Mt. Pleasant native leads UNI cheer team to nationals for first time in 6 years

While Lindsey Leonard watched her cheer team perform at nationals last week, she had the feeling her own cheer career had come full circle.

From Jan. 18 - 20, Leonard, a Mt. Pleasant alumni and coach for the University of Northern Iowa's cheer team, led her athletes to perform at the Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship in Orlando. The 18-person team, which competed in the Open Coed Game Day division including three Mt. Pleasant natives. Still in its second year, the division tested the team on their ability to simulate a game-day environment.

Having cheered for both Panther teams, this marked Leonard's first year coaching the UNI cheer squad and she has already led them to a national stage.

'I know the sport very well,” Leonard said. 'I think being able to speak the language and be familiar with technical aspects can help the way we clean and fine-tune things.”

She was hired just as summer cheer camp was starting, meaning the team had already been formed when she came into the position. It was another Mt. Pleasant native, UNI junior Sidney Taylor, who told her there were five students from Mt. Pleasant at the time.

'It's a very weird coincidence,” Leonard sad. 'But I feel like it's meant to be.”

According to Leonard, there was no grand plan to go to nationals.

When the team's two captains championed entering into nationals, though, there was no financial help from the University.

'It's very expensive and we don't get any financial help from the university,” Taylor said. 'Lots of fundraising and lots of money out of our pocket, so there's always that question of if it's worth it. But I think this experience has really proven that it is.”

The team raised $7,000 through crowd funding, $2,500 from hosting a kids clinic in addition to monthly installments from the 18 team members who were going. According to coach Leonard, their efforts were successful enough that they have something of a cushion going into next year.

For one of the Mt. Pleasant alums, Brynjar Johnston, the fact their team was competing on a national stage didn't hit him until seconds before they got on the mat.

'We were standing backstage before we ran out on the mat and I can't really remember a whole lot,” Johnston said.

He'd been participating in sports all this life but had never competed at a national level and there he was about to compete with teammates, many of whom had been in the sport all their lives. 'Living in that moment was terrifying, but the rush of going out on the mat was incredible.”

Of all the Mt. Pleasant locals on the team, Johnston, a second-year senior, is the only one who wasn't on the Mt. Pleasant cheer team. In fact, he'd only joined the UNI cheer team the year before when he went to an open gym with one of the members of his fraternity and ran into members of the cheer team who showed him some of the basics.

'Without (my teammates) I don't think I ever would have gotten into it,” Johnston said, explaining that going into the sport was something he never would have done in high school. 'This showed me that having the courage to put yourself and try something new has resulted in a wonderful experience and friendships I don't think I'll ever be able to make again.”

The team placed 13th in the event among the 21 teams performing, missing ninth place due to a three-point deduction incurred for 'A very rare building fall from a shoulder stand; something we've never dropped before,” according to Leonard.

The University of Delaware ended up taking first in the division with Grand Canyon University in second and Southeastern Louisiana University in third.

'Before we went to Orlando, there's a part of me that thought it would be a sort of one-and-done experience,” Leonard said. ' But you get there and you perform on the national stage and you see all the effort being put on the mat and you think ‘we've got to do this again.'”