May 14, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Something to cheer about!
Family and friends of DCHS football cheerleader Allyson Fuller gathered at DCHS Monday to celebrate her signing with Tennessee Tech University where she will be joining the Golden Eagles’ cheerleading team next season. Sydney Hickerson, Tech’s head coach of cheer and dance was also on hand for the signing.
Fuller, an outstanding high school student and cheerleader, graduated last Friday night from DeKalb County High School and will be furthering her education at Tech toward a career path in nursing. She is the daughter of Anthony and Amanda Fuller.
“I am super excited. Cheerleading in college is something I have always wanted to do,” said Ally. “I like the atmosphere of Tech. I have gone and watched them cheer at their games so many times. They are amazing. Their team is amazing. They are like a family there and Tech is not far from home so its perfect for me,” she said.
Although Fuller has had cheerleading success at the high school level she still had to prove herself to Tech.
“I had to try out,” said Ally. “They saw me in every aspect of cheer and everything that I could do. They picked me out of around 60 girls that tried out so it’s a really big honor. Its definitely a higher level but it will be really fun to do,” she added.
Fuller received the 2023 DCHS Most Valuable Football Cheerleader Award during the team banquet in January. Ally’s mother Amanda, who has been the DCHS football cheer coach, said she could not be prouder of her talented daughter.
“Having my daughter be a college cheerleader is amazing,” said Amanda. “It’s a goal Ally has had for a long time. Only two percent of the people actually get to cheer in college so that in itself is a great accomplishment. As a mom watching her go off to college is difficult to deal with but its also exciting because she is going to further her education, her skills as a cheerleader, and she will have a lot of opportunities”, she said.
In announcing her MVC award at the team banquet four months ago, Coach Fuller talked about Ally’s lifelong love for cheerleading.
“She has been around the DCHS football cheerleading program her entire life. She has been cheering since she was six years old. Ally has genuine crowd appeal and makes it all look natural and easy. She has participated in gymnastics and competition cheer, and now works as a tumbling instructor at Infinity Athletics, She has been an NCA All-American nominee every year in high school and she made the All-American team last year. She has looked up to so many amazing cheerleaders over the years and now she has become the one that many young people look up to. She is so very precious to me. She makes me proud every day,” said Coach Fuller.
Coach Hickerson said she is excited about Ally joining her program.
“Ally is a really hard worker and learns very fast. She is versatile and can play a lot of different roles, anything that the team would need. She has a great game day presence,” said Coach Hickerson.
“Ally will cheer for all home football games, then we split up and rotate squads for our basketball season, just because there are so many home games. We will travel to the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament and then if we go to March Madness, the NCAA Tournament we will travel to that as well. Last year our men’s and women’s basketball teams made it to the championship game of the OVC conference tournament and our women’s team actually won the conference, so we got to go cheer at two NCAA games which was amazing. Ally has a lot of really neat things to look forward to,” Coach Hickerson explained.
“Tennessee Tech Cheer and Dance is actually under athletics so Ally will receive all the same perks and priorities as the football, basketball, and baseball players. She will have a strength and conditioning coach, academic advisor for athletes, athletic trainer, and nutritionist,” said Coach Hickerson.
“We compete in the small co-ed game day division at the Universal Cheer Association (UCA College Nationals) in Orlando Florida. Its tough competition and very rigorous. A lot of training goes on in the fall and over Christmas break, so our teams make a lot of sacrifices to go and perform at nationals. We love doing it and we’re 4th in the nation so we are really proud of that. Next year I am looking forward to hopefully hitting that top three or top one spot,” said Coach Hickerson.