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This is Inside M-Side, your favorite podcast for all things Morningside.
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Here's stories from students, alumni, faculty, and more about what makes the
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Morningside experience so special.
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Hello and welcome into this latest edition of the Inside M-Side
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podcasts on our YouTube channel or your favorite audio platform.
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Thank you so much for joining us today.
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I'm Zach James, your host, and coming up in this episode, we're going to
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celebrate the Morningside Cheer Squad as they are national champions.
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They competed in the NCAA College National Competition last month, and
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they came away with the Intermediate Small Co-ed NAI Championship with two
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strong performances down in Daytona Beach, Florida.
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We'll hear from Morningside Head Coach Macy Ulm, who is a Morningside
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grad herself, and Senior Amber Hofmeister after their campus-wide
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celebration last week inside the Olson Student Center.
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These are audio-only interviews, so keep that in mind as we move forward,
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but that doesn't take away from the pride and the excitement and all the
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emotion that they express in these two interviews.
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Let's start off with those interviews, and we'll start off with Morningside
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Coach Macy Ulm as she came away with the national championship, and she's
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very, very proud of her team.
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And the first question I asked her was how proud she really was of bringing
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home a national championship.
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You know what?
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I wholeheartedly believed in this group.
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So it's, it's been a really full circle moment for me.
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It's, it still feels pretty surreal being an athlete and now a coach here.
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It just, it just feels super full circle.
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So yeah.
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How sweet does it feel being an athlete now, being as a coach, bringing
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a, bringing a national championship home?
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I think for me, the coolest part of this experience has been since I've been here
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to now, there's just been so much growth that has happened within the program.
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I've been here for four years now.
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So to see just the advancements that have been made and the progress and the new
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opportunities that have been afforded to us, just really make me smile and make me
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happy.
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Walk me through that progression from when you first became coach.
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And we can talk about that in a minute here, because I want you to tell that
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story too, because I know that story and it's a cool story, but walk me through
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the progression of when you took over the program to now and just how that
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progression has been made.
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To put it lightly, I think coaching styles were different before me.
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So it took some time to find athletes that aligned with my coaching style and
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believed in what I also believed in.
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So being four years in, I really feel like I have finally found my core group of
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athletes where they share the same philosophy as me.
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We're trying to cultivate an environment where they feel supported and they feel
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heard and seen.
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And I'm hopeful that they learn life lessons, you know, more than just cheer
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lessons here, more so life lessons too.
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So just again, seeing the growth and the progress that has happened since I've
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graduated and then since I've taken over this program is pretty incredible.
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What was the moment like when you all found out that you were National
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Championship champions?
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What was that moment like?
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A breath of fresh air, a lot of weight lifted off my shoulders.
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It took a lot of decision-making skills, a lot of hard conversations to get to this
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point.
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And to be very honest with you, there were some doubts that crept in throughout the
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season.
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Like, did I make the right decision?
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Did we move in the right direction?
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And so when our name was announced on that stage right by the ocean with that giant
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trophy, it was just a culmination of all the events that led up to it and just feeling
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pretty accomplished.
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And finally, like, I made the right decision.
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How did that confidence that you made the right decision just prevail through?
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How did you know that the decisions you made were the right ones?
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I think a little bit of that is the fake it till you make it.
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So maybe the confidence didn't start showing until later on.
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But again, I faked it.
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And I am pretty big on intuition and gut feelings.
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And I felt like this was where we needed to go.
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And so I went with it.
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And I owe a big thank you to my team for trusting me because there was a lot of
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unknown.
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So the trust that they had in me and myself and the trust that I had in them to get this
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done was exactly what we needed to make this decision and then to have it be pretty
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fruitful. So let's kind of get into the decision here, going into NCAA instead of
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NAIA. Just explain what that decision entailed and what the differences are between
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NCAA and NAIA and all that stuff.
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NAIA and NCAA are two completely different entities.
