Eastern Washington University cheerleader tumbles, cheers with one hand

Megan Pratley is just like every other cheerleader at Eastern Washington University. She stunts, flips and cheers for roaring crowds at football and basketball games – but she does it all with an underdeveloped arm and hand.

Pratley was born with a right arm that ends just below the elbow, leaving her without a right forearm or hand. But the way she cheers and tumbles, no one would notice.

Pratley started in the cheer program in fall 2021 during her freshman year. Her green eyes and dark hair lit up as she cheered, stunted and tumbled intermittently during an Eastern basketball game against Northern Colorado on Thursday night. She held two pompoms just like every other cheerleader on the sidelines, slipping the red one onto her right arm with a smile on her face.

Before she started at Eastern, Pratley cheered in high school in Monroe, Washington, and competed with Allstar Cheer during her senior year after leaving the high school team because of some drama between teammates. When she left the squad during her junior year, Pratley joined the school gymnastics team to keep up on her tumbling. She cheers and tumbles using both of her arms, which she said made getting her back handspring tricky.

Pratley said she came to Eastern to be close to her family, who live in Cheney. Her mom, Heidi Pratley, started getting her involved in cheer in elementary school, after Megan asked to try it out. Pratley grew up playing baseball, soccer and eventually went on to cheer and gymnastics.

“We never discouraged her from trying anything,” her mom said. “Everything she tried and succeeded at just gave her the confidence to try more. From the time she started to cheer at age 10, she wanted to cheer at higher levels.”

Growing up, Pratley’s parents encouraged her to try and figure out how to do things independently, rather than asking for help.

“Her determination to figure things out was always inspiring. She learned to tie her shoes at the age of 5,” Heidi Pratley said.

Her path to Eastern was not an easy one, though. There’s no doubt that Pratley’s early years were tough, as she endured years of teasing a bullying.

“It was a hard thing to grow up with,” Pratley said. “I got bullied a lot, mostly in elementary school, but there was at least one time that I can remember getting bullied in high school.”

She leaned on her family, particularly her two older siblings, Makenna and Brent, who rode the bus to school with her. They got matching tattoos a few years ago: a sun, moon and stars, each sibling with a different shape colored in. Pratley is the sun.

There were days when she would come home from elementary school crying because of the bullying, Pratley said.

“Eventually she just learned to shrug it off,” her mom, Heidi Pratley said.

Megan Pratley was motivated by the encouragement of her parents, who, “kept telling me that yes, I’m different, but it’s not a bad thing.”

“Everyone’s different,” Pratley said.

Standing out

Her coach, Hailey Tangen, can remember watching Pratley’s try-out tape.

“When you’re tumbling, you need to use the power of your arm strength, your wrist strength, to get your body to flip over,” Tangen said. “And so watching her do that, basically one-handed, is incredible. I mean, she still uses both of her hands, but the majority of her skills have to be pressed through her left hand. And she looks like everybody else.”

In stunting, Pratley jumps and uses her arm to push herself high enough into the air to stand on the stunter’s hands. According to Tangen, that means Pratley has to jump even harder than other girls to get the same results. And she does it every time.

“She’s an incredible flyer,” Tangen said. “She just gets it.”

This is Tangen’s 17th year coaching the Eastern cheer team. After coaching Pratley for five years, she’s still impressed.

“You’d never know that she had a disability. I remember thinking at tryouts how incredible that was. I really wanted her to be able to be a college athlete,” Tangen said.

The team practices together twice a week for three hours each, running routines and stunts where each male cheerleader is paired with a female flyer, who balances on her stunter’s hands in various routines. Members of the team also typically lift weights together two days a week, in addition to practice time.

Pratley’s disability is hardly ever talked about among the team or coaches, Tangen said. They’re just not worried about her because she’s proven time and time again that she can perform just as well, if not better, than everyone else on the team.

“She does everything they do,” Tangen said, beaming with pride.

It’s taken hard work, dedication and perseverance to get to this place, Pratley said.

Pratley is in her first year in the athletic training master’s program at Eastern. Last year, she got her bachelor’s degree in exercise science. It’s her goal to eventually help athletes like her through injuries and training.

She just has one message for all the kids out there who have struggled or been bullied because of a disability: Stay strong.

“Don’t give up. Keep trying,” she said. “You might not get it the first time, but you will eventually. It’s going to be difficult, but once you finally get it, it feels so good.”