team, the dance team, the band, and the cheer
team all are kind of the spirit squad, and so
what I started noticing was how much fun the cheerleaders
were having and how much fun cheer looked. And I
vividly remember this one guy, uh, during one of the
football games, through this girl right over his head all
(06:32):
the way to the top toss extension, and after he
was done catching, he looked right back down and started
talking to somebody on the ground like it was nothing.
And I was like, this is insane. I need to
learn how to do that, Like it just seems so
um crazy to me that you could do that. And
so I reached out our head coach, Julie. I reached
(06:53):
out to her, um at the beginning of UM, let
her know my interests. She was so awesome about it. Um.
She got me into a practice, got me in contact
with some of the teammates, the team members at the time,
and it just started practicing, trying to figure it out.
And then COVID hit. So I tried out online and
it worked out. Um that might have been why it
(07:13):
worked out, because he tried out online. UM. But um,
but it's been fun and it's it's been an amazing ride.
Um Yeah, I'm I just graduated. Uh, you got a
degree in finance and information systems. Um going to grad school.
Now we got one more year here, one last ride,
(07:33):
and it's gonna be great. So what I loved about
um cheer once we first started like that. Let's go
back to that first year during COVID. Okay, the COVID year,
we couldn't regularly practice. We weren't at games, neither was
anyone else. So we were on the team, but we
couldn't do anything that the team would do. So so
it was weird, right, Um, So we had to figure
(07:54):
out ways to one figure out how to cheer. I'm
talking about me specifically. Um, I joined this thing and
I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. So
we would meet up um outside because it was it
was safe to do so outside, and we were just
trying stunt. It's over and over and over again. A
lot of the yeah, a lot of the new people. UM.
(08:16):
But I think that's how we got so close, especially
our group, the ones that would go every day. I mean,
we ended up just becoming best friends immediately outside. Yeah.
I mean I'd wake up, I go to my online classes,
and my entire day just consisted of when I'm gonna
go stunt? When is that gonna happen? Right? And then
we'd get there, it'd be like early afternoon. We wouldn't
(08:37):
leave until the street lights came home. Literally, sun is set,
like it should not be out there anymore. Everyone's asleep,
and my fresh to cheer shoulders definitely could not handle that.
Um but that was okay, um, But yeah, I mean
it's just been awesome. It was. It was super intimidating
for me because I was coming from a whole different
(08:59):
world into the athletics world. I remember, let's do first impressions. Okay,
So I show up. I thought you were like a junior. Okay,
I thought we were the same age because when I
showed up to the first stunding session, you were like
already doing all the crazy stuff, like everything was already
figured out on your end, and you were studying with Ethan,
(09:22):
who was so fro from who I know is like
the best on our team, um you know. And so
I was like, oh, well, they are returners, they're doing
their own thing. I'll hang out with the we'll just
do that. And then we finally met each other and
you're like, yeah, I'm freshman. I was like, what it's like, Okay,
(09:43):
my bad. Um. Now, my first impression of Cass was, um,
she's really nice, but she definitely knows what she's doing,
so don't slow her down. That was that was my like,
that was my impression. I was like, oh man, she's
gonna have to be really patient. Wh But what about you?
My first impression of you was a lot. I have
(10:08):
never been like I had someone so close to my
life now, at least at the time, we weren't that close,
but like meaning you originally you had just so much
energy from the start, and I have always been such
a very like when I'm introverted to I'm just like
quiet for most of my days. And three you were
(10:31):
the guy with the speaker, so you had your your E.
D M on just getting ready to go, and I
was so like sensory overload for like a couple of days.
