CHLOE KOWALYK
Editor in Chief
When Courtney Woodring isn’t on the mat with a bow in her hair and white sneakers on her feet, she’s focusing on her academics and extracurriculars.
Woodring is a senior public relations major with a minor in leadership studies. She graduated from Eden High School, located in the town she grew up in, Eden, N.Y.
Eden itself is a small town located about 40 minutes away from Fredonia with Woodring’s graduating class only consisting of about 100 students.
However, Woodring’s love for sports was much bigger.
During her childhood, she played many different sports, including gymnastics, bowling and eventually, cheerleading.
After seeing many of her friends pick up cheerleading in school, Woodring decided she wanted to try it too.
“I was like, ‘that seems fun, yeah, I want to try that,’” she said.
Although she tried many sports, cheerleading seemed to be a good fit for Woodring, as 2024 marks her 14th year in the sport.
High school cheer was especially memorable for Woodring.
“My birthday always fell on our homecoming game. I have two videos of me bawling my eyes out because they got the announcer to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ over the loudspeaker and surprise me,” she said. “I had a good core group of friends that I grew up cheering with.”
Following her cheerleading experiences throughout her childhood and in high school, Woodring decided to cheer again in college. After taking a brief hiatus throughout her freshman year at Fredonia during the COVID-19 pandemic, Woodring decided to jump back into cheerleading.
She tried out for Fredonia’s cheerleading team, and has been a Blue Devil cheerleader since.
She also cheers on her peers as the team’s co-captain.
The cheerleading team cheers for both men’s and women’s basketball, as well as other events on campus such as the annual Pep Rally and community service events. “Sometimes, we support the hockey team,” Woodring said.
In addition, Woodring said that the team competes in a major cheer competition in Daytona Beach, Fla.
This competition is extremely well-known to those involved in the cheerleading community. Hundreds of college cheerleading teams across the United States meet in Daytona Beach to compete.
This year, the competition is scheduled to take place in April.
The Fredonia cheerleading team has been to this competition several years before, and Woodring has been twice already herself. The team is planning to compete again this year.
“For the first time my first year, it was just crazy because a lot of the teams that we saw and the athletes that were there, I had grown up watching,” Woodring said. “It was surreal. Going back over the years was really fun.”
When stunting, Woodring is primarily a back spot, which means she stands behind the flyer to help ensure the stunt is stable. While stunts are her main strength, Woodring also enjoys the dancing aspect of the routines.
Woodring’s coach at Fredonia, Julie Troche, has coached her since she started at Fredonia.
“Since coaching Courtney, I can say that she is an individual that silently processes what is being taught and responds with thoughtful solutions. She will take on a task and follow it through until the end,” Troche said.
Troche also commended Woodring’s organization and focus on details. “Courtney models a can-do attitude and approaches teaching teammates in a calm manner,” she said.
As a senior, Woodring has been a leader to the younger cheerleaders on the team.
“Courtney, as a cheerleader, is a lead[er] by example, not necessarily in-your-face, but in a quite calm demeanor,” Troche said. “She will carry through on her word and demonstrate by being that silent leader.”
In addition to being an active Blue Devil cheerleader, Woodring is also active on campus as the promotion chair of Spectrum.
“I’m always at a bunch of events on campus,” she said.
Through her work with Spectrum, she is able to combine her passions, and gets the cheer team to perform at several different events that Spectrum puts on.
“She has always taken on many projects at once for the team. She provided opportunities for community service [and] got the team engaging with clubs on campus,” Troche said.
Woodring also works as an intern for Marketing and Communications on campus. She helps run the campus’s social media, and contributes to blog content.
In addition, she works as a barista at the Starbucks on campus.
Woodring admits that her schedule is often very busy and hectic, but that doesn’t stop her from being active in both campus activities and for her cheer team.
In fact, Woodring has taken on some additional responsibilities on the cheer team outside of the typical practices, workouts and routines.
According to Troche, “She was given the task a few years back, of leading the judges table at our competition that we host every year. We have been acknowledged as having a very professional, organized and smooth-running judges table.”
On top of this, Woodring has also helped coordinate the gear the Blue Devils wear to their nationals competition.
To do so, she worked with Troche and the athletics department on campus for logo approval, along with the design process.
Outside of her campus events and extracurricular activities, Woodring has worked to make the most of her college experience by making new friends.
One of Woodring’s closest friends is Katie Lee, a senior video production major.
Woodring and Lee met their sophomore year in 2021, as they lived in the same suite on campus.
“I had just gotten to campus after being home all of freshman year due to COVID and I was moving into a suite where basically everybody knew each other already,” Lee said. “But early on Courtney, Sophia (another new suite mate) and I really clicked.”
After their experiences living together during their sophomore year, Woodring and Lee decided they wanted to live together, and looked for apartments.
Now, the duo have been roommates for two years.
“Courtney is just someone who is so nice and instantly easy to talk to. She’s a great listener and always knows the right thing to say,” Lee said. “She’s one of the smartest and [most] hard-working people I know; she always wants to achieve better, whether that’s in school, spectrum or the cheer team.”
Woodring has been able to build bonds with several other students on campus.
In fact, Woodring’s advice to younger students and prospective students is to get involved on campus. “Don’t be afraid of getting out and don’t be afraid of meeting new people,” she said. Woodring said she enjoys seeing students she recognizes from working at Starbucks and at Spectrum events around campus.
“She truly is an inspiration to me and makes me want to work harder and helps me know I can truly achieve anything I put my mind to,” Lee said.
“If I weren’t doing cheer, what would I do?” Woodring said.