Hi everyone! My name is Jackson Amirshahi. I am a senior from Grafton High School in Yorktown, Virginia. I started cheering in 8th grade, and cheered competitively the last 4 years on my high school team. In those years, I was able to win 4 consecutive Region titles, and 3 consecutive state titles! I ended my high school competitive cheer career with a Runner-Up finish at this last years 2019 state competition. During those years, I cheered at Fame Allstars on their Senior Half-Year team Victorious! I started all-star my sophomore year, and have continued since then! My first year on Victorious, we hit 0 at every competition and won U.S. Finals in 2018! Since then I’ve been able to fill in on their 2019 team, and more recently their 2020 team, as sort of the designated alternate teammate. Both teams have been super valuable to my growth as a cheerleader, and have prepared me to tryout for the VCU Cheer team hopefully in September when I attend college!
Senior year for me, has been one for the books. I had loved everything about my team this past season, and had no regrets. Or as we say “I had left no doubt,” and kept with it the whole season. I was thankful that I had a great senior cheer season alongside someone of my best friends! I especially loved the bond with my best friend who cheered the previous year, because she went from being my teammate, to one of my biggest supporters. For the most part, our school year at Grafton had been great! Our season was phenomenal and we gave it our all! Unfortunately in February, we experienced an electrical fire, that left our school displaced and without a home. Because of this, we had to attend another high school in our county, and look towards going to get ANOTHER high school in our county to allot for the missed seat hours that were taken from all 3 schools due to fire at ours. Unfortunately, this left the rising competitive squad without a home. Thankfully, a rival team in our county opened their doors to our schools team, and allowed them to have an open gym together! But that wasn’t the end. You would think it is nice to adjust to new changes that all of sudden occur, but we were all then faced with the Corona Virus. Unfortunately, that leaves everyone out of school, all sports on hold, and senior seasons ended. For my Allstar team I had JUST GOT A SPOT ON, we had to postpone our practices, and of course follow Varsity’s guidelines in postponing the comps we had been preparing for. The weekend before we were out of school, I had just competed with my Allstar team, and we had secured a bid to U.S. Finals in May. We were all extolled and came to practice Monday ready to work hard and make upgrades. Unfortunately that hard work was put on pause.
Sometimes you feel like an issue is only effecting you, when in some cases it is effecting the entire world around you. For me, not being able to go to school, and cheer is the hardest challenge I’ve faced. I have always loved school since my first day in kindergarten, and hearing from our Virginia Governor that school is not happening in person for the remainder of the year, hit me with a wave of sadness. With that meant that the team I was just getting to bond with, was not able to practice or compete until further notice. It is hard changing your schedule once again after you have just adjusted to a new one only a little over a month. It’s been a challenge for me, and so many of my senior friends. And I cannot even imagine what is like for seniors in high school, and college that don’t have the opportunity to play their sport in their final season. I was blessed that my High school cheer season was over, but it still hurt knowing my Allstar season was over, but not on our own terms. I know across our state Cave Spring High School’s boys varsity basketball team was crowned co-state champions with another school, but I understand the hurt they felt, knowing their season ended without them having a final game. It’s hard to fathom that my last time at school was a Thursday, and I thought I would be seeing my friends the following Tuesday, because of our modified schedule due to the fire. But it was really my last time in person as a Grafton student. I pray that this is over soon, and that we can all get back to the sports we love. I miss practicing with my team, and this break now has made me miss my high school competitive team more than ever, as they should be out working hard to comeback for a state title like we all know they can; but we are all limited now. It hurts, but I know everyone in this sport we love, and all other
sports cane bounce back, and we can soon show off that obstacles can’t defeat us, and we can all overcome whatever is in our way.
-Jackson
