Former Miami Dolphins Cheerleader and Paddleboard company owner Brenda Lowe reckons that having her own business will help her on Survivor: Nicaragua. The 27-year-old from Miami, FL describes herself as a “natural winner” and insists that nothing will get in her way when she gets an idea in her head.

Survivor: Nicaragua premieres Wednesday, September 15 at 8/7c on CBS.

MIAMI (CBS4) ― Okay ladies, the start of game days is just around the corner so it’s time to say ‘goodbye’ to boxy jerseys and say ‘hello’ to hot new halters and bikinis.

Don’t know what I mean? Then check out the sexy apparel and swim wear from “Miss Fanatic” designed for the female sports fan.

Former Miami Dolphins cheerleader Tiffany Pearl spent four years on the squad while earning her degree in fashion. This week the current Dolphins cheerleaders unveiled their 2011-2012 calendar at Liv on Miami Beach, and it was one of Pearl’s swimsuits that graced the cover.

“It’s really cool to see two of your suits published,” Pearl told CBS4’s Lisa Petrillo, “and actually start to get your name out there.”

Pearl added that the idea to create the line came from her own experiences in attending games.

“Being an ultimate sports fan it was hard for me to find things that were flattering to a woman’s frame,” said Pearl. “I wanted something that made me feel like a woman. I wanted to make cute tops and bikinis so no matter where you are, at the beach or at the game, you could be proud of them.”

Pearl’s line is made in Miami, and in the future she hopes to expand her sexy sports fashions to all of the NFL and college teams.

“Miss Fanatic” bikinis are sold separately, $20 each for the tops and bottoms, and form-fitting jerseys run about $80.

“We have jerseys that are nicely fit to a woman’s body, the skirts look like what the players wear on the field, just a lot sexier,” said Pearl.

Click Here To Check Out The Miss Fanatic Line

The 25-year-old entrepreneur says these days she’s cheering about her up and coming career.

“I couldn’t be happier. It’s the best of both worlds, I love fashion and I love sports, to be able to combine the two, I couldn’t be happier,” said Pearl.

Nearly a dozen colleges are represented in the current “Miss Fanatic” line, including the University of Miami and the University of Florida. Pearl says she has plans to keep the ball rolling to more universities around the country.

By Chris R. Vaccaro
< "http://sachem.patch.com/articles/former-new-jersey-nets-dancer-taylor-walker-starts-teaching-career-at-sachem-this-fall">Sachem Patch
August 21, 2010

With the approval of Taylor Walker as a physical education teacher at Sachem High School North this week, not since, well, ever has the Sachem Central School District landed such a high profile faculty member.

A professional dancer, dance educator, free-lance broadcaster and physical fitness fanatic, Walker, 25, comes to Sachem this fall for her first high school teaching gig.

She grew up in Dix Hills, attended Half Hollow Hills West High School and recalls the days when her Colts dance team matched up against Sachem’s girls at competitions.

“We were a much smaller school and to see a team of that caliber every year be so strong with so many girls was neat,” she said. “They’re very into their community and their program and it’s a lot like a family.”

With the hire, Sachem gains an individual with a multi-faceted core, one with the development of growing up the child of a professional athlete. Her father, Wesley Walker, is a former two-time Pro Bowl receiver for the New York Jets, who ranks sixth all-time in franchise history in receptions.

Then there’s her brothers: Austin is a professional lacrosse player for the Toronto Nationals, who won a national title at Johns Hopkins, and John, a three-time All-American at Army, is an assistant lacrosse coach at the University of Virginia.

“We’ve all given 100 percent and followed through on what we love,” said Walker, who is trained in ballet, jazz, modern and hip-hop dance. “I don’t think we ever compared ourselves as much as we supported each other.”

It’s only natural that Taylor followed the athletic footprint of the Walker family and embarked on her own career in the fitness world. For two seasons she was a member of the New Jersey Nets dance team and was a co-captain for half a season before giving up the role to concentrate on earning her Master’s Degree in physical education from Hofstra University, where she is an assistant coach on the school’s dance team.

“It was a wonderful experience and the girls on the team were so talented,” she said. “I had such a great time.”

She was one of 10 dancers from the NBA selected to pose for Sports Illustrated’s coveted Swimsuit Edition in 2009. Her good fortune struck again when she was able to dance for Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, as well as appear as the lead dancer in the movie Step Up and in commercials for Under Armour.

To think, she once worked as an intern for the Maryland State Senate after college and was hired in the first dance audition she ever attended. She did her undergraduate work in sports management at Towson University and earned a full-ride as a member of its dance team.

A go-getter at heart, Walker has spent time instructing at Royalenova in East Moriches, teaching with Dance Educators for America and pitching in at a local high school sports publication, doing broadcast pieces on the younger generation.

While more than qualified to coach and teach dance to high school girls, she has no intentions of messing with team chemistry at Sachem. Instead, she’ll be there for support if it’s needed.

“If I can ever give input or anything like that I’ll be there,” she said. “The program has been so successful for so many years. I look forward to seeing them at games and having them in class.

“It took me a while to get to this point, but everything I’ve done throughout my career has always come back to the kids.”

