Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

My name is Tar­rin Mc­Mayo, and I'm a for­mer cheer­leader with the Mi­a­mi Heat bas­ket­ball team and the for­mer co-cap­tain of the Mi­a­mi Dol­phins Amer­i­can foot­ball team's cheer­lead­ers.I was born to Trinida­di­an par­ents in Tul­sa, Ok­la­homa. My moth­er is from San Fer­nan­do and my dad is from Mar­aval. I be­came a cheer­leader quite un­de­cid­ed­ly ac­tu­al­ly. I was a com­pet­i­tive gym­nast in my home­town from the age of eight. I com­pet­ed twice in the state cham­pi­onship where I placed third on both oc­ca­sions and then I com­pet­ed at na­tion­al lev­el through the In­ter­na­tion­al Gym­nas­tic As­so­ci­a­tion (IGA).By the time I hit my teens, I al­so be­gan danc­ing along with gym­nas­tics, but the point came when I had to chose be­tween the two be­cause I be­gan feel­ing burnt out.

I had gym­nas­tics prac­tice every­day of the week for at least four or five hours. But all I re­al­ly want­ed to do, be­ing a teen and all, was just hang out with my friends. I even­tu­al­ly stuck with danc­ing and in­cor­po­rat­ed a bit of gym­nas­tics.

Some time af­ter, my old gym­nas­tics coach Corie Theon­del start­ed an "all star" cheer­lead­ing team, so I did it with her for a year. We went to com­pe­ti­tions and camps, but I con­tin­ued my danc­ing through­out high school. Be­ing with this all star team al­so got us an ap­pear­ance with the In­ter­na­tion­al Dance Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IDO), which went live on ES­PN–this was a huge deal for me at the time.I moved to Mi­a­mi, Flori­da af­ter high school to at­tend Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty (FIU), where I ma­jored in psy­chol­o­gy. I soon be­came part of the dance pro­gramme there. And I danced for three years, com­pet­ing at times. The dance group be­came the of­fi­cial "spir­it team" for the col­lege's foot­ball squad.I found my­self in cheer­lead­ing again at FIU af­ter di­rec­tor for the cheer­lead­ing pro­gramme and for­mer Mi­a­mi Dol­phins cheer­leader Bren­da Poprikin, be­gan talk­ing to us more about the sport. I had al­ways liked cheer­lead­ing and I would watch them back home with the Dal­las Cow­boys, but I hadn't thought of do­ing it pro­fes­sion­al­ly un­til then.The train­ing was rig­or­ous and Bren­da treat­ed the pro­gramme like we had al­ready gone pro.

In 2006, I de­cid­ed to try out for the Mi­a­mi Dol­phins. I went to a work­shop host­ed by the team and fa­cil­i­tat­ed by head cheer leader of the Dol­phins, Tr­isha Brown. At the work­shop I learned more about the au­di­tion process. The way I was trained back in Ok­la­homa was sort of hard­core be­cause it was for com­pet­i­tive cheer­lead­ing, here I learned how to re­lax and be con­fi­dent–cheer­lead­ing is not about how beau­ti­ful we look or how many tum­bles or back­flips we can do but rather it is al­ways about rep­re­sent­ing the team.I even­tu­al­ly made the team in April 2007, af­ter re­al strict "boot camp" type train­ing and a se­ries of in­ter­views, where my skills were re­al­ly test­ed. I al­ways tried to have a bit of an edge, so at my in­ter­views I would al­ways wear a Car­ni­val cos­tume and while the oth­er girls would do their rou­tine to maybe a Brit­ney Spears song, I would chose to rep­re­sent my Caribbean an­ces­try through so­ca mu­sic, which al­ways caught the judges' at­ten­tion. My first cos­tume was one I bor­rowed from a good friend of mine who played with Tribe and the song I chose was De­stra and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter's Come Be­ta.

