Present for last week’s signing at Peebles High School were: Front row, from left, Melissa Dunigan (mother), Brianna Dunigan and John Dunigan (father); Back row, from left, Kayla Clough (PHS Cheer Coach) and Chris Reed (PHS Athletic Director). (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
It was a different kind of college signing that took place at Peebles High School on April 20. Peeebles senior Brianna Dunigan inked her letter of intent to attend Tiffin University and be part of rapidly growing nes sport caclled “STUNT”.
If you are unfamiliar with that, www.stuntthesport.orgdescribes it this way: “STUNT is a new female sport that incorporates skills derived from cheerleading. STUNT is an exciting head-to-head game between two teams who execute skills-based routines in various categories – partner stunts, jumps and tumbling, pyramids and tosses, and team routines.” STUNT has received approval as an NCAA emerging sport for Division II. An emerging sport is a women’s sport recognized by the NCAA that is intended to help schools provide more athletics opportunities for women and more sport-sponsorship options for the institutions, and also help that sport achieve NCAA championship status.
For Dunigan, the path to “STUNT” began in elementary school.
“I started cheering in fifth grade so I’ve been doing it for awhile now,” Dunigan told The Defender. “I played softball when I was younger but it never stuck so I concentrated on cheer. STUNT is a new sport that is basically made up of competitions with other colleges, but I am also going to be part of their regular cheerleading program.”
“Tiffin got STUNT about three years ago so it’s pretty new and I got the idea from seeing it at the University of Kentucky. I e-mailed a number of schools and applied to a lot and when I took a visit to Tiffin they asked if I was interested in any sport so I put that I wanted to do cheer. I ended up in a meeting with the cheer coach and she showed me around campus and told me about the program and it just seemed like a good fit for me. It’s a lot of new things to learn because it’s college and a much higher level.”
When not stunting and cheering on the Tiffin Dragons sports squads, Dunigan plans to major in Psychology/Sports
Psychology.
Tiffin University is an NCAA Division II school located in Tiffin, Ohio.
