Cheerleader Interview: Danika Caruso
DANIKA CARUSO did cheerleading throughout college at Colorado State University. She graduated with her degree in Business Marketing with a minor in Sport Management in 2020. She is currently working in digital marketing.
Danika is a host on the podcast After The Athlete. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado where she loves to go hiking and be outdoors. She also enjoys running and is currently training for a full marathon. In her free time, when she’s not enjoying the outdoors or working out at F45, she loves to bake and cook.
Danika is engaged to her fiancé Reed and she has a golden retriever girl named Charli. In this podcast with Danika, we will be discussing how cheerleading in college was different than high school, and her podcast After the Athlete.
Below I have written most of what we talked about but you can listen to the full podcast on Anchor / Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.
Q: What were your days like as a kid being involved with dance, gymnastics, and competitive cheer?
A: It definitely was a lot starting young. My dad was my coach and got me started right away at age 0.
I learned to do a somersault before I could walk. It taught me discipline and time management at a young age.
I was really busy but I enjoyed it. I started gymnastics as about a 1 year old and dancing at 3 years old. I did those simultaneously for a long time.
I later got into cheer and stuck with that throughout high school and college.
Q: How was college cheer different than competitive cheer in high school?
A: It was complete polar opposites. I had never cheered for a team before college. We would have a routine we would compete with and that was it.
It was very different when I got to college getting to cheer for a division one team.
Q: What is one of your favorite podcasts so far from After The Athlete?
A: I would say probably our guest episode with Jackie Ireland who is an F45 coach from another state.
We talked about body image which is probably one of the most widespread concerns from that transition from being an athlete to not.
We could talk about that subject for days and that one was really fun.
Q: Do you feel like you would have done a different degree if you weren’t a student-athlete?
A: I don’t think so. I didn’t think I was going to cheer in college until a couple of weeks before I tried out for the team.
I declared my major in January and joined the team in May.
I wouldn’t have done it any other way.
I really enjoyed what I did. I am not doing anything with my sports marketing minor right now even though I wish that I could.
Graduating in 2020 was tough for that but I wouldn’t change a thing.
Q: What were your injuries from gymnastics?
A: Gymnastics and dance I had most of my bone injuries.
I broke the same toe 3 times which is tough as a gymnast being constantly bare foot.
One of those instances was a teammate running over my toe.
I broke my foot in dance while I was doing gymnastics and dance simultaneously.
I broke my tail bone, too. It’s hard because it was all actually unrelated except for my foot injury from gymnastics and dance.
Either way it affects your sport. For my toe injuries, I just pushed through.
My foot held me back for a few months. It’s hard to sit there and watch your teammates work and not partaking.
Q: How did you handle the setbacks of concussions?
A: I never went to concussion protocol which is advice I do not give people.
In cheer you get hit in the head a lot which is tough.
The way I know it’s a concussion is leaving practice feeling nauseous and some were worse than others. My advice to people is to not do what I do.
There were certain steps to take to go back and I didn’t want to do that.
That’s kind of how I handled it which is not good.
Q: What was the transition out of being a college athlete for you? What did you do in your newfound free time?
A: It was a 180 degree flip for me. We ended what was called the Mountain West Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas and the world shut down the next day (2020).
We didn’t have a banquet. Gyms were closed so I didn’t have a normal gym routine.
I was having to run outside all the time. I was living with my parents at the time.
It was nontraditional in that way which I’m sure 2020 graduates can relate.
I would say the athletic-wise was running, but at the time I was applying for jobs starting that transition in a really tough way was hard for me.
Q: What was one of your favorite moments while competing?
A: Going back to high school times when I was competing rather than sideline cheers.
Freshman year of high school we were in a competition in Las Vegas.
We had won and got the very first bid ever in the Worlds competition.
Any time you win it’s fun but that was kind of the biggest memory - getting the very first bid in the world for this new competition.
Q: What aspect of the transition out of sports do you think you could give great advice on? This can be to anyone that is either preparing to retire from sports or recently did and might need that advice.
A: Of course more things do keep popping up being only 2 years out of sports now, but I wold say the biggest thing that has carried on is the lack of having a team.
When you go into the work environment you have a team but it’s not the same. You don’t know the people the same, you’re not spending as much time together, and in cheer you literally lift each other up which is not the same either.
I think that was one of the hardest parts for me and still is. My best advice is to find a group of people that relate to you. I had a hard time with that for over a year until I found F45.
I think that was really cool because I suddenly felt like I had a team behind me. It sounds so weird because it’s just a workout gym but you can basically find that anywhere in any group fitness class.
I found a group of girls that go to the 5:30am class and it feels like a team again.
Surrounding yourself with people that you want to be around like you did with your team and people that will uplift you that way is important.
You can find that at work, in a friend group, in the fitness world, etc.
That’s my best advice and what carried on with me the most was that team aspect.
Q: Do you have anything else to add?
A: Things obviously are hard with the transition out of sports with having a 9-5 work life, your body is changing, and more.
There’s a time and place for everything and you’re not an athlete anymore because your body isn’t build to do that forever.
Of course you’re forever an athlete though.
If you missed the last podcast, our guest was volleyball player Madison Repak. In that episode, we talk about how she chose to become a sport performance consultant. Up next we will have Krystal Vazquez as our guest. In that episode, we will be talking about how she uses her bilingual skills to give back to her hispanic community in her work as a sport mental performance coach.
If you have any more questions for Danika, please leave comments below or contact me. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call or text the Suicide Hotline. It’s toll free and available 24/7 at 988 or 800-273-8255.
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