By John Carlson
The Star Press
8/21/2010

YORKTOWN — When Ashlee Bane shows you pictures of herself dressed in an Indianapolis Colts cheerleader’s outfit, they aren’t ones snapped at a costume party.

She was the real deal.

“It was definitely a time in my life that created a lot of memories,” reflected the Wapahani High School graduate, who happened to be celebrating her 28th birthday on this day. “However, it was a phase of my life.”

In other words, she has a lot more living to do.

Right now, life’s journey has her happily situated as the executive program director at the Yorktown Y, continuing a career in the organization with which she first accepted employment back in graduate school. It’s also a job that, at the same time, has allowed her to embrace a passion that she developed many years earlier.

“I’ve always loved working out,” Bane said.

Holder of two degrees from Ball State University — a bachelor’s in exercise science and a master’s in wellness management — she is in charge of Yorktown’s facility, which is shared with the Munciana volleyball program.

This place, she continued, fosters a real sense of community there.

“At the Y,” she said, “we’re more than just a place to come and run on the treadmill, more than a workout place.”

Of course, if it’s a workout you are looking for, Bane will happily oblige.

Being a person who generally works out a couple of hours a day, five or six days a week, plus having routinely and vigorously danced for three hours at a stretch back in her Colts days, she seems an ideal leader for her Y’s “boot camps.”

“It’s like full-body conditioning, really,” she said.

Is she considered a tough drill instructor by the folks, mostly women, who she puts through their paces?

“I don’t know,” Bane said, then laughed. “I guess.”

Herself a veteran Munciana volleyball player, she’s also adept with a bat, having started swinging one as a T-ball kid who even now enjoys Y coed softball. She also serves as a personal trainer for people who want their workout delivered with some individual attention.

Some Y members want to concentrate on weight loss, for example. Others want a taskmaster overseeing them, she said, forcing them to full physical exertion.

Dogs and dancing

Away from the Y she enjoys dancing and spending time with her husband, Jammie, who shares her workout interest, as well as playing with their two Jack Russell terriers and one toy rat terrier. An active member of The Bridge church, she also recently returned from a volunteer mission to Haiti.

“We did a lot of painting,” said Bane, the former membership director of Muncie’s Downtown Y. “We also visited a lot of villages and orphanages.”

Experiences like that might be what she meant when she said much in life awaits her. Yet, as already noted, she doesn’t deny that her Colts cheerleader days are likely to remain among her favorite personal highlights.

“Nothing will beat being down on the field during the kickoff,” she said.

The last of her four years on the squad was the 2005-2006 season, when the cheerleaders joined the Colts’ players in Japan for The American Bowl.

Flipping through a photo album, she points out pictures of herself with other cheerleaders, airborne riding in an Army Blackhawk helicopter and sharing a quick hug with the man himself, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning.

Looking back on the experience, she admits it would have been nice to stay another season and be rewarded with the ultimate goal in American football - a Super Bowl ring.

Still, she has no regrets.

She will always proudly embrace the label of former Colts cheerleader, she said, and should she ever forget, her grandmother will undoubtedly do it for her.

“She still tells people that I was a Colts cheerleader,” Bane said, laughing.

Former Indianapolis Colts Cheerleader Megan Glaros will be the meteorologist for a new early morning news show under development at CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2 in Chicago. Megan comes from WCBS-TV in New York, where she was the station’s weekend meteorologist and entertainment reporter. She also may do some entertainment reporting for the new show that will debut Aug. 30.

Megan graduated from Indiana University, where she studied journalism and atmospheric sciences.

[Follow Megan on Twitter]

Belmont University
August 13, 2010

Kristin Singh is one of Belmont’s many nursing students, but she boasts an extra special extracurricular–for the past two years she has shared the sidelines with the Tennessee Titans as a Titans cheerleader.

She began her academic career as a marine biology major at the College of Charleston but through a series of major changes found herself in the neuroscience department. She moved to Belmont “because it was one of the only schools in the Nashville area that had a neuroscience major” and soon “started thinking about nursing after hearing how great Belmont’s program was.” Once in the nursing program she quickly formed a bond with Mrs. Keary Dryden, her clinical instructor her first semester. Kristin recalls, “I was so nervous for my first clinical, and she made it easy for me to relax and learn as much as I could. She still challenged me, but she did it in a way that made me comfortable.”

Despite finding nursing a highly rewarding career, she sought to fulfill another desire: her passion for dance. She began her dance career at only four years old and eventually danced her way onto her high school dance team. After graduation she started to miss dancing so when she moved to Nashville her sophomore year she decided to try out for the Titans.

When asked about the connection between her work as a Titans cheerleader and her nursing preparation, Kristen had an interesting story to tell. “We do many charity events that involve the healthcare community. I had the opportunity to go to an appearance at the V.A. hospital about a month ago. I did my clinical there last year and was able to visit patients on the floor that I worked [on]. It was very neat to go back and see everyone that I worked with during my clinical rotation. However, it was different being there in my cheerleading uniform. I never told anyone that I was a cheerleader, so the other nurses that recognized me were a little surprised that I had this other life. It made me so happy that I was able to relate my nursing experiences to cheerleading. It also pleased me to help the patients in a different way by visiting them as a Titans cheerleader rather than a student nurse.”

