The Elephant in the Gym: When Community Means More Than Winning

Motor City Cheer Diamonds

If you’ve ever been inside our gym, you know the energy: It’s loud, it’s electric, it’s full of kids who believe in each other. It’s the sound of hard work, of laughter, of the occasional grunt when conditioning kicks in. It’s where we teach stunts and tumbling, yes. But it’s also where we teach how to show up for each other, how to fail with grace, how to keep going when things get hard.

Emily is the kind of kid who could hold the sun in her hands. If you’ve ever been inside our gym, you’ve heard her voice before you saw her—loud, magnetic, beaming with a kind of hope that felt too good for this world. She’s the first to notice when someone’s energy dips, the first to ask, “Are you okay?” in a way that makes you believe she really means it. She’s the one who knows just when to throw a silly joke, or a look, or a hug. She’s the medicine in the room. She’s the kid who makes you think: maybe we really can be better together.

But there’s a cruelty to this world, isn’t there? A way it teaches even the brightest souls to fold in on themselves, to make their hurt invisible. Under the constant thrum of “do more, be more, win more,” there’s a cost that no trophy can ever repay.

Last year, we learned—suddenly, painfully—that Emily had been holding something so heavy we hadn’t seen it. The kind of weight you don’t post about, the kind of pain you can’t choreograph around. She came back to us quieter for a time, with a different kind of light in her eyes. And when she was ready, she told us: be kind. Be kind because you never know. Be kind because the kid with the biggest smile might be the one holding the heaviest load. Be kind because it might save someone’s life.

Diamonds Athletes & Coaches

Her mat talk got louder after that. You’d think it couldn’t have been possible, but it did. She cheered harder, loved bigger, reminded all of us what it really means to show up for each other. Not just when it’s easy, not just when it’s winning season, but when it’s hard.

And then, as the season pushed on toward the Summit, toward the dream, there was a shift. The coaches could feel it first, like the wind changing direction before the storm hits. Her teammates felt it too. We didn’t know what to name it, but we knew what to do.

In the animal kingdom, elephants have a remarkable instinct: when one of their own is suffering, the herd forms a protective ring around them. The strongest members face outward, tusks ready, while the vulnerable one stays at the center, shielded by the bodies and breath of those who love them. Scientists call this an “alert circle,” but it’s more than that. It’s a sacred choreography of care. A recognition that survival is not an individual achievement, but a collective act.

That’s what we became for Emily.

Without ever naming it, without any formal instruction, the entire MCC community moved into position. Coaches, teammates, families, we circled up. Not to fix her. Not to interrogate her pain or rush her back onto the mat. But to protect her spirit while it healed. To say: you do not have to perform strength for us. We will be strong for you now.

That’s what we did. Every single person in our gym—every coach, every athlete, every family—rallied around Emily. No one questioned. No one gossiped. We knew, in our bones, that this was bigger than cheerleading. This was bigger than medals or scores or Florida sunsets.

When Emily, bravely and heartbreakingly, stepped away from her senior season, it was a lot to hold. It was a grief that rippled through all of us.

If you watched our performance at Summit, you might have seen it: the cracks, the wobbles, the unsteady hands where there used to be muscle memory. We were safe, but we were different. You could see the ghosts of what almost was on that stage. And when the music stopped, our only remaining senior, Aaralyn, reached out to hug her basing partner—the one who had filled in for Emily. And that exact day was Emily’s birthday. She made it to her 18th. That day was a moment about what we carry for each other when the world is too heavy for one pair of hands.

Class of 2024 Graduates

And when we realized Emily wouldn’t get to take the trip with us, to make the memories in Florida one last time, we made a promise: we’ll make new memories when we get home. Chelsea Hammond—our coach, our photographer, our artist—offered her gift to the team, capturing this moment, this memory, this living proof that it’s never just about cheerleading.

It was Leslie Del Toro, our program’s founder and heart, who had the idea to rent a party bus, not just as a celebration, but as a kind of love letter to the city we represent on the world stage. We’re called Motor City Cheer for a reason. This isn’t just a catchy name, it’s a lineage. Detroit—Motor City—is a story of movement. Motor City got its name because the auto industry changed everything: how we moved, where we lived, what we dreamed was possible. Cars didn’t just bring jobs; they brought people. They brought Black families from the South, Mexican families from the fields, Tejano families like Leslie’s dad, who left behind cotton-picking work in Texas for a shot at something better in Michigan’s factories. Leslie’s mom came to Michigan from Tennessee for the same reason. This city is built on the labor of those who dared to leave what they knew and risk everything for the promise of a different life.

Motor City has always been a gathering place for those chasing something better, and we know that we—this team of kids from all over metro Detroit, from different backgrounds, families, and histories—are part of that story too.

And yet, we know, standing here in our cheer shoes, wearing uniforms with rhinestones, riding in a party bus through downtown, that we’re not the whole story. We’re privileged enough to afford a sport like this at an elite, international level. We know what it might look like: kids playing dress-up in a city that doesn’t belong to them.

But we’re trying to hold that awareness with humility, not as a disclaimer, but as a responsibility. We know we don’t own this city. We’re not the whole story. We’re just one part of a larger, tangled web of people who’ve come here, generation after generation, chasing something bigger than themselves. And if we’re going to represent Detroit on the world stage, we have to do it with respect for the resilience this city embodies, for the people who’ve built it and held it together through unimaginable loss, and for the kids who will come after us, long after our voices fade from the mat.

Detroit, MI

So when we loaded onto that bus, it wasn’t just about the music or the laughter or the photos we took. It was about making space for joy in a world that doesn’t always make room for it. It was about holding each other close after a season that left us raw. It was about making a memory, yes. But also about learning what it means to carry a name like Motor City Cheer. It was about listening to the city, paying respect, and understanding that community isn’t just a hashtag or a marketing slogan. It’s the thing that holds you when you can’t hold yourself. It’s the thing that saves you when you’re drowning. Motor City Cheer, like the city itself, was built by the hard work and relentless passion of the underestimated chasing something bigger than themselves.

It’s about the way we hold each other through the dark nights. It’s about knowing that the loudest voice in the room might be the one who needs someone to ask, “How are you really doing?” It’s about making space for grief, for joy, for failure, for celebration, and for everything that makes us human.

This is what we mean when we say we’re proud to be MCC. This is what we mean when we say Better Together, MCC Forever.

And when you look at these photos—these kids in their black dresses, standing in front of the murals of Detroit, or on the Riverwalk, or laughing in a bus somewhere between here and there—I hope you feel it too. The weight of what we carry, and the grace we give each other when we say: you matter more than any trophy.

This is for Emily. This is for all of us.