Murphy After getting her doctorate in atmospheric, planetary and earth sciences at the University of Purdue, Sheridan was burned out. The former Murphy native had spent so much time focusing on academics over the past six years that she felt like she was missing a part of herself.
So she decided to return to a dream she’s always had: becoming a professional cheerleader. While some people took up a hobby like baking bread or doing puzzles during 2020, Sheridan took the time to train, and for the past five months she has achieved that goal as a cheerleader for the Baltimore Ravens.
“I didn’t think I could do it,” Sheridan said of becoming an NFL cheerleader. “I didn’t know if I had the chops. It was always a dream in the back of my mind.”
Making the team
While anyone can try out to be an NFL cheerleader, Sheridan, the granddaughter of Evelyn Radford Keenum and Guy Keenum, didn’t come to it by accident. She grew up taking dance classes and was a cheerleader for Murphy youth football teams before moving to Atlanta, where she cheered at Wheeler High School. She attended Georgia Tech University for her undergraduate studies, where she was on the dance team.
In 2020, she spent the year training with former NFL cheerleader Jennifer Amburn, who helped teach her the right dance style and pointed out where she could improve. Sheridan made it to the final round of the Ravens cheerleader auditions in 2020, but due to COVID-19 NFL teams decided not to use their entertainment teams for that season. She had the same goal this year, trying out for both the Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles. For the first round, Sheridan sent both teams a video introducing herself and dancing to a routine the teams provided, along with a toe touch and a specific dance skill. Both teams did a formal business interview on Zoom in later rounds, and the Eagles also had her do another interview, where she danced live on Zoom. She advanced to the final round for both teams, which was on site.
Since the Ravens were first and announced the team that day, she only attended their final round, which took place at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. At the end of the day, her name popped up on the stadium video board along with the others who made the team.
“I honestly didn’t believe it,” Sheridan said. “I thought I was going to be walking out of the tunnel. I told myself you could make this team, you could do it, it just a whole ‘nother ballgame to actually make it. … I was pumped.”
With cheerleading being a part-time job, Sheridan spends her days teaching high school math at the Maret School in Washington before driving to the Baltimore area for three-hour practice sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On a game day, she shows up five hours before kickoff at the stadium to practice and nail the particulars of the on-field routine, then do pregame appearances before kickoff.
Making a connection
The Baltimore Ravens cheerleaders have two different parts of the team: the dance team and the stunt team. Sheridan is part of the dance cheerleading team, which has their main on-field performance during the first and second quarters.
While she enjoys performing on the field, her favorite part is “running the gauntlet.” That refers to pre-game, when the cheerleaders emerge from the tunnel right before the players and form the line that the players run through as they enter the field to 71,008 screaming fans.
“The girl in front of me, we say every single game, soak it up,” Sheridan said. “It doesn’t get better than this. And it’s so true. The feeling is just incredible.”
Sheridan also attends as many off-the-field events as possible, where the cheerleaders represent the Ravens in the community. Those events usually last two to four hours, and she sees them as a way to connect with fans and make them feel closer to the team.
“The people and the fans, they’re so excited, they’re so happy,” Sheridan said. “I get to be that connection to the team for them. They might not be able to meet a player, but they can meet me.”
Making an impact
While she enjoys building a connection with fans off the field, Sheridan is trying to do the same in the classroom. During her time in academics, she worked on the Mars Rover team at NASA and even travelled to Antarctica. She was working as a remote sensing scientist/engineer at Aerospace Corporation, a Department of Defense company, but as an extrovert working remotely, she missed interacting with people.
The same longing for connection she loves in cheerleading brought her to teaching. She knew she was making an impact in research, but it doesn’t feel the same as inspiring the next generation or what she calls “all the ridiculous reasons, like to change the world or inspire lives.”
Sheridan wasn’t sure she was making an impact, but got a nice affirmation from a parent-teacher conference with a quiet student in her class. Her parents said they were really happy she was her teacher because of her accomplishments, academically and athletically, and how her daughter looked at her as a role model.
Several other Ravens cheerleaders are in a similar position, Sheridan said, as the group includes doctors, lawyers and engineers. But for her, it’s not as much about being a role model as it is wanting people to know that no dream is too big and no hobby too small to chase.
”My goal is to show people you can do anything you put your mind to,” Sheridan said. “And that’s what I truly believe. I wanted to be a professional cheerleader, but I didn’t think I could do it and I told myself I couldn’t do it for so long.
“When I finally told myself I can do this and put the work in, it happened. You just have to be devoted and focused, and you’ll get there.”
Editor’s note: Due to NFL contractual obligations, Sheridan’s last name was not allowed to be printed in this report.