Lets get to know each other..shall we? My name is Jasmine Darnell. I am a 26 year old young woman born and raised in Tennessee. It all started in a little city called Clarksville, TN (not so little anymore). I was your average Britney Spears loving, Bring It On watching, pink color loving, hairbrush singing, Spice Girls obsessed...girl. I grew up in the middle of nowhere...where even dial up internet was hard to come by. My average day as a little girl was driving four wheelers around the country and playing barefoot in the creek. I came from a household where love was all we needed, nothing was handed to me, and I was taught to work hard for everything I wanted. I am a real girl with real issues who is not afraid to express herself. I don't feel the need to use social media as a way to mask the beauty of reality, but rather a way to encourage people to be exactly who they are...nothing more and nothing less.
How Cheerleading came into the Picture:
I vaguely remember watching my older sister in competitive cheer when I was younger and thinking...this is what I want to do. When I got to high school, I decided to give it a go. I figured...if I could throw myself off hills to teach myself how to do a backflip..then I could do this. Plus after rewatching Bring It On a billion times, I felt like I had all the qualifications needed to make any cheer team. After 3 years of UCA camps, cheering football games, finding my love for flying....I found myself cheerleading obsessed. My senior year...I was captain of the cheerleading team with my best friend and looking into going to the top cheerleading colleges in the country. All I knew was that I was born to inspire, motivate, and lead...and cheerleading was the way I wanted to do it. So what did I do? I went to the best university cheerleading clinic in the country...The University of Kentucky. Needless to say, I wasn't quite ready for the big leagues yet. After seeing the best of the best, I knew I had a lot of work to do so I went back home to work my way to the top. I decided to spend my first two years of college cheer at my home town university, APSU. I spent countless hours in the gym (with my boyfriend at the time) doing anything and everything I could to be the best. Through some friends, we had found out that University of Memphis Cheer was on the rise. A couple months later....I found myself packing up my 98 Camaro with nothing but a dream ...headed towards Memphis. The good stuff happens after I moved to Memphis, but I'll save those for other posts ;).
Fast Foward Five Years Later
Since I moved to Memphis five years ago, I have won a College Cheerleading National Championship (Memphis 2013), was a member of UCA College Staff for three years, won 4 gold medals and 1 silver medal with the USA National Coed Cheerleading team, competed in an international partner stunt competition in Mexico with one of my best friends, and won my first ever International Allstar Cheerleading Championship as a coach. I am currently coaching allstar and highschool cheer in Memphis and loving every second of being able to share my number one passion with young athletes. I am also exploring my love for fitness and finding ways to share that passion as well.
Needless to say....I am thankful for my 98 Camaro getting me to Memphis. I have experienced a lot thanks to this wonderful city and the people in it. However I truly feel like this is just the beginning.
XOXO, Jazzy
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