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College is a time for new experiences and is often full of life changing experiences. LaGrange High graduate Miller DeVane got just that earlier this year when he decided to try out for the Georgia Tech cheerleading squad and made the cut.

“If anyone told me I’d be cheering even a year ago, I probably would not believe them. It’s just a very different sport from soccer and all these other sports that I played in high school, but it’s just as  fulfilling in the same ways that those were,” DeVane said “I really enjoy being on a team and having that group around me and being able to commit to something and really put my mind to it and see myself progress.”

“But yeah, definitely not what I thought I would be doing in college,” DeVane added with a chuckle.

DeVane, a graduate of LaGrange in 2022, was an exquisite soccer player for the Grangers, helping the team to a Sweet 16 appearance as a senior. He went onto Georgia Tech and enjoyed life on campus as a student, but missed being a student athlete.

“I had a friend that was on the team and I talked to him a little bit about what it was like to be on the team because I think I really missed being a student athlete and having a team on top of doing school,” Devane said. “He introduced me to the team, and was like, ‘if you’re interested in trying out, we can train you, and then, like, you can try out and see just what happens.’ I went to the clinics, got taught by, like our coaches, and taught by the people on the team… I think just because it’s a new sport for me, what the coaches really wanted to see was that I was coachable and that I had potential.”

Small life decisions often snowball into life changing decisions. That is exactly what happened for DeVane, who originally had his eyes set on Clemson, but decided to go to Georgia Tech in the final couple of months in his senior year of high school. If DeVane ends up at Clemson, he likely never takes the field on game days.

“I didn’t really commit to Georgia Tech until April of my senior year. I was really back and forth between Georgia Tech and Clemson,” DeVane said. “I kind of changed what I wanted to do halfway through high school, and decided I wanted to be a lawyer originally, and then decided I wanted to do biomedical engineering because I really want to make medical devices for children with disabilities.”

Now, being a Yellow Jacket courses through DeVane’s veins and he could not imagine himself anywhere else. 

Even though the football season is nearing its end, the cheer season is just getting started. DeVane and the team will jump straight from football cheer to volleyball and basketball cheer before eventually wrapping the school year with competition cheer. 

“So I actually cheered my first volleyball game on [Oct. 27]. It’s a little different from football,” DeVane said. “For volleyball games, we’re not allowed to throw stunts, so it’s mostly just the cheering. And then for basketball games, we just have to throw different stunts.”

“Then in the spring, we’ll shift to comp, which is a competition we’ll do at Daytona Beach with a bunch of different schools and compete just how any normal cheer competition would.”

DeVane has had to learn both stunting and tumbling for cheer. With a background in weight training from his time at LaGrange High and in College, stunting came relatively easy for DeVane, but tumbling took a lot of practice and time to adjust.

“I would say tumbling is harder, just because stunting is very strength based, you have to have good technique too, but tumbling requires even more technique and strength,” DeVane said. “It’s just different, like with flips and handsprings and anything like that. It’s just like something I’ve literally never done before cheerleading.”

DeVane estimates that he spends 20-30 hours per week training, working out and practicing for cheerleading. This commitment and dedication is exactly what he was looking for on campus and he is happy that he has found the place he feels like he belongs.