Kristin loved being a cheerleader and positive role model for the community, but her upper-level nursing classes were making it “more difficult to juggle both school and cheerleading.” She says that her “education is by far more important than cheerleading” which is why you won’t see her again this year on the Titans sidelines. Soon she will graduate with her nursing degree and is excited to start her new career.

By Mike Forman
Victoria Advocate

No one would blame Teri Richardson if she decided to die.

Her weight dropped to 87 pounds and chemotherapy treatments left her nauseated and dehydrated.

Visitors at MD Anderson in Houston hardly recognized the person looking back at them.

Richardson has been diagnosed with final stage colon cancer and she knows the odds.

But quitting isn’t in Richardson’s DNA. Never has been and never will be.

Richardson wouldn’t have become the second-longest tenured member of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, or the first black female disc jockey at one of Dallas’ most popular radio stations by being timid.

She wouldn’t have left the hospital and returned to her modest brick home to care for her 11-year-old daughter Zaharia or 10-year-old son Zachary, or be looking forward to her son Sterling’s senior season of basketball at San Antonio Brandeis without her unyielding faith in God and her own abilities.

Richardson isn’t taking anything for granted even if her doctor calls her his miracle patient.

She’s fit and trim and looks much too young for her age.

She lives each day to the fullest, which is exactly what she was doing in 1978 when she was majoring in dance at North Texas State in Denton and walked into a 7-11 store and saw a poster of the Cowboys cheerleaders and by coincidence heard radio personality Ron Chapman announcing tryouts for the group.

Richardson showed up at Texas Stadium with 1,600 other women to vie for 20 of the group’s 40 spots, which included four alternates.

Richardson was a cheerleader in high school at Sugar Land Dulles and an accomplished dancer, but admits to having some doubts.

“I thought man there is no way in the world I am going to make this,” Richardson said. “That was the first time I ever wasn’t confident for a hot second.

“There were girls everywhere. Beautiful girls from all over the world. They were the hottest thing going at the time.”

The candidates were instructed to dance before a panel of judges that included Chapman and were told to stay behind a line of tape on the floor.

“I had to do something to make myself memorable,” Richardson said. “They said do not cross the line and what do I do, I cross the line.

“I went up to Ron Chapman and rubbed his bald head. Everybody started laughing. I wanted to make sure they remembered who I was.”

Richardson advanced to the finals of the tryouts where she stood firm when asked by cheerleader sponsor Suzanne Mitchell if she would be willing to alter her appearance by cutting her hair or losing weight.

“She was a very intimidating woman and she had the power to say you’re gone,” Richardson said. “But I’m going to be me.

“My mother taught me to have confidence in myself. I said I’m pretty comfortable with myself the way I am. I like my hair, I kind of like my size. So I like myself.”

Mitchell liked Richardson, who made the squad and was also a member of the traveling show team for four of the five years she spent with the group.

“It was the greatest thing I have ever done in my life,” Richardson said. “It was a big commitment. My whole life was consumed by it. I couldn’t leave the house without makeup on. You always had to be on. My whole life changed overnight.”

Richardson was in the “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” movie, which aired on ABC. She was part of “The 36 Most Beautiful Girls in Texas” television special. She appeared at the televised Country Music Awards.

She kept her job teaching Jazzmatics classes while practicing with the cheerleaders four hours a day up to six days a week, getting Saturday off when the Cowboys played on the road.

She traveled to USO shows in Japan, Turkey, Greece, the Philippines, South Korea and Germany.

She also made numerous appearances around the country, which helped supplement the $15 the cheerleaders were paid per game.

Richardson left the cheerleaders after the 1983 season and almost became a flight attendant. But American Airlines wanted to send her to Chicago or New York and she wasn’t fond of cold weather.

Chapman offered Richardson a position at KVIL where she did the overnight shift, making history in the process.

Richardson continued working in radio in Dallas and San Antonio before returning to Bay City in 1996 when a position at a Houston station didn’t materialize.

She started a new career as a certified nursing assistant before being diagnosed with cancer.

Sometimes when Richardson is feeling down, she’ll glance at her Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders pictures and remember how she got there.

“I’m always willing to take a chance and do something to make yourself stand out,” she said. “I took a chance, I gambled and I won.

“I’m still the same person,” she added. “My spirits are up and I have faith in God.”

Tiger Woods may be having the worst year ever, but another pro golfer is loving life right now. Hunter Mahon won golf’s Bridgestone Invitational last weekend. I know very little about pro golf, but I gather the Bridgestone is important in those circles.) I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of this guy before. The reason he’s on my radar is because his fiance is Kandi Harris. Does that name sound familiar? Kandi is a former Dallas Mavericks Dancer (2004-05) and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader (2006-08). Kandi and Hunter have been dating since December. They got engaged in June, and are planning to marry in January 2011. Congrats to the lovebirds!

(Meanwhile, please tell me this guy’s last name is not pronounced “mann,” because “Kandi Mahon”? Good grief. You may want to keep your last name, honey.)