Senior Madison Staggs was laughing and having a great time at Disney World in Orlando, surrounded by her cheer teammates. She was enjoying her final trip for cheer, knowing that next year she would be at North Carolina-Wilmington, studying psychology to become a child advocacy trainee.
But as one of her sports careers came to an end, Staggs knew that she still had an entire track season ahead of her. From competing in hurdle events to hopefully breaking her personal record in triple jump, she knows that she has to make the most of her final year.
“I’m just really hoping for a good time,” Staggs said. “I’m hoping to make State this year and break the school record again [for triple jump]”.
During her junior year, Staggs broke the triple jump record with a mark of 36 feet and 7.25 inches. This year, her best is 36 feet, six inches.
Another major goal she hopes to achieve is fostering the future athletes by helping younger teammates become future leaders.
“She’s a great teacher,” hurdles coach Aimee Graff said. “She gets people excited at track meets, gets them excited to run and do their best. I think that will be missed most.”
Staggs said she stepped into being a leader early into her high school career. Ever since she first started, she was always competing her hardest and making sure the team was giving the same energy on the track.
“From the get-go, I feel like I’ve always had some sort of leadership role,” Staggs said. “I felt like I stepped into it specifically in track early on because I had the faster times when I was freshman. I put so much effort into it, and I tried helping my teammates and everything.”
While being an important aspect of track freshman year, she also had her hands full with many other sports. As stressful as the workload was, she feels that she benefited immensely from being involved in many after school activities.
“My goodness, freshman year I played soccer, basketball. I ran cross country for a little bit, I made the volleyball team,” Staggs said. “I pretty much was in a little bit of everything. I thought I could do it all.”
Eventually, the workload became too much for her. She was taking advanced and AP classes, so she decided to quit most of the extracurriculars. By junior year, she was only in cheer and track.
“It was nice, but the workload was a lot,” Stags said. “I played basketball and I was on varsity. It was my favorite thing, but I had to focus more on track for college and stuff.”
Staggs made the most of it however, and took qualities and skills from everything she participated in. She met new people and made lifelong friends along the way.
“I just met so many different groups of people,” Staggs said. “Soccer and basketball both helped me with endurance, and cheer has helped me more in a team setting. Everything kind of translated over from each sport that I did.”
One of those friends is senior Sarah DuPreez, who has competed with Staggs for all four years of high school. They both competed in basketball, and are both in hurdles and cheer.
“It’s always been fun working with her. She’s such a great athlete,” Staggs said. “She’s grown as an athlete and as a person too. I love Madi so much.”
Staggs hopes to continue her season and break more records. She hopes to not only leave a lasting impact with her results, but with the motivation she brings to other athletes to step up.
“She’s doing an outstanding job at creating a foundation and convincing others to stop being afraid of those events and run them,” cross country coach Cody Cook said. “She’s an awesome student-athlete. One you will always remember and one you will miss when she graduates.”