And then I like figured it out and I was like, Okay,
I actually have a lot of pent up energy too,
this is perfect, dude. I didn't. I did not used
(10:55):
to be like. I have never had like a group
of friends where I could be so in ergetic all
the time and literally be like on when all the
time until like this friend group honestly, so yeah, I
mean after COVID, basically we were just like, let's just
stunt and stunt and stunt practice and practice practice. We're
(11:16):
ever going to get to the field. Fast forward eighteen
months from joining the team and we're getting ready for
our first game day. I was terrified. I mean, like,
I've never been more, um insecure, not confident, nervous in
my life, right because you gotta think, like, this is
(11:37):
my first time I ever putting this on in a
professional level, not professional, but like performing this and it's
not just practice, right, So that was that was really
overwhelming for me. But at the same time, I've never
been more excited for a performance in my life, you know,
I'm I would first tell you I definitely teared up
and got emotional before the first game. Oh yeah, gonna
(12:00):
cry but in a bad way. Oh no, this was
really good tears like the like the second we stepped out.
It was a versus Idaho, a night game. The lights
are on, the student session is packed from the crazy
season we had during um, I mean, it's filled to
the brim already pre game. That's unheard of. It at
I U football, all right, So I just look up
(12:20):
and I just lose it. Nobodn't really notice it because
I was hanging out with Tias, and but I was like,
Matias can see me cry, and that's fine because he's
emotional like me. But I was like, I can't show
everybody that I just get emotional before we even did anything.
So yeah, it was. I mean after that, I was like,
all right, we gotta we gotta, we got stuff to do.
(12:41):
Mallory looked at me, She's like, you ready to go,
and I was like, okay, yeah, I'm ready. Sorry. Um,
but yeah, after that, off the races and we never
looked back. That first season was so amazing, huge shout
out to Mallory for the whole season. I mean, she
was like my rock during all of it. When I
was like I don't know what I'm doing, She'd be like, Okay,
let's slow it down, let's figure it out. Here's what
you're gonna do. I was like, okay, cool. Um. So
(13:04):
she was amazing um start to finish. Um couldn't have
asked for a better first year with somebody, and we
were together the whole year. It was. It was just awesome.
I I replay all of our moments during the first season,
I was just like, this was literally perfect. You know. Yeah,
football season was good. Football season was really good. I
had Ethan, which is now a coach, as my stunt partner,
(13:27):
um which you obviously he's coached down. He was great,
helped me a lot through football season. He was my
stunt partner for a little bit of basketball season, and
then I got Cam. Okay, Cam, if you're listening, I
love you. He was amazing. He had never been in
this type of atmosphere before, so that was a little
(13:50):
bit of a like rocky start, but he did great.
My most iconic from like regular seasons Perdue game. That
game was in insane. I was with Ethan at that game,
and I was underneath the basket, which is like a
huge deal, and it was like the most intense game
(14:10):
ever to watch and to like have that type of
c at that game just be like in it the
whole time. There's cameras everywhere, there's people everywhere, literally the
first to rush the cores. That was intense, but it
was so fun. I was back sweat everywhere in that uniform.
My legs hurt after that game from like jumping up
(14:33):
and down. It was amazing. I love that game. That
game was that was literally a conic, that was a
piece of history. We were there. Yeah, it was almost
as cool as what happened in March. That is true.
