Cecilia Salupo-Carey

Cheer Captain to Physician

Cecilia is currently a Biomedical Science major with a Business minor and after Marist, plans on attending medical school to become a physician! 

"Cheerleading has impacted me in both personal and professional ways. Starting in middle school it has taught me how to prioritize my extracurriculars and efficiently manage my time. It has also taught me accountability and dependability; I tend to be someone that does everything myself but cheerleading forces us to rely on each other not only to achieve our goal but to also be sure everyone walks off the mat uninjured. Lastly, getting so close to my teammates over the years has taught me how to extract the best qualities out of each individual even in hard times. During my senior year, I’ve seen the biggest growth in myself, especially since transitioning from general member to captain. This has molded and prepared me the most for my professional endeavors. It has taught me how to navigate through being a leader for the team while simultaneously being a teammate and a friend." 

"I was a three-sport athlete in high school and all sports create good structure and discipline, but no sport is like cheerleading. Cheerleading is unique because it requires an equal standardized skill level. In other sports, there’s always competition within the team of who will get more playing time or who will make it to professional teams. This is not the case in cheerleading because there is no star player. In some cases, there may be athletes with more skill or experience but overall, it’s a completely collaborative environment and everyone on the team is looking out for each other’s best interest." 

"What do you think about the cheerleader stereotype?"

The stereotype is simply wrong and stale. I have thought about this a lot especially since I am starting to think about my application process for medical school. So many people have these terrible preconceived ideas of cheerleaders that are completely wrong. I have run into it first-hand many many times. “I would never picture you as a cheerleader” or “the duality of you being a cheerleader and also a science major”. One of the most memorable of these moments was when I was shadowing a female orthopedic surgeon who was all about getting more females into orthopedics since only 6-8% of women make up that particular field. After spending a few hours with her we were talking about cheerleading and I told her how great a sport it was all around and that she should consider it for her daughter. Her response was "no, I would never let that happen. The sport is too demeaning. So many people, even highly educated, really do not understand the hard work that goes into the sport, not everyone can just be taught the rules and go in with fundamentals and make it through. These are skills that must be built upon over a long period of practice and it requires full body strength, coordination, and flexibility. Lastly, I wanted to mention the majority of the cheerleading team at Marist are STEM majors and our cumulative GPA is consistently 3.7 and above. And we will continue to do it wearing skirts and with a smile on our faces.