What started as a sport she did not seem to fit into turned into one of the best decisions of her life. Pressured by her mom, she was not sure it would be for her, but it turned into a huge part of her life.
Madeline Burk is a sophomore varsity cheerleader at Lakeland High School (LHS).
Her cheer persona contrasts her personality in class. When you see her in class, she is often quiet and keeps to herself. But on the mat, practice or not, she is a ball of energy, ready to go, go, go.
Many people say that cheerleading is not a sport but a hobby, but Burk thinks the opposite.
“It is a lot harder than it seems,” Burk said.
In her opinion, it is problematic throughout the season, but nothing is better than the reward of completing that minute routine and winning it all.
“Without cheer, I would not have anything to do outside of school or any friends,” Burk said.
Cheer takes up a lot of time outside other than just standing on the sidelines. The cheerleaders practice two to three times a week. They have community service projects, games, and maybe even a practice here and there on the weekends.
A gain from all of this work is companions to endure it with. Teammates become more of a family, surviving conditioning together, sharing rooms while away at competitions, and being crammed on a bus together for almost a whole day.
Burk finds it easy to come out of her shell at practice because of the people surrounding her. She feels at ease with them and does not need to put up her protective wall.
“She’s fun. She is a force to be reckoned with. She does not say much, but when she does it is something worth saying,” Cynthia Peck said, a cheer coach at LHS.
Burk loves competition season not only because she is not freezing her butt off outside but also because it fuels the competitiveness inside her.
Burk does not want her cheer career to end at the high school level. She wants to move on to the collegiate level or try coaching. Either way, she wants cheer to be incorporated into her life somehow.
But before she leaves her high school cheer career behind, she wants to become a versatile cheerleader. She wants this to become a reality by her senior year. Her ultimate goal is to be able to tumble, do all the positions in stunting, and dance. She is working with an open mind, working hard, and practicing to achieve that standard.
Aside from cheer, Burk’s resistance to eating meat is another unique thing.
As a kid, she felt bad for eating the poor animals, so she decided to become a vegetarian.
“It is definitely a struggle because I can not always eat what someone has at a party,” Burk said.
Many of her teammates even forget she is a vegetarian because she does not discuss it much. She is humble and does not expect others to accommodate her in their meal planning.
