Red, white, and blue pieces of confetti floated above Macy Price’s head. One moment she was ecstatically jumping and hugging her friends, the next, tears of happiness were rolling down her cheeks. The sound of the camera shutters clicking were drowned out by the dozens of indistinguishable voices screaming. Price’s voice was among them. 

It was moments like these that made the long, sweaty, three-and-a-half hour practices worth it. To be surrounded by her competitive cheer team, celebrating the success of her season with holding the title of being the number one cheer team in the United States in their division. 

Price’s cheer career started with cheering on the sidelines during Center Grove Bantam Football games at the mere age of 6. In grade 5, Price began competitive cheer, tumbling at Tiffany’s Cheer and Dance and Perfect 10 Heat before transitioning to cheering competitively at Legends Cheer Academy. 

“When I was young I tried a bunch of different sports, but they never really interested me. I tried soccer and swimming, but I just couldn’t get into those sports. And then I tried cheer, and it just felt natural to me. It came pretty easy, all the skills and everything,” Price said. “After I tried Allstar cheer, it kind of developed to the point where I wanted to pursue high school cheer, and to do college [cheer.]”

Originally starting off as a hobby, cheerleading was something Price never had to worry about. However, as her passion developed and cheer became more serious, more and more time became dedicated towards perfecting her skills and practicing her routines. 

“I spend about 10 hours practicing weekly: practice three times a week, three-and-a-half hours long each. I also work on it on my own. I attend tumbling classes outside of school and also weight lift to help with my tumbling. From cheer, I’ve really learned how to discipline myself and to do my best.” 

Additionally, Price’s team helps keep her motivated to accomplish the goals the team sets for themselves. 

“My friends that I’m on the team with always push me to do my best, and try new things that I wouldn’t have otherwise tried myself. It’s important for me to do well at cheer, so we can help our gym get status, and just doing it for ourselves as a team, just accomplishing these big goals that we set for ourselves. I go into the gym even when I don’t have to and I try to better myself, so I can be there for my team,” Price said. “The team I was on, we were all very close and at practice, we would always cheer for each other. Even if we weren’t always having a great practice, we would always try and push each other so that we could ultimately do well at competitions and better ourselves and improve.”

Price credits competitive cheer for helping to develop important qualities of her character that she believes will help her succeed in future years. 

“I think cheer has really shaped me to the person I’m going to be as an adult: really self-disciplined, motivated, very hardworking. It’s brought a lot of happiness to my life because I got to be with my friends and create a family almost with those people for so many years,” Price said. “Competing just really brought a lot of happiness to me as well as my friends because it was something we could bond over, and we could work towards these big goals we had as a team. I really love the sport, I love that it’s a team sport, and I get to accomplish huge goals with all my friends.”