Butler's Richey in right place at right time
HIGH POINT, N.C. — Madison Richey figured her all-star competitive cheerleading days were behind her.
“I just couldn't do it anymore,” the Butler graduate and longtime FCA Gems all-star said. “I had a back injury. I had a finger injury. I couldn't do any tumbling anymore.”
Then ... Talk about being in the right place at the right time.
After spending two years as a student at Butler County Community College — competing for FCA Gems out of Flo's Gymnastics in Sarver the first year, coaching there the second year — Richey enrolled at High Point University in North Carolina. She is majoring in business with a minor in marketing.
Familiar with the Cheer Extreme All-Stars (CEA) program in North Carolina “because they are one of the best in the country,” Richey was curious enough to check into how close that program's location was to High Point.
“It was after I already got there (to High Point),” she said. “Purely coincidence. They are in Kernersville, about 20 minutes away.”
Richey discovered CEA was beginning a non-tumbling team — a new division in all-star cheerleading — for the first time.
“I told my mother I wanted to try out,” Richey said. “It was a chance to compete for one more year. All they do is stunting, jumping and dance. It was perfect for me.”
She had that conversation with her mother a year ago — one day before the team tryouts were scheduled.
Flo Iman, who runs Flo's Gymnastics, is Richey's mother.
“I know how passionate she is about cheerleading,” Iman said. “It's her thing. She's been doing it all her life.
“We packed up the car and drove to North Carolina the next day.”
Richey wound up making the team. Practices were Thursday and her mother was off work on Fridays. So the two drove to Kernersville for practice each week, all summer long, until Richey began going to High Point.
“I ... everybody on the team has really supportive parents. I'll never forget that,” Richey said.
And that support paid off.
CEA's non-tumbling team, known as Lady Lux, wound up winning the national Triple Crown. The team won the CheerSport Nationals in Atlanta, the National Cheerleading Association Championships in Dallas and the Universal Cheerleading Association Nationals in Orlando, all on successive weekends.
“The travel was crazy,” Richey said. “But I prepared my (academic) schedule for it. My first class Monday isn't unitil 5 p.m. and I had no classes scheduled Friday.
“I never missed a class while competing in all of those events.”
To top all that off, Richey's team — consisting of 30 girls ages 14 to 21 — went on to win the International Open world championship in Orlando. The squad competed against teams from the United States, Canada, Norway and Mexico.
And through all of that, Richey is maintaining a 3.8 gradepoint average at High Point.
“I'm so proud of her,” Iman said. “What she pulled off was amazing.”
Richey was part of numerous national champion cheerleading squads through the years at FCA Gems. But she had never competed at the NCA nationals in Dallas and had never won a world championship.
Now she won't compete again.
“I'm done,” she said. “I only have one semester left at High Point and that will be in the fall. I'll teach at Flo's Gymnastics this summer, then I'll resume teaching there when I graduate.
“This is a fantastic way to go out. I feel blessed. I developed a great bond with those girls and the time management skills I picked up will stay with me the rest of my life.”
