Teen chases Cowboys cheerleader dream

By JoAnne Killeen
Holmen Onalaska Courier-Life
5/19/2012

ONALASKA — Alayna Halverson was just 6 years old, but she already knew what she wanted to be when she grew up: a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.

Now 18 and a senior at Onalaska High School, Halverson chased her dream all the way to the Big D last month and tried out for the storied squad.

No, she didn’t make the team. But the experience, she said, taught her some lessons she’ll remember the rest of her life, namely to never let self-doubt get in the way of a dream.

“I would have regretted not doing it when I had the chance,” Halverson said.

Halverson has been dancing since she was 2 years old. She watched the show “Making the Team” on the CMT network — a program that chronicles the drama of the tryout process — and pictured herself among the hundreds of girls trying out.

With her mother and grandmother’s support and efforts to build her confidence, Halverson overcame the thought of not being good enough.

“Mom sat me down and said it would be the coolest thing she had ever known anyone to do and that she had never done anything that cool,” said Halverson, an all-state dancer.

The tryouts were nothing like she imagined, and she found out the “reality” show “Making the Team” isn’t very real. She and her fellow applicants had to redo several scenes, such as entering the room several times before the camera people approved it all. “The cameras dictated what went on,” Halverson said.

Sixteen years of practicing for the moment evaporated in one single minute of tryout time. Halverson and other applicants had one minute to do a freestyle dance to a musical piece randomly picked by the judges.

She was No. 15 out of 513 girls trying out that day, so there wasn’t much time to worry. There were girls from all over the world, including Japan and North Korea. There were also two grandmothers among those trying out.

Unfortunately, the former Miss Onalaska contestant wasn’t “cute” enough for the Dallas Cowboys. Turns out appearance counted a lot more than performance, Halverson said. “How cute you looked when you were dancing counted for so much more than I thought it would. Here, it’s much more about technique as well as performance.”

Also, she said, it seemed contestants scored bonus points for each glittering rhinestone.

“I was trying to hold back my tears while I left,” she said. “I hardly made it out of the gate. It was very overwhelming and emotional and exhausting.”

For consolation, she remembered a coach once telling her that even if you are the prettiest shade of purple, if they are looking for blue, you’re never going to get it.

The Cowboys were looking for blue, it seems.

She saw a camera focused on her as she left. Halverson lifted her head up.

“As disappointing as it was not to make it, I feel better,” she said. “I thought I would feel like a huge failure. It’s just the opposite.”