The rou­tines you do at these pre­lim­i­nary in­ter­views can re­al­ly make or break you–you can be elim­i­nat­ed like that. You are try­ing out for the pros, the ex­pec­ta­tion is high and you have lit­tle time to get the chore­og­ra­phy right, lit­tle time to freestyle and to gen­er­al­ly show what you are made of. I of­ten threw in a bit of every­thing I knew–danc­ing and gym­nas­tics to present a more colour­ful and in­ter­est­ing rou­tine.My first year as a pro­fes­sion­al cheer­leader was re­al­ly kind of sur­re­al. I knew I had made it but the first time I walked un­to the field for a big game was re­al­ly a defin­ing mo­ment. The Mi­a­mi Dol­phins were play­ing against the New York Gi­ants at the Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um in Lon­don. If you've been there, you know how huge this sta­di­um is. I was ac­cus­tomed to a sta­di­um that held at least 75,000 back home, and that was a lot for me, so you could imag­ine fac­ing 90,000 peo­ple. My heart was lit­er­al­ly beat­ing over time, I'm get­ting goose bumps right now, even talk­ing about it. In that sea­son which be­gan in 2007, the Dol­phins lost nine out of ten games. This was kind of dis­ap­point­ing, but they made up for it lat­er on.

Cheer­lead­ing al­so brought many oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties. I just saw my­self as a cheer­leader do­ing her job, I re­al­ly didn't re­alise how tal­ent­ed I was, but the ex­ec­u­tive saw more in me. They start­ed us­ing me for ap­pear­ances to pro­mote the team. Out of the 52 girls on the team, I was among the five they chose to trav­el to the Mid­dle East in 2007 to meet with the troops in an ef­fort to boost their morale. I al­so spent three weeks in Africa bring­ing en­ter­tain­ment to the armed forces there. Through the team I have al­so been to St Mar­tin, Ba­hamas and Sau­di Ara­bia. I al­so got the op­por­tu­ni­ties to mod­el, do pho­to shoots, fash­ion shows, ra­dio and tele­vi­sion in­ter­views and com­mer­cials. And I re­ceived the Vet­er­an Cheer­leader of the Year award by the Dol­phins in 2009. En­cour­aged by my sis­ter Shea, who is the cap­tain of the Mi­a­mi Heat cheer­leader's team, I even­tu­al­ly left the Dol­phins and joined them. I spent one year with the Heat and then in 2010 I went back to grad school. I want­ed to get my Mas­ters de­gree in hu­man re­source man­age­ment.

The thing about cheer­lead­ing, it's great! There are many op­por­tu­ni­ties to be had, but I may not al­ways have this body and I have al­ways been taught to have some­thing to fall back on. Dur­ing my years as a rook­ie cheer­leader I met some of the best and the bright­est. The teams were of­ten made up women who some­times had their PhDs. We had teach­ers, psy­chol­o­gists, I re­mem­ber one of the girls was a pro­fes­sor. And we were al­ways en­cour­aged by the ex­ec­u­tive to be work­ing pro­fes­sion­als and not to hold on to cheer­lead­ing alone, as a steady ca­reer, be­cause you can be the "it" cheer leader at 18, but what hap­pens when you're 30?So it is re­al­ly a plat­form to move on to big­ger and bet­ter things. I left cheer­lead­ing on a great note and I do not re­gret leav­ing to pur­sue my ed­u­ca­tion. I can al­ways re­turn to cheer­lead­ing but I don't think I would, if I do it, it would be in the ca­pac­i­ty of a train­er. I re­cent­ly grad­u­at­ed from No­va South-East­ern Uni­ver­si­ty in Mi­a­mi and I have my Mas­ters in hu­man re­source man­age­ment....Yaaaayy!!!

At 26, I'm think­ing about giv­ing back. With stud­ies done for now, I will be vis­it­ing T&T a bit more of­ten, not on­ly to see my fam­i­ly, but my sis­ter and I are plan­ning on set­ting up a cheer­lead­ing/dance in­sti­tu­tion here for un­der­priv­i­leged kids.I have no­ticed there aren't many av­enues here for those who are not so aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in­clined or even those who are but can­not af­ford to go to school. We've been speak­ing with of­fi­cials from the SporTT Com­pa­ny and we have al­ready been look­ing at some venues, so that is go­ing to be some­thing in the works pret­ty soon. Un­til then, I will con­tin­ue tak­ing on the chal­lenges that al­ways make me bet­ter.