MADISON TOWNSHIP— Paidge Butler is at the top of her game. She has a fist full of conference rings to prove it.
Butler has spent the last two years at Davenport University, where she was a member of the stunt team that won nationals in 2025 and took home two Great Midwest Athletic Conference and two regular-season championships.
Meanwhile, she and her teammates on the competitive cheerleading squad earned two second-place finishes at the NCA Collegiate Nationals.
The Mansfield native headed west this fall, transferring to Oklahoma State to continue her academic and athletic career at the D1A level.
“Getting to compete in the D-1A division at NCAA nationals, that seems like it’ll be pretty cool because there are many top contenders like Louisville, Clemson and other big schools like that,” said Butler, who graduated from Madison Comprehensive High School in 2024.
Butler’s parents enrolled her in tap, jazz, ballet and lyrical dance classes when she was 5 years old. That soon lead to tumbling, and then, cheer.
Even after traveling across the country for competitions, Butler hasn’t forgotten where it all began.
“I found my love for cheerleading at Ohio Adrenaline in Lexington,” Butler said.
By the time she was 12, Butler was spending between four and six hours a day in the gym. Soon, she was traveling the country and competing at the national level with her teammates.
Butler said there’s a lot she loves about competitive cheer — the thrill of competition, the electric atmosphere on game day and even the chance to meet new people.
“She never stopped watching cheer. She would go to sleep watching cheer. Everything was cheer-related. She wasn’t interested in anything else,” her mother India said.
Rather than keeping the energy up on the sidelines, competitive cheerleading exists independently as its own sport. Athletes compete as a team at their own events, judged on their routine’s difficulty, execution and creativity.
Butler eventually left Ohio Adrenaline to train at other gyms, traveling hours to practice and even farther for competitions.
She competed three times at The Cheerleading Worlds, an international competition that convenes athletes from more than 20 countries, as a high school student. She also attended multiple NCA All Star Nationals competitions in Dallas, Texas and competed in CheerVille’s Worlds Competition at the ESPN Center in Orlando, Florida.
As a high school student, Butler balanced competitive cheer with high school athletics. She played basketball, ran track and played clarinet in the marching band at Madison. She was also part of the Rams cheerleading program.
“She was a crowd pleaser with her tumbling. She would come through the tunnel at basketball and do her best tumbling pass and it was always a wow factor,” said Michelle Byus, Madison High School’s cheerleading coach.
“She could do back handspring after back handspring. She was amazing. She was one of the best tumblers I ever had.”
Byus described Butler as a dedicated athlete and student.
“A lot of times, she would practice til 5 o’clock and then she’d up and drive to Columbus or wherever her All Star Gym was,” Byus said. “Or she’d cheer on Friday night (with Madison) and then cheer all weekend with All Star Cheer.”
Butler said her family, teachers and coaches rallied around her passions.
“I just wanted to try a lot of different things and see what I was good at and stay conditioned for cheer on top of that,” she said. “I’m really thankful for all the support that I’ve gotten to get me this far in my life. There have been a lot of very supportive teachers and mentors.”
Justin Butler is glad his daughter was able to participate in multiple extracurriculars at Madison.
“We’ve always been big supporters of our community and the schools. We want to see our schools do well,” he said. “I think it’s important for the bonds and relationships you build — that high school experience is something that you don’t want to miss out on.”
Butler comes from an athletic family. Her parents both played high school sports. Her sister Paityn is a freshman volleyball player at West Virginia Wesleyan. Their cousin, Saniyah Hall, is a freshman basketball player at the University of Southern California.
But Butler’s parents said their daughter’s dedication to cheer broadened their definition of what an athlete looks like.
“(When we started) I’m like, ‘Cheerleading is not a sport. Then when we saw her, it was like, ‘Oh, this is one of the hardest sports,'” India said. “You’ve got two minutes and 30 seconds for 30 girls to get it right. One mistake can cost them everything.”
In addition to practices, Butler and her teammates attend mandatory weight training three times a week.
“They do a lot of lifting; they do a lot of cardio. They’re probably one of the best-conditioned athletes I’ve ever seen,” Justin said.
Byus pointed out that tumbling and stunting are dangerous — and athletes do it without helmets or protective padding.
Even at the high school level, her squad is rehearsing for hours on end, striving for perfection.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into cheer,” she said. “You don’t see it, because they make it look easy.”
Butler learned about stunt during a college visit to Davenport University.
“I just thought it would be something cool to try out a new sport and it seemed very, like highly competitive, like a sport mixed with cheerleading, which is something that’s a little bit more unique,” Butler said.
Stunt is similar, but distinct, from competitive cheerleading. In stunt, two teams perform identical routines simultaneously, aiming for technical perfection and exact synchronization to achieve the highest score.
“They’ll like take points off for feet separation, bent legs. If the timing of the skills isn’t right or if you miss counts,” Butler explained.
Butler is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in management information systems and psychology with a minor in data science.
During the summer, she coaches at Stingrays Allstars in Westerville, and with the National Cheerleading Association, where she helps run summer camps for different middle schools, high schools, and colleges across the northeastern United States.
“She’s one determined young lady. She’s definitely fearless,” Byus said. “She’s deserved everything she’s got and I know she’ll keep reaching because she’s never satisfied. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
