Love Shack

MICHAEL SHACKELFORD'S PLAN never included “Be a middle school cheerleader coach.”

If anything, it included, “Find a career in something other than education.”

His mom teaches second- and third-graders, and his uncle is a principal, and several other relatives work in education, so he told himself, ‘I'm not sure teaching’s right for me,’ and yet, here he is — the coach of O. Henry Middle School’s award-winning cheer team. 

So, how’d that happen?

Well, he needed a job, and once he found one, he needed to keep it, so he answered “Yes” to almost every question, and one of those questions was, “Wanna coach middle school cheerleaders?”

Clearly, “extensive experience in the field” and “looking the part” weren’t high on the list of job requirements, inasmuch as Michael had no experience in cheerleading when he accepted the position, other than having a couple of high school friends back in Birmingham, Alabama, who had been cheerleaders.

And he doesn’t look like a cheerleader coach. He looks like someone who might one day appear on stage in “Braveheart, The Musical.”

Check out the cover photo. Am I right or what?

•••

Michael lived in Greenville, South Carolina, until middle school, when his father took a better-paying job in Birmingham. He returned to Greenville to attend Furman University, where he earned a degree in sociology and began his career as a professional do-gooder.  

One summer, he was doing good at a Christian sports camp in Missouri when he learned that a church in Austin was looking for someone with his credentials, so he applied and landed the job and moved to Texas.

“I worked there for a few years and then decided that really wasn't for me,” he said. “I was looking for something to do next and started substitute teaching as a way of making ends meet and quickly realized he loved it.”

His former principal, Pete Price, put him on as a permanent sub and told him, “I think you’ll be a great teacher. Get certified, and we’ll find out.”

The next year, Michael joined the O.Henry faculty. The only problem was that he was a recent hire in a state mired in recession, and he was working for a property-rich, cash-poor school district that was ditching non-essentials, so he decided to make himself essential to the point of being indispensable.

“I said ‘Yes’ to a lot of things that year,” he said. “I didn’t want to be constantly on the verge of being let go.”

When the head cheer coach, who had 50 or so kids on the team, said she needed an assistant, Michael agreed to help, which surprised family and friends, especially his former cheer pals, who asked him, “Do have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”

He did not.

“I didn't know much about cheerleading, and my first group of cheerleaders knew I didn't know much about cheerleading,” he said. “But they were a funny group.”

That’s his way of saying, “They forgave my ignorance,” probably because he did what the head coach told him to do, and he cared enough to show up and hustle to catch up because he wanted to make sure he was doing it right. He watched endless YouTube videos and attended  cheer camps where he peppered his instructors with questions.

The next year — 2010 — the head cheer coach decided she wanted to spend more time with family, so Michael took over. He considers this moment as part of his rebirth, which explains the tattoos on his right arm that include:

• a phoenix;

• a quote from J. R. R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings: From the ashes a fire shall be woken. A light from the shadows shall spring;

• a scene from one of C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia novels, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It’s when Asian the lion turns Eustace the Dragon back into Eustace the boy.

•••

Though he was never much of an athlete, Michael found that coaching cheer tapped into previous life experiences like high school musicals and show choir, so he understood choreography. He’d also been a weightlifter, so he understood the physics of picking up a 90-pound girl and tossing her 6 or 8 feet into the air, and then catching her.

Coaching came quickly to him. It helped that he’s competitive. Early on, he found out that the national cheerleading association had started a “game day” category that would focus on sideline rather than the massive kabuki-like stage spectacles ESPN televises to balance its coverage of the national spelling bee.

“Sideline?” he thought. “That’s what we do. Maybe we ought to give it a try.”

They excelled at it, right away.

 “I like having easy tangible goals,” he said, “and once we went to that first competition and got our scores back, I thought, ‘I know how to do this. I know how to make us competitive.”

He’s been to nationals five times since, but this story isn’t about winning contests. It’s about what it means to be a cheerleader at a school that values “leader” more than “cheer,” which is not to suggest it doesn’t value “cheer.” 

It does.

“Every year, I give a little speech about the importance of the ‘leader’ part of being a cheerleader,” he said. “We are leaders in academics, in behavior and in attitude. Then, we’re leaders in school spirit. If we're not a leader in the first three, we can't be leaders in school spirit.”

So, they have study hall time. Members work together to make sure their grades are up and everyone else’s grades are, too. If someone breaks a rule, they talk. If a little spat takes place, they talk.

“My team doesn't typically have a lot of drama between kids because we really focus on being a leader, not only to our school but to one another,” Michael said. “If we're not respectful to one another, then we can't be a leader in this school. So, when we do have conflict, we figure it out, and we work it out.”