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With the NAIA, we had competed in it for the three years that I was here and obviously
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previously before me.
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And to be honest with you, there was a lot of scoring discrepancies.
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It felt like they just weren't as structured and organized as what I felt a
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collegiate competition should be.
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I don't feel like certain programs were given fair opportunities as others that were
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more well known.
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So underdogs had a hard time getting their name out there.
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So I knew that NCAA has been around for a long time, much longer than the NAIA
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competitive cheer world.
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And so I felt like giving NCAA a chance where it was completely unbiased.
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You have no idea what teams get bids to go out there.
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You don't know the judging.
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I just felt like it was a new resource for us to use to see how capable our team was.
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With the NAIA, most of the competitions that we went to were hosted by other NAIA
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schools. And it was always up to the host coach to find judges, which of course, I'm
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sure you understand, leads to them hiring alumni or people that they're friends with.
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Or it just it didn't feel like it was always fair or consistent.
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You'd score an 82 at one comp and then you'd go to another school and you'd get a 67.
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So just the inconsistency was pretty draining and tiring.
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And it's hard to go back to a team and tell them what they did wrong or differently when
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realistically it was the judging.
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So, yeah.
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How consistently did this group perform the entire year?
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You know, after we got our choreographer in October, that was their first time with
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choreography. And he was incredible.
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Shout out to Luis from Spirit FX.
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That was also his first NCAA routine.
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So pretty incredible accomplishment for him.
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But this team, when they got this routine, they were determined and ready and fueled to
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make this work and make this a championship routine.
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So, of course, we went through battles and struggles, but they worked through them.
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They worked through them together.
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And it resulted in the two best routines I had ever seen going into prelims and finals a
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few weeks ago.
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The group got down to Daytona Beach.
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Walk me through how they performed in prelims and how that momentum went into finals.
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Yeah. So prelims, I'm going to be honest, we get there and the first three days in Daytona
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Beach, it was like we were in the Amazon rainforest.
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There was torrential downpour, winds, the waves were huge.
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We really spent most of our time inside.
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So it was kind of cooped up, really envisioning and thinking about what we wanted to make
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happen on Thursday.
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It ended up so that we were supposed to compete Thursday for prelims and then compete
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Friday for finals.
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And because the weather was so bad, we got pushed and had to compete Friday for prelims
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and then Saturday for finals.
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So going into Friday, we had an amazing practice.
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We had a great warm up.
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We, you know, the mindset was really just let's leave it all out on the mat.
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That's what you say in cheer.
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And I really believe they did that.
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The goal was to hit a hit zero routine.
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It's pretty uncommon to get zero deductions at NCA just because of the nerves.
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Right. And they did that.
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And when we received our score and saw that we were six points higher than that second
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place team, it was I mean, it was a pretty like pat on the back moment.
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Like, yeah, we just did that.
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So going into finals that next day, it was more about let's just own this routine one
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more time. We know we can do this.
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We know we've if we can do what we did yesterday, this championship could be ours.
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And so that was the mindset.
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And they did just that.
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I would say it was better round two than round one.
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And that's all you can ask for.
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Yeah. Well, your best performance is your last performance.
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That's that's what you want to see out of these guys.
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What's it like seeing this group have your smile on a daily basis?
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It means everything to me.
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I think more so seeing them see all their hard work pay off, the sacrifice, the time,
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the dedication that they put in to this season.
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For me, it's everything to see the smiles and them repping these NCA jackets that everybody
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wants to wear.
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It means everything to me.
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I mentioned it earlier in the interview, but I do want to have you tell the story of how
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you got the gig and just what it means to you to be coach.
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So there's a few parts to this story.
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So I was a cheerleader here at Morningside.
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And when I graduated, I started Apex Elite All-Star Cheer, which is another club cheer
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program. Of course, I live and eat and breathe cheer.
