Following her graduation from Columbus East in 2016, Hannah Gregory wanted to apply for the Universal Cheerleaders Association, but with a busy academic schedule, she had to put it on hold.
In 2017, Gregory got in touch with some of her former coaches to assist her in getting into the UCA.
Being a cheerleader for a total of 14 years, getting out of cheerleading altogether was not an option for Gregory. She tried out for the program, and the rest is history.
Gregory now is in her third summer with the UCA program. She is the head instructor of nearly a dozen cheerleading camps that she conducts, one of which was last week at Central Middle School.
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The UCA also helps Gregory share her passion of cheerleading to the next generation of youth in Columbus and the surrounding communities.
“I never thought I’d be here, but now that I am, it is just great,” Gregory said. “Cheerleading is not only a team sport, and not only are you cheering your school on, I also think it is a huge thing with life lessons. Cheerleading taught me so many life lessons, and that’s what I really like to bring into camp. It’s a multitude of things. I don’t think there is a single life lesson you can’t learn from cheerleading, so it means a lot to me to be able to have this job and be able to come back in and just give them a fraction of what I learned.”
The UCA was founded in 1974 by Jeff Webb to provide the highest quality educational training for cheerleaders with the goal of incorporating high-level skills with traditional crowd leading. It is the largest cheerleading camp company in the world and trains more than 180,000 cheerleaders every summer at more than 3,200 sessions across the country. Some of their top competition championships are held at the Walt Disney World Resort and nationally televised across the ESPN Networks and CBS Sports.
Gregory was a cheerleader for Olympians for three years. Following high school, she went to Ivy Tech and earned her Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts and Science in 2017.
Gregory then transferred her credits to Hanover College to complete her final two years to earn a B.A. in Political Science in 2019.
In addition to being a cheerleader at East for three years, Gregory cheered at Hanover in her first year, and she was also a part of Hanover’s track and field team, as well. She invested a lot of time in track and didn’t cheer her final year at Hanover.
Gregory mostly sticks to the Midwest when she is conducting her camps, but also has the potential to conduct camps across the Northeast, which could push her total to 20 camps this summer.
Just like any young adult fresh out of college, Gregory isn’t sure if this will be her final summer of conducting camps. She is in the middle of applying to Officer Candidate School through the Marine Corps. If she gets accepted, she says that will be her next adventure for a while, which will put her cheerleading on hold. If that falls through, she says she’ll probably apply to grad school, which might give her some time to continue with cheerleading.
Gregory has one message to any young cheerleaders that might want to be in her shoes one day.
“Even if you are unsure of where you are at right now, keep working hard and keep your eyes on your goals and on your future goals,” Gregory said. “I believe if you try hard enough, work hard enough, you can achieve almost anything. I never though I’d be here, and it’s just been crazy. It’s a huge family here (at UCA). Everybody is there for everyone.”
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Name: Hannah Gregory
Age: 21
High school: Columbus East
Colleges: Ivy Tech, Hanover
Occupation: Instructor for Universal Cheerleaders Association
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