So when we come back, we'll take you through um,
our crazy one Shining moment um, start to finish, the
full story, um, everything that you want to know and
(14:56):
need to know. Um. You may have heard it or
may have read about it somewhere, maybe on Instagram or
or bleach your report or maybe, but we'll take you
through everything starts to finish. So, um, this is Beyond
the Megaphone. I'm Nathan and and this is the College
Athletes Network. Welcome back to Beyond the Megaphone on the
(15:27):
College Athletes Network. I'm Nathan and I'm Cassidy. Subscribe to
our podcast so that you never missed another episode. Okay,
the moment, the one, shining moment um, the stunt heard
around the world. Let's get into it. Okay, So where
does the story start. We could start it at the night,
but I think there's more to that story. Let's start
(15:48):
in dating. Okay, So to give context, this is the
first time I had ever been in the tournament. UM
for like the past five years, four or five years
since we've been in the NT double A tournament. Um,
and so it was a big deal. We were excited
to go. Um. And so we land in the playing
game during the selection Sunday. So we go to Dayton. Uh,
(16:09):
this game is packed. We're playing Wyoming. We know nothing
about this team. Um, but they're talking some smack, not
gonna lie like they definitely came in thinking they were
gonna win by like a lot. They didn't think it's
gonna be kind of made me a little nervy. Yeah, no, yeah,
and yeah the game was pretty close. It so we
wont it. It It doesn't matter. But um, so we go
(16:30):
through that game. Um. The game starts at like nine
because we're the second game, of course, and it doesn't
get out to like eleven thirty at night. So here's
what's crazy. After that, we don't get We don't go
home and take a night and then get up and
go to Portland. No, no, no, no no. We get
on a plane and go straight to the airport from
(16:51):
the game and fly out to Portland overnight. Yeah, I
remember that game. The game ended. We're literally renting out
of there. To get to the airport because we had
you know, we had to get there on time or
plane would leave right no wrong. Um. We waited at
a charter airport for like two hours. The first two hours.
(17:15):
The first two hours were on a plane. They're not moving.
Nobody knows why. Find out that there's too much luggage
on the plane. I don't know what to do about it.
So we're just sitting there waiting to see if they're
going to figure something out. It was hot. It was
so hot. I was sitting next to j P and
then the aisle next to me was Matthias, Jonah and
(17:39):
Andre I'm surrounded by what is it buy you guys?
You like by the basketball team. So I was okay.
I was like, this is awesome. I'm talking to Dane
five and some of the other players. I was like,
this is crazy. I was like, we can stay here
all night, and that's fine. I would not stay there
all night. I wanted to sleep. But that two hours
(18:00):
later passed and we're still waiting, and then they're like, okay,
never mind, we're moving to another plane. So we moved
to another plane. Get on the plane. We wait for
like another two hours because it was too heavy. Again,
that was the thing. It was the same exact plane,
So I don't really know what the whole switching thing was,
but I have no clue. But then they just decided, okay,
(18:20):
well cheer and banned because it was basketball, cheer and
banned all on the same plane. And they decided to
leave our luggage behind because it was the heaviest and
they were gonna send it at a later day. So
we didn't leave Dayton until like three four thirty UM,
Indiana time, and so that was like um, one thirty
(18:44):
a m. Portland's time, because we're going out to Portland.
So then we finally get into the air. It's five
and a half hour flight, so we don't really get
to our hotel and I think it was seven thirty,
which was ten thirty our time, and we hadn't really slept.
I think I slept two hours on the on the plane. UM.
And so we get there. We're all tired, but like
(19:07):
it's fine whatever, it's spring break. We're out, we're hanging out. Um,
We're like we can sleep later. It's fine. I slept
when we got there. Some of them did not. Um,
they out, they went out and yeah, they just needed
some caffeine. So we get there, we're hanging out. Portland's great.
It's a really fun time with our team and everything
like that. Um. Fast forward to game day. Yeah, we
(19:30):
get up, we're ready to roll. Um, we're excited. I mean,
social media's going crazy for are you, Like we said,
this is a big deal. Um. We get there. Um,
we get situated, and we get into our warm up
area and we get on the court and um, we're
playing in Portland, so we're in the Trailblazers stadium. Um.
And so as we are getting ready and get situated,
(19:52):
Andy katz Um comes up the reporter and uh, I
don't I don't think I actually told you this until now.
But before that game started, me and Mallory went up
to him and was like, Hey, if you need any
like extra content during the game, let us know, we'd
be happy to an interview. I'm so mad. I didn't
know about that. So I kind of predicted our own future.