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I coached Apex for a few years, and my co-coach knew the previous Morningside cheer coach
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here. And when she caught wind that he was leaving, I kind of put a bug in her ear.
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I'm like, well, I'd like that position.
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And so I found Jim Sykes' email.
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And before the job was even posted, I shot him an email and just said, hey, I'm interested.
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I would love to have an interview and talk about this position.
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And I got an interview and haven't really looked back since.
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I would say what makes this, again, an even more full circle moment for me is the fact
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that my nana, my grandma, Sharon Dornan, and my grandpa, John Dornan, both were alumni
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from Morningside, cheerleader and football player.
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And then again, my grandpa was also the football coach for a few years.
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So just, yeah, I don't know.
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Kind of continuing the legacy is pretty cool.
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Next up is senior Amber Hoffmeister, as she's one of the many members on that successful
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national championship squad.
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And the first question I asked her was basically the same one I asked Coach Shulman, just does
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the feeling still feel real of being a national champion?
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I'm kind of still on a high, but I'm also really sad that it's my last year.
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What's it like just seeing the Morningside community provide so much support?
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I love it.
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It feels so special.
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And it just makes my heart so warm and so happy seeing everybody supporting us and being
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here for us.
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And I'm really grateful that the band was able to be here.
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And they really know how to elevate a room and get the vibes up.
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And I'm just really thankful and blessed to have such a good community at Morningside.
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When did you all know that your group was a special one?
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I would say this year, I know Macy mentioned having hard conversations and everything.
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And she also had hard conversations with our team.
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And we sat down and we talked about everything that was going to happen if we decided to
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go to NCAA.
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And everybody was just kind of ready to take that leap and trust Macy and trust each other.
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And I think that's when we kind of knew that we had a special trust that can't be broken.
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How important did you need to trust Macy in that decision going from NAIA to NCAA?
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It was really important because we've been in the NAIA since cheer was established as
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a sport here.
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And it was really comfortable.
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It's what all the schools around here do.
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We go to NAIA.
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We go to GPAC.
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Yeah, it's just what people do.
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And it's just where people are comfortable.
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And to say that we're just going to completely drop it and go to NCAA required trust from
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everybody and trust that Macy knows what she's doing.
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And she's really smart.
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She's a big part of the cheer world.
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And she saw that belief in us.
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And we had to trust that we could see it in ourselves too since Macy saw it.
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I think that we went in really confident to NCAA because we had so much trust in each
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other and love for each other.
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But it was also kind of a toss up of what was going to happen there because we've never
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been there.
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And I think it just really showed that we worked hard and we put our all out there.
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And it won us a championship.
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What was that moment like when you found out that you were national champions?
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It was crazy.
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It was really surreal.
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I mean, I didn't expect it to be so honest.
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As my senior year, I did trust Macy.
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But I also knew that this was something completely different.
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And it could go one of two ways.
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And so when we hit that second routine, I think we all kind of knew where we stood.
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And then they announced it up on that stage.
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And it was just amazing.
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It was a moment like no other.
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That'll do it for this edition of the Inside M-Side podcast.
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See you on our YouTube channel or your favorite audio platform.
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Stay tuned for the final two episodes of our series for the school year as they're big
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ones.
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00:14:18,580
Digital Marketing Specialist Allison Strzok sits down with President Chad Benson as they
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take a look at this past school year and the highlights of that.
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And they'll look ahead for what they're looking forward to for the 2026-2027 academic school
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year.
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00:14:34,099
So stay tuned for those episodes as they'll drop two weeks from today as well as on June
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00:14:34,419
3rd.
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00:14:39,539
So stick around with us for a couple more weeks as we'll roll out a little bit more
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content.
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But in the meantime, thank you so much for watching.
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Thank you so much for listening.
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For everybody here at Morningside University and the University Engagement staff, I'm Zach
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James.
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00:14:53,219
Thank you so much for watching and listening to this edition of the Inside M-Side podcast.
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We'll talk to you next time.
