
She was just three and a half years old when DBG student Antonia first fell in love with cheerleading. The high-energy, high-flying sport requires precision, time management, team spirit, and endless hours of practice.
After more than twelve straight years of dedication, Antonia, now 16 and an 11th grader at Martin Luther King Junior high school in Detroit, is headed to the national cheerleading championships in Kentucky. Her team, the Warren Berkley Elite Division 7 Queens, placed second at this weekend’s state championships at Suburban Showplace in Novi.
“I love that it’s a contact sport, I love putting all of my effort into it and I love participating and being a good team member,” she said. “You have to have a lot of control and good collaboration with each other.”

Antonia and her team took the stage in a jam-packed arena with music pumping and the crowd screaming as they successfully completed dozens of complex choreographed lifts, flips, and tricks.
Several members of the DBG family were there to cheer her on including our founder and CEO Khali Sweeney, Student Operations Manager Asiya El, and Asiyah Williams, Associate Director of Enrichment. Cheering the loudest were immediate family members including her mom, Betty, and dad, longtime DBG coach Antonio Perry, also known as Coach Tone.
“She likes the competition, she likes the challenge,” Tone said. “It keeps her motivated it keeps her focused. Cheer is a hard sport. She practices at least twice a week for four hours.”

Tone stood directly in front of the stage, along with all of the team’s supporters and family members, recording the routine on his cell phone and feeding into the electric energy in the room.
Experts say cheerleading is all about trust and resilience – finding the motivation to keep pushing forward win or lose. Team members rely on each other to catch them in mid-air. Time management is another key component of the competition-level sport that combines elements of dance and gymnastics in jaw-dropping routines.
“i think it’s amazing. She’s very talented. We’re all so proud,” said Williamson. “Watching them perform I thought, ‘Wow. That must have taken a lot of hard work. And I could have never done that.”

In addition to being a dedicated team member, Antonia is a great role model for her peers. A number of younger DBG students are interested in cheerleading and Antonia may become a junior coach to help train them. What’s her best advice for younger students who want to follow in her footsteps?
“Don’t ever stop trying and give it your all,” she says.
Mental toughness is another benefit of cheerleading. It teaches kids to get back up and keep going. It also fosters teamwork, friendship, and a strong work ethic – skills we focus on through many of our programs at DBG that will last a lifetime. In the future, Antonia says she’d like to become a registered nurse.
The national cheerleading championships take place this summer. We’ll be cheering every step of the way!