(20:15):
But it is what it is. Um. So we get
there and it's it's totally fine. Um. Mom and dad
of course are like the first twenty people, some of
the first twenty people in the whole stadium. Um. So
they're going crazy. It's just awesome. Game starts, it's not
going great for the Hoosiers. It's okay, it's fine. It's
(20:36):
not going great, um exactly. And so first half comes
and goes, and then right after halftime we're into it
and Trace puts up this shot and the ball is
not coming back. Ball stuck. They go through the mop.
They try and get us stool. The poor ref who's
(20:57):
like five eight, tries to stand on a chair. That's
not gonna work. They don't let the players down the
chair that would have probably actually gotten the ball off,
that would have been tall enough, but it's a liability thing.
They can't stand a chair. So then what happened they
I remember the St. Mary's player looked over at us.
We're like all intensely watching what's going on, and St.
(21:17):
Mary's players looks over at us and motion to throw
up a stunt. Basically, I saw that and just shot up.
It was like, someone put me up, Someone put me up.
Our coach and Ethan are like, we need the tallest
guy if we're going to actually do this, so we
don't look dumb. And if we wouldn't have been talling,
(21:38):
Oh my gosh, no, no, absolutely not. So Nathan's tallest
starting team. UM stands up and we literally built our
stunt right where we were and walked over because I
was nervous. I was like, I was like, okay, I
can go. And so I wasn't thinking like we should
go to where the ball is. I was just like,
(21:58):
let's just put stunt up and then they'll know we're
doing something. UM. And so we put the stunt up
an hour or seven ft away, and I was like, well,
I didn't really think this through. Probably should have done
this at the ball. So again our drummonds hyped up.
I've never really walked with a stunt until then. I
no thoughts in my brain. I had no clue like,
(22:19):
oh yeah everything. I was blacked out every time. Yeah.
And so we put the stunt up. I walked like
seven to ten feet with her in hands, not at
like his shoulders or anything like that. UM, and then
I pressed her to extension, UM grabs the ball, gets
it down. What were you thinking when you, like, when
you touch the ball at the top of the bagboard,
(22:40):
what were you like? Um? It was it was cool
hearing like people make a big deal out of it
because it's just something that you know, we knew we
could have done easily, but everyone was going nuts just
because the build up to get the ball down was
so intense and nothing was working until we stepped in. Um.
(23:00):
I don't really really remember anything that I was thinking.
The only thing I remember vividly after that was I
came down through the ball. I got a high five
from c Johnson. Do we deal or anything. That's probably
the best part for you. That was the best part
for me. I don't care about the interviews of my
n I L. Johnson gave me at Zavia Johnson gave
(23:23):
me a high five. So that's the end of the story. Yeah,
so we bring the stunt down. Everything's cool, crowds going crazy.
We kind of thought it was just like a moment
for the stadium, right we're on the jumpbo Tron got
our five seconds of fame. Oh that was crazy. You know,
we might have a there might be a tweet or
something like that, or I think maybe my mom got
a video, because you know, like that's the most of
(23:45):
what I was thinking, right, So then we get back
down like that was really fun. That was that was
cool to see the team's laughing because we're like, I
can't believe that just happened. And then I get a
tap on the shoulder. It's the same guy Andy Cats
right behind me said hey, um, Nathan right and I
was like yeah, and um he was like, hey, where's
(24:07):
where's just a partner who you just lifted up? And
I was like, she right here, and so um grabs
us and as did a full interview. The game was
literally going on fift away from us, and we're giving
this interview about which has happened. And I was like,
maybe this wasn't just a little moment for the stadium.
I'm pretty sure this was televised on national TV. And
(24:31):
so the whole second the second half, we had two
more interviews um in the stadium, one during the second half,
one right after, and then we got on our phones.
It was just the floodgates were open. I mean, I
thought was going to break. Yeah, I've never seen so
(24:51):
many notifications. Um yeah, it's it was just crazy. So
you know then, so even even still we get through
all that, we get I get all of my notifications,
looked at all this crazy stuff. We go back to
the hotel, We're like, wow, that was crazy. We just
got onto TV for a couple of seconds. That's crazy.
