Johnson Signs With Cowley College to Join National Champion Cheer Team

Braeleigh LaShawn Johnson signed a letter of intent to join the cheer team at Cowley College on Friday, April 29th in the Watonga Gymnasium surrounded by her cheer team and coaches. During the football and basketball seasons, Shawn was often one of the key flyers to Watonga Cheer’s halftime routines. She is receiving a full book and tuition scholarship so she can join the nursing program at Cowley College.

Her future coach she will be joining next semester is Brandon Burke. He led the program to a Nationals win earlier this year, and is excited to continue to grow his program. “The Cowley College Spirit Squad is a highly visible, enthusiastic, and talented group of student-athletes with a primary purpose to support intercollegiate athletics and serve as ambassadors for Cowley College. … Shawn is an outstanding student athlete, in and off the classroom, field, mat, court. Shawn will be a huge asset towards our program,” Coach Burke said.

Coach Burke was “completely surprised” to see her veteran level cheer talent come from only a year of being on a high school squad. He jumped at the opportunity to have her on his team, due to her quick learning skills and her determination to try anything a coach will ask of her.

Taylor Coney was Shawn’s high school cheer coach for the 2021-2022 football and basketball seasons. Taylor herself was a member of Cowley Cheer in college, so when talent like Shawn came along, she reached out to her old coach who was able to get her information for Coach Burke.

“I am beyond proud of Shawn and her accomplishments both within and outside of cheer. She is so athletically blessed and so willing to try anything new we threw at her,” Coney said. Chelsea Kennedy, her other cheer coach, and Taylor are excited to see how she continues to grow as a collegiate athlete.

This opens a new door to other upcoming and current cheerleaders at Watonga High School. Taylor said, “We hope to produce many more collegiate cheerleaders in the future. We hope to continue teaching cheerleaders building skills that can provide them opportunities for financial scholarships to support them through college.”

The cheer program has grown leaps and bounds in the past two years alone. “Producing collegiate level cheerleaders and scholarship opportunities validates all of the hard work that both the cheerleaders and coaches have put in,” said Coney.

Taylor said she is so glad that she “drug her kicking and screaming to day two of cheer tryouts… look at how far she’s come!”

Shawn herself is excited but nervous for the upper level of cheer she will experience at Cowley. In her high school years she never imagined that cheer would be the sport she would want to continue with in college, but after convincing from her friends and both Coneys, she fell in love with flying after making the team.

Her favorite part about it is going up in the air. “I like trying new stuff,” she said. Shawn has been in a number of sports in high school, but cheer was the one that stuck with her. She had other scholarships offered to her, but her heart was set on becoming a tiger at Cowley, and she signed in Kansas after having an in person visit.

Their National titles and their promising nursing program is what attracted Shawn all the way to Kansas. “I felt like I could be myself around the coach … I feel like he’s gonna be someone I can get along with really well,” Shawn said.

Taylor and Kim Coney were the driving forces behind Shawn throughout the whole recruiting process. They’ve done a lot for Shawn, like reaching out to coaches for her and taking her to school everyday. “This would not be possible without them at all, I owe them a lot,” she said.