Her coach calls her “vivacious” and the “face of Muskogee cheer” as she talks about junior Christalynn Green.

“She is really our go-to girl,” says coach Clarissa McJunkins. “Anything we need done for the team, she’s who we go to. She’s a great leader and encourager who helps out teaching skills to our younger girls and that’s one reason we made her a co-captain of the squad this year. She’s great at stunts. The girl can hold any human above her head and make sure they’re safe.”

In her early years Green pursued being a gymnast but Mother Nature had different plans.

“I started off in gymnastics but as I grew older, they told me I would be too tall to have a gymnastics career. So when I moved here in seventh grade I saw a flyer for cheer tryouts. I made the team and have been doing it ever since. This will be my third year on the Muskogee High team.”

There are lots of reasons that cheer is a popular athletic venue, but Christalynn has a unique outlook.

“I like cheer because you don’t have to excel at every skill to be good. There are so many skills in cheer that if you’re not a strong tumbler, for example, you might have better skills at say, stunts, while another teammate might be a strong tumbler. You need all of those skills working together to have a successful team,” said Green. “A good team takes trust, dedication and leadership.”

She follows the Oklahoma State and the Navarro College (which won a national competition last year) cheer teams as role models while her mother and sister are her supporters close to home.

“My sister was a gymnastics coach and she works with me a lot when I practice at home while my mom has always encouraged me to go for what I want.”

She attended cheer camp this summer where she says the team learned a lot of stunts that she hopes to implement this year with some lofty goals that she has set for her team.

“We’ve had too small a team to do competitive cheer for a while, so I told coach I want to really get these young girls in shape because last year’s senior leaders weren’t real tough on us and I really want to go to a competition this year or next and win something for working hard and being dedicated.”