The Penn State Behrend cheerleading program continues to improve each year under the direction of Head Coach Kelli Capinello. This school year, the cheerleading team was able to separate into game day cheer and competition cheer. Each cheerleading team has had great success in their own right, and there is one cheerleader who has been instrumental in helping change the dynamic of the cheerleading program as a whole. This cheerleader is junior co-captain Madi Start.

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Start is a junior double majoring in international business and project and supply chain management with a minor in spanish. She chose international business because she loves to travel, and she also enjoys learning another language. In addition, she enjoys planning and organizing, which is why she decided on project and supply chain management. Start is a 2015 graduate of Peters Township High School, and was involved in Honors classes as well as all-star cheer in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania. Her competitive cheer team was a consistent qualifier for Nationals, and she has traveled all over the east coast of the United States to compete since middle school. “Growing up there helped me because it was a very competitive atmosphere in both athletics and academics,” Start said of her upbringing. While Start was pretty involved in her high school days, she continues to take on new roles and responsibilities at Penn State Behrend.

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Start has been involved with the cheerleading team at Behrend since her freshman year. She was a game day cheerleader for two years before Behrend’s competition team fully formed this season. She was a huge part in helping the teams get new uniforms and also new mats to practice on. She also assisted in creating the cheer routine for their competitions. The team was awarded Grand Champions at the JamBash competition in Pittsburgh, and have one more competition in April at the California University of Pennsylvania. “Cheerleading has given me a lot at Behrend. It provides me a break to focus on something else other than school. It also allows me to be more creative than in the classroom. I will always be around cheer, and I am already excited to coach one day,” Start said of her chosen sport. Start is passionate, not just about her own competitive cheer teams, but she also follows the sport closely. Some of her favorite competitive cheer programs and teams include Top Gun All-Stars, World Cup Cheer and Rain Athletics. She enjoys watching Top Gun and World Cup Cheer because, as she put it “Their choreography is innovative, different and they always have a theme to their routines. They continue to find ways to set trends in competitive cheer.” Her connection to Rain Athletics is that her younger sister, Britain, is a member of the program. Start stated of her sister “I really admire my sister for her hard work and dedication to the sport. We both started cheering when we were in early middle school, and she is truly a great talent. I admire her because she is already better than I was when I was her age. I am excited to watch her as she continues her cheerleading career.” While Start has a huge passion for cheerleading, it may be her charity work and hard work in the classroom that sets her apart.

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Start has been involved in Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority since her second semester at Behrend. Some of the roles she has had within ASA include vice-president and membership education advisor. As a part of ASA, she has helped with charities and causes like the Special Olympics, ESO Dances, S. June Smith Center, Girls on the Run and the ASA Foundation.

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When she is not busy with her philanthropy work, she works at the Learning Resources Center as a spanish tutor. “My Spanish teacher Dr. Soledad Traverso helped me grow to love the language, and also helped other people learn the language as well. She continually finds ways to make me a better spanish student,” Start stated. Start also has some industry experience working in retail as well as for her father’s law firm, Amato Start and Associates. She was an office manager intern last summer, and she designed the firm’s new website.

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When Start is not busy with school or cheerleading, she loves to travel to new places. She has been to Rome for a study abroad with the IT 130 class at Behrend, and she will be going back to Rome to visit again for another study abroad opportunity. In addition, she traveled to the islands of St. Martin, Bermuda, Haiti and Puerto Rico on a cruise in the summer of 2016. She is hopeful to be a more avid traveler once she graduates and continues her professional career.

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There are two additional people that Start is forever thankful for allowing her to begin her cheerleading career, and also for showing her how to be a strong leader and hard worker. These people are her parents, as Start said “My parents have always been very supportive of my cheerleading career. Without them, it would not have been possible to get to where I am today. I admire their strength and hard work. I am thankful they have both been great role models to me.” While Start has a lot of great people in her life, it was her who has taken full advantage of a lot of unique opportunities that Penn State Behrend and the Pittsburgh area have offered her.

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Start will always have a passion for cheerleading, and is thankful to be a part of a new and improved competition cheerleading team and program. Cheerleading will always be a major component in her life, and she looks to be an excellent coach someday. She is viewed by many as a terrific example of an honorable student and community member. She has helped rebuild the Behrend cheerleading program, and will likely continue to find ways to improve the success of the program for the future. Start has made a huge impact in a lot of different areas at Penn State Behrend, and she still has much more time to continue to make Behrend a better place for many years to come.

03/13/2018