Former Central Cheerleader of the Year Hailey Smith fulfilling dream of competing for US

Former San Angelo Central gymnast and cheerleader Hailey Smith always dreamed of representing her country on the world stage.

Three years after graduating from Central and four years into her cheerleading career, Smith was selected as one of 13 girls to represent the United States in the International Cheer Union World Cheerleading Championships in Orlando, Florida on April 24-26, 2024.

As a senior at San Angelo Central, Smith won 2020-21 Cheerleader of the Year for 5A-6A schools by the Texas Girls Coaches Association and was recruited by two of the top cheerleading schools in the nation Navarro College and Trinity Valley Community College — both featured on the Netflix show Cheer. During her senior year, Smith also helped coach other cheer teams across the United States through the National Cheerleader Association.

Smith chose TVCC over Navarro and at the end of her freshman year, the NCA asked her to move up to the college staff. And despite the Netflix show being canceled during her first year at TVCC, both situations opened up major opportunities.

"It gave me a lot of exposure internationally and I got invited to travel to many different countries throughout each summer I was attending Trinity Valley and go teach," Smith said. "Like for example, team France. I was there this past summer in Paris, and then Chile (and ) Australia... It was just really awesome to have a language barrier and still be able to get through to athletes from different cultures that speak different languages, but we're communicating through the skills that we do."

In early 2022, Smith decided to pursue her dream and try out for the United States national team, however, on her first try, she was not selected.

"I would say that the head coach of USA was a little hesitant putting me on (the team) because when I originally tried out, I was less than a year into cheerleading," Smith said. "Looking back though, I'm glad I didn't (make the team) because I was definitely not ready for it."

When Smith saw she needed to improve, she sought out help from coaches and other athletes. In her second year at Trinity Valley, the team hired Molly McLeod. McLeod was a TVCC and Weber State alumnus, as well as a five-time world champion with the United States cheer team and three-time college champion at Weber State. McLeod made Smith her protege and she attributes her development to McLeods help that year.

After spending two years at TVCC, Smith faced another decision. Her original intent was to transfer to Texas Tech - where her aunt was an alumnus - after her two years at TVCC, but at a partner stunt competition in 2022, she noticed something.

"I saw that pretty much every person that qualified for (the partner stunt competition) was a Weber athlete," Smith said. "There were like 10 couples representing Weber, and then there was just me from Trinity Valley, one from Navarro and one from (Texas) Tech... Then I watched (the Weber State team) at Daytona that year, and they destroyed everybody and they had been undefeated for the past seven years."

Smith was an early commit to Weber State in October of 2022, following in the footsteps of McLeod.

One year after Smith was not selected by the US national team, she went back to try out again. This time, though, she made the team.

"I started bawling my eyes out," Smith said. "Getting told by no to USA the first time really broke my heart because in my opinion, I thought I was good enough. And looking back I see now where I was lacking, and now I've surpassed a lot of people in all of those areas... It was a dream come true."

Smith has three months of practice with the US national team before they compete at the ICU World Championships in Orlando. Two weeks before that, she will compete with Weber State at the College Nationals in Daytona. While preparing for those two competitions, Smith is on the cheer team for the Utah Jazz and studying to get her bachelor's in biomechanical engineering.

"I know what it takes to be great at what I do and I also know how it feels to lose and wishing I had done more," Smith said. "I just make sure that I'm very prepared for every competition as much as I can so I don't look back and wish I had done something different."

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This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: Sports: Hailey Smith fulfilling dream of competing for US team