(25:12):
And then so that's what I just thought, that was it, right.
We thought it was just that day. Then we got
our first phone call for an interview from Good Morning America.
They were like, hey, could you be um we'd like
to have you on your show tomorrow and I was like, oh,
oh okay, um yeah sure. What time? They were like,
(25:34):
how does seven am sound? We were like, well, a
little early, but it's worth it, you know, it's Good
Morning America. And they're like, great, so we'll see you
at seven am Eastern and I was like, oh, hold
on that, it's a little bit of that's four am
Portland's time. Um. So basically, once again, we didn't really sleep. Um,
(25:54):
we got up around three to get ready. We had
to get Game Day ready because we're gonna be on
on the TV. And then I don't know, it was
just kind of like a snowball effects. I think, well,
the Good Morning America one was live, so then like
everyone every news channel was like, oh, they were just
on Good Morning America. Let me get them on my show.
(26:16):
They're like dm ng me you, Julie Megan, like everyone
just wanting to see if they could get in contact
with us, and when we thought it was over, it
just kept going. It kept going until we literally had
to leave. Yeah, we were heading out because we had
lost the game. Um, we were heading out that morning
around eight thirty. We got up around three thirty. We
(26:39):
never went back to bed. From three thirty we were
interview after interview. I think we ended up doing fourteen
interviews in the span of two days. And it was
it's crazy, you know, for hands extension, right for one
of the easiest skills we do on a on a
during a game. Still to this day, I can't leave it.
(27:00):
It happened, but um, yeah, it was a lot, especially
when we were like at the arena, still letting it
all happen. But I remember when we were walking back
to go get our phones, Julie was on the phone
with Megan and telling us about how she thinks we
can make money off of this, like referring to n
I L stuff. Um, and that did happen. She was right.
(27:20):
So when we come back, we'll get into the n
I L deals that we got some stories about our
experience with the N I L and our shirts all
that fun stuff. We'll see what we got. Um. So
you're listening to Beyond the Megaphone. I am Cassidy and
I'm Nathan and this is the College Athletes Network. Welcome
(27:53):
back to Beyond the Megaphone on the College Athletes Network.
This is Cassidy and Nathan. Subscribe out to this podcast.
You don't miss our show. So n I L l
UM Basically n I L is SO and I'll started
I think during Oddly enough, it's only been around for
(28:14):
a couple of years UM. And it's an I L
stands for Name, Image and Likeness UM. And so it's
basically a chance for college athletes to make money off
of things that they do in their sport UM. And
so it's not really something that you would think about
for cheerleading. It's mainly for basketball and football, UM and
maybe baseball and some of the SEC programs, maybe some
(28:36):
Western Coast programs, but UM. Yeah. And so we got
to have our a couple of experiences within I L UM.
A couple of days after we got UM a couple
of offers from some representation. We ended up working with
Brand New, Brand New Sports. Big shout out to Richie
and David uh They've been awesome. Everybody else at Brand
(28:59):
new have been so helpful and the opportunity we've gotten
have been just crazy. Um, and so that's been really awesome.
We got some shirts we've done. We've done some shirts,
two shirts, a red one and a white one. Um,
they're pretty dope, not gonna lie. Um, not to plug
or anything. Yeah, if you needed one, you could probably
(29:22):
find one. Um No, but they've been awesome. And I
think my favorite thing about n i L has been
our whole day of trying to fulfill all of the
things required for Sparkling Ice. So Sparkling Ice was our
first ever n i L deal. Um, and we did
not do it well. Um. We first off, we forgot
(29:44):
when it was due. Um. And we're like right during
a break, so like campus is empty, everything is locked. Um,
we can't get into the room that we're gonna try
and film it in. Um, we just need to make
one little video, but we could not find anywhere. So
we end up going outside on our like recreational basketball
(30:04):
goals with just kids walking down the street just looking
over and being like, well, this is weird. It was freezing.