Learning conflict resolution, teambuilding and communication skills last a lifetime.

“Just last night, we had Back-to-School night, and the cheerleaders functioned as ambassadors,” he said. “They roamed the halls, greeting parents, answering questions and helping people find classrooms. It’s so important for young people today to know how to approach and talk to people, how to speak up and take charge.”

By the way, the cheerleaders call him “Coach Shack.”

•••

Of course, cheerleading is expensive, and the school district provides little if any money, so members must raise funds for uniforms, shoes, poms and all the other cheer baubles. They also pay their own way to regional and national competitions.

Michael is mindful that, while O. Henry may be located in a wealthier neighborhood, it’s not necessarily a wealthy school.

“We have students of all races, all ethnicities, all economic backgrounds, all ability levels,” he said. “We try to make sure that everyone who wants to be part of our team has a chance to be not just on the team but a successful member of the team.”

Money is always an issue, but it’s never THE issue.

“We want to make sure that cost is never reason why somebody can or cannot participate,” he said. “I try to be as upfront as I can with parents in the beginning in terms of costs. I explain the fundraising opportunities, but I tell them, ‘Things are going to be expensive, and that’s just how it is.’” 

So far, he’s yet to leave a kid at home because of money. 

“Somehow, we’ve always found a way to make it work,” he said. “They find donations. Some students fundraise a little extra. It becomes a team effort. If we have students who can't go because they can't afford it, then we — as a team — will not go because we want everyone to be able to participate.”

And that’s how it is, every year. 

“No matter where they come from, we start at square one,” Michael said. Some kids come in with no experience. Some come in with several years of private cheer instruction.”

It doesn’t matter. All of them must learn to work together. 

He points to a team picture tacked to a bulletin board. 

“This team won some pretty cool prizes at camp that we weren't expecting to get, so they were so excited. We set the goal to win first place at this in this division at camp and we did.”

He points to another photo. It finished seventh out of eight at regionals, so the returning cheerleaders committed themselves to beating this other team. That’s how they’d measure success. If that team finished ninth, they wanted to finish eighth. 

They ended up winning the tournament.

“One of the girls filmed it, and it was so funny because each time they announced a place, and it wasn't us, we got a little more excited,” Michael said. “And when they announced second place and it wasn't us, one of the girls said, ‘What if we didn't place at all?’ In our minds, that wasn’t possible, but what if? And then, when they announced that they’d won, the girls just went nuts. We were jumping up and down and crying and hugging, and it was so cool.”

That team went to nationals in Orlando.

“We didn’t place as high as we wanted to, but we scored higher than we’d ever scored before,” he said. “When I told them our scores, they were so excited. Sure, we were disappointed we didn’t place higher, but we achieved our goal, and the kids really latched onto that.’”

Two weeks later, the pandemic hit Austin.

“The kids were isolated, and so many parents reached out to me and told me, over and over, how glad they were that we’d had this incredible experience right before everything shut down.”

•••

This year’s cheer team is just happy to be back in school. Every chance they get to cheer, they do, gleefully. 

“When I look at that bulletin board, do you know what I see,” I ask. “I see a lot of smiles and they’re not cheerleader smiles. They’re real smiles.”

Though he’s wearing a mask, I can tell that he’s smiling.

“One of the things I love about our cheerleading team is that it’s very reflective of who our community is,” he said. “I think it’s understood, but I like to repeat it as often as I can: I really care about making sure every student feels that they belong, that they have a place where they feel safe and known. We have tryouts, and sometimes I place people on two different teams, but I don't cut people. I want everyone to feel like they can be part of the cheer team, no matter what.”

The team is now trying to figure out how to stage a homecoming pep rally that observes COVID restrictions. They’ll soon be working on one of their main fundraisers — the Halloween Haunted House. It takes time, effort and buckets of goop and positive attitude.

“People ask me why we do all these things,” Michael said. “I really don’t know what to say except that I became the de facto school spirit leader when I took this job. But more than that, it really is about bringing our school together. It’s about giving kids a chance to be involved. It’s about offering them an opportunity to be excited about something bigger than themselves.

“If I can do that through our cheer, if I can make kids feel like this is an exciting place to be, then that is what’s most important to me,” he added. “That’s what I want to do here.”

By the way, he sees himself as an assistant principal one of these days, but not quite yet. 

“Trust me, I didn’t grow up thinking, ‘One day, I want to be a middle school cheer coach,’” he said. “But once I took the job and got better at it, and as the team grew and developed a real identity, I became more and more passionate about making it something our school can be proud of, something our parents and the whole community can be proud of, but — most importantly — something the kids can be proud of. And I want to see it continue to grow, whether I’m here or not.”

That’s the plan.