Wichita State cheerleaders to receive award for goodwill gesture at MVC tournament

When the Wichita State spirit squad asked Maddie Kenney to join them in cheers during timeouts at the Missouri Valley Conference women’s basketball tournament in March, they didn’t think twice about what they were doing.

Kelli Rappard, WSU’s coach, made sure that they weren’t violating any NCAA rules and then sat back and beamed when the WSU fans in attendance embraced Kenney, the lone Loyola cheerleader at the event, as one of their own.

“To me, it was just Wichita State people being Wichita State people,” Rappard said. “We’re good, Midwestern people who are just nice people. We didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

A picture of their act began circulating around social media and soon Rappard was bombarded by media requests from around the country wanting to talk to her about the display of sportsmanship.

And now their act will be nationally recognized this weekend by the Musial Awards, named after baseball legend Stan Musial and given annually for acts defined by class, excellence, humility, and generosity.

The event coincides with the men’s basketball team’s game at Saint Louis, which will allow administration, WuShock, and all of the returning spirit squad members who were there to attend.

“I know I’m going to stand up on that stage and cry because I’m so happy and proud of them and what it did become,” Rappard said. “It was such a little thing to us, but it turned into such a big thing to everybody else.”

Becky Endicott, WSU’s senior associate athletic director who was at the game, said she immediately recognized that what the spirit squad had done was something special.

Endicott also said that the team will be recognized before the next men’s basketball home game, which is Dec. 9 against UNLV.

“It’s a great honor for Wichita State University, but most of all I think it shows the world that we as individuals can come together and work as one unit,” Endicott said. “They could have just left her alone, but they choose to embrace her and treat her like family.”

What made Rappard and Endicott even more proud was that the idea did not come from them, it was completely the decision of the students to ask Kenney to join them. In fact, it was an immediate decision when Rappard informed them that the opposing school had only sent a single cheerleader.

“Why would you not ask her?” WSU cheerleader Lauren Pool said. “She was all by herself, so we were just being nice. We didn’t have any intentions of making a big deal out of it or anything, we just thought it was the right thing to do.”

Rappard compared it to watching your own children do the right thing without the parent coercing them to.

“You spend so much time with these kids that when you see them step up and do the right thing like that, you get this swelling of excitement and you’re just so proud,” Rappard said. “It was a moment were you go, ‘Oh my God, these are the right kids and we were in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.’ ”

This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 9:29 PM with the headline "Wichita State cheerleaders to receive award for goodwill gesture at MVC tournament."