Connor Porten '23 Recruiting Profile

Since I was 5 years old I would beg my mom to let me cheer watching my older sister do competitive cheerleading. My Mom always told me “NO”. At the age of 8 with my persistence and ability to prove I was capable she finally let me. My dedication, commitment, and enthusiasm for cheerleading sets me apart from the other applicants, along with my diversity with different types of cheerleading. I have 9 years of cheerleading experience at the junior high, high school (Cheer Captain), 8 years All American Cheerleader, and at the All-Star levels. I am Currently a 2nd Year World Level Athlete at Top Gun All Stars in Orlando, Florida. I feel like this makes me a very well-rounded leader because I have cheered with many different personalities and worked with coaches at each of these levels. As an all-star cheerleader, my coach selected me to perform an individual routine, I was a captain of my junior high and High School Cheer Team. All Star Cheerleading has giving me the opportunity to provide Private Lessons to lower-level athletes.

In my experience, sports and athletic activities help to shape a person by instilling in them positive attributes that will help them in their future. For me, being an all-star and High School cheerleader has made me who I am. Cheerleading has had an incredibly powerful impact on my life as it has taught me the meaning of hard work, teamwork, and perseverance, as it relates to these, and many other attributes needed to be successful in both cheerleading and throughout life. In order to continuously improve and gain new skills, I realized that I would have to practice as much as possible in order to achieve my goals. It was not too long after that I had discovered that if I had this same mentality for school, then I could become a better student too. From cheerleading for so many years, I have learned that in order to be successful, I needed to learn to trust and work with others. When I first started, I had little understanding of this concept. Over the past nine years, I have blossomed into a hard-working team-player. Cheerleading has given me the skills I need to be successful as an athlete, student and person--skills which will lead me to success through college and into the real world.