On May 13, Morgan Branch signed her National Letter of Intent to cheer at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina.
Branch has been on the Linganore varsity cheer team for multiple seasons for all four years of high school. In that time, she has become a six-time county champion, a seven-time undefeated regional champion and the first and only current Linganore three-time state champion.
Known for being a punctual and diligent teammate, Linganore cheer coach Amy Rumburg emphasized Branch’s loyalty to Linganore and her ardor for cheer.
“She was captain her senior season, and she led her teammates with a true passion and love for her sport and team,” Rumburg said. “She was 100% committed to the cause of what our program stood on and what our program was trying to achieve. She kept me straight all season … She was on it.”
Branch chose to cheer at Coastal because the school is more south and that Coastal was a good place for balancing school and cheer.
She also has a close friend, Amanda Chesebrough, on the Coastal cheer team. “This will be her third year cheering there,” Branch said. “I was talking to her about it, and she loved it there, so I decided it would be a good fit.”
Branch plans to earn her bachelor’s degree in exercise science at Coastal, then pursue her masters’ in occupational therapy at another college, since this is not a degree Coastal currently offers.
Branch explained she is specifically nervous about “meeting the coaches’ standards and making sure [she does not] disappoint them … [and] making sure [she] can hold up to their expectations.”
While college courses become more strenuous, athletics can become more physically taxing and student-athletes may have difficulty balancing the two, but Branch’s parents believe she will flourish in the new environment. They have supported her throughout her athletic and academic career and have witnessed her success in managing expectations as both a student and an athlete.
“She’s kept her grades up all four years, and she’s learned how to balance [cheer and academics],” Branch’s mother, Kristen Branch said. “She takes time to study when she needs to.”
Rumburg agrees that Branch will not have any issue transitioning to collegiate athletics.
“She’s a natural at this; she’s a natural born leader,” Rumberg said. “She’s going to thrive in any environment she is put in … she made [the Linganore cheer team] better, and now we get to watch her do that at the next level at Coastal. I don’t think Coastal realizes the jackpot they hit with [Branch].”