It’s been several months since the Plant City Dolphins’ junior varsity cheerleading squad began building its 2015 routine, and all that work under the summer sun is paying off.
At the end of the routine, Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” blasts its beat. The squad forms a pyramid, with three girls standing at the top. Center, Morgan Pierce, slips some golden boxing gloves onto her hands. With two swings, the other two fall down.
Pierce raises her hand above her head as the song ends.
“I still got a lot of fight left in me,” Platten sings.
The routine is still being tweaked, but the message is not. This is Pierce’s fight, and the enemy is cancer.
CHEERING THROUGH IT
Pierce, 12, was first diagnosed with the disease over seven years ago.
It started with pains in her hip, which doctors initially thought was something else. But, as the pain persisted, more tests were done. In November 2007, doctors found evidence that something was very wrong: a tumor was spotted in her abdomen.
The diagnosis that’s stuck is stage 4 neuroblastoma.
“The hospital we went to was Tampa General Hospital, and my grandma works there,” Pierce says. “All I remember saying was, ‘So, Grandma’s just going to fix me up, and then I’ll be all better.’ I really didn’t know what was coming for me.”
Over the last seven years, Pierce has relapsed as many times. It’s forced her to undergo over 40 rigorous chemotherapy treatments, which steal both her time and energy.
She flies to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City with her mother for many of her treatments, and her knee is given so much radiation that it sometimes affects her ability to cheer. In the summer heat, for example, she sometimes spends parts of the football games in the car so as to not be drained by the combination of intense Florida heat and physical activity.
But no one who’s ever met Pierce can accuse her of not doing her best to deal with these complications.
It helps that she’s been friends with many of her teammates, including BFF (best friend forever) Haylee Thomas, for the past seven years or more.
“People wouldn’t fully understand, so I would just say, ‘Well, this is what she goes through,’” Thomas says.
ANYTHING BUT ROUTINE
It was easy for the squad to get on board when the idea for the “Fight Song” routine was first proposed.
“I feel like they’re not really doing it for me,” Pierce says. “It’s more for, like, all the kids out there who are fighting cancer and who are going through the same things that I am. I don’t like to think of it as a type of routine for me.”
One of the team’s main goals is to tweak the routine to take first place in November’s TCYFCC Cheer-Off. But, even if the girls don’t win, they’re comfortable with meeting their other goal: raising awareness for childhood cancer.
“My favorite part is when she has the gloves and we do the deadmans, because that tells her story about how much fight she has left in her,” cheerleader Bailey Estep says. “It explains how she still has one fight left in her, and she’ll keep on fighting until she’s done with cancer.”
There are other elements of the routine that are designed to get people talking.
Boxing fans already know the significance of gold gloves: they represent one of the most coveted awards the sport has to offer. But gold is the official color of childhood cancer awareness, so it appears on her gloves and her ribbon.
Also on Pierce’s ribbon is a small tribute to another Dolphin affected by cancer: she added a blue ribbon to honor the memory of longtime president Buddy Bennett, who battled colon cancer before his death earlier this year. Blue is the color of colon cancer awareness.
Expectations are high for the competition, but as long as the squad knows that its routine is raising awareness for cancer, the cheerleaders will be happy.
“It’s not rare,” Pierce says. “It happens a lot. But the more people I tell, and the more people I meet, the more people will know about what’s happening.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
WHAT IS NEUROBLASTOMA?
Neuroblastoma is a form of cancer that affects children.
According to the Mayo Clinic, it’s usually found in or near the adrenal glands of children age 5 or younger. It can surface in other parts of the body, such as the abdomen, chest and back, and occasionally affects older children. It is most commonly found in the abdomen, and can cause pain, changes in bowel habits and swelling in the legs.
At the moment, there is no cure for relapsed neuroblastoma.
CHEER-OFF
The TCYFCC Cheer-Off will be held Saturday, Nov. 14, at Durant High School.