We're trying to do this ten second video. I remember
setting up a camera in the crevice of a tree. Um,
So definitely definitely a learning curve with n I l um.
(30:24):
But like it's fun, you know, and for for cheer
and for our moment. It was very short term, right, Um,
So we really were trying to milk the n C
Double A Tournament as much as possible. So we ad that, Yeah,
we wanted to. Yeah, I mean that was the whole
the whole purpose of the Sparkling ice deal. Um. But um,
(30:47):
yeah it was just fun. Um what do you think?
What did you think of like the whole start to
finish and I'll like contracts, this, any other, Like, how
do you feel about all that stuff? Uh? The business
side of it could care less. I don't know anything
about business. Don't ask me about anything business related. I
will literally give you my money if you were trying
(31:10):
to convince me to, like, I'm so bad with the
business side of it. The like principle of it, although,
is something that I was very very interested in. I
as like someone who's been around this cheer environment for
so long and like seeing how the media looks at
cheer This was like the one opportunity that I was
(31:31):
involved in that could bring more light to cheerleaders and
you know what, like what we can do bring more
opportunities to my team hopefully, like stuff like that, promoting
our program and I you in general like that. That
was what I was really interested in. And I didn't
care about, you know, the money part of it. Really,
(31:52):
it was more just the I'm a cheerleader and I
got an n I L deal like being able to
be one of the very few sports outside of football
and basketball, which are you know, and I was pretty
much targeted for. It was a big opportunity and a
great way to just get the I U cheer program
(32:13):
out there. Yeah, it's been fun, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy insane. Um. Yeah,
I think that's the the best thing, is like trying
to just give cheer a positive voice, um, put here
in a positive light. You know, there's a lot of
stuff that has come out recently about cheer, and you know,
(32:36):
there's there's really kind of two types of cheer. Um
you have like competition, you have game day And what's
really awesome about this opportunity is we get to give
light to game day cheer, yes, which often gets overshadowed
by competition style chere all star style chere um and
so and really, when you think about this whole podcast, like,
(32:56):
this is a chance for us, and this is why
we want to do it, is to of future athletes
a vision of what college cheer looks like inside of
college chere and not just the like competition side of
it all. I mean, like the game day part of
college cheer is such an important part. And you know,
as a high school cheerleader, I had absolutely no idea
(33:17):
about anything college cheerleader, just because it's so hidden about
all of that stuff. So I think, you know, this
is a great opportunity for us to be able to
share what we know so far. We're not experts, but
we're experienced it as we're talking. The biggest thing for
me is we're doing this because we love it, right, Like,
(33:39):
like this whole cheer has changed my life. I was
in a really dark spot UM during COVID and cheer,
and everybody around brought me out of it, UM, specifically Maddie, Mattias,
Jonah and you that first year UM we joined. I've
(34:01):
never been around more positive people in my life. UM.
I've never been surrounded by people who are always building
me up quite like you forehead that first year UM,
and I could go on for hours about every single
person on our team. UM, but those are just the people.
I remember that that first couple of weeks UM really
(34:22):
helped me out and really showed me, you know, how
amazing life can be in the context of cheer. UM.
And that's what's kept me around, is what's kept me here,
that's what's getting me to do it during grad school. UM.
But uh, it's changed my life. And and this podcast
is is just a representation of how much we care
(34:43):
about cheer, how much we care about our team and
our program, and how much we want to share what
we've learned. So upset better myself. We can't wait. We
we can't wait to share everything that we've learned and
every think we've experienced UM over the next several episodes
(35:03):
during our first season. So stick around, you won't regret it.
As always, thanks for listening to Beyond the Megaphone on
the College Athletes Network. Please subscribe to you don't miss
an episode. I'm Nathan and I'm Cassidy and we'll talk
to you soon. Thanks so much. Beyond the Megaphone has
been a presentation of I Heart Radio and the College
Athletes Network.
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