The New Orleans Saints Saintsations, have a new line up that will premiere on August 15th. That line up will include 40-year old mother of two Kriste Lewis. Lewis who said ”I turned 40 this year.. Just thinking about that, turning 40 is a milestone birthday, I wanted to do something that was fun and just epic, I had a lot of friends that were training for marathons and triathlons, but I’m not just a runner, I’m a dancer. I teach dance fitness, so it just fit so many ways and my heart told me to do it so I just went for it.”
And that epic thing was to try out for her favorite football team cheerleading squad “ I wanted to set a goal for myself, and the audition was a specific date that required specific training, so my goal was just to make it to the audition,”. And she did that plus more, the 40-year old dance instructor who hadn’t done splits and high kicks since her cheerleading days in high school, and after driving about a 100 miles from Hattiesburg, Mississippi with the doubts of ever making the team. She still found herself making the squad.
As told from Lesslee Fitzmorris the director of the squad, that Lewis is now one of the two oldest NFL cheerleaders in her 40s. The other dancer is 45-year-old Laura Vikmanis, who has been with the Cincinnati Bengals dance team, the Ben-Gals, since making the squad at age 40. Fitzmorris also stated that “ The applications hadn’t been processed when the dance auditions started, so the judges didn’t even know Kriste was 40 until she had made it though three rounds of cuts and revealed her age in the interview round”.
There were more than a 100 women trying for the 36 spots on the team. The competition was very fierce with women ages from 18 to 30 years old, Lewis never thought that she would leave out of the first round. She thought “It was fear. I will not lie.” When Lewis received the news she says “I was beside myself, it was really exciting”.
But her age wasn’t the only motivation to follow her dream and it wasn’t just for check off of a bucket list what set her apart from others was being diagnosed with polycistic kidney disease. This illness has already effected this family with Lewis mom already battling the illness and has received a kidney transplant twice and both times her body rejected it, and several other members who have died from the disease. Lewis doesn’t want to go down without a fight especially since she knows her kidney will shut down and will eventually require dialysis and even a kidney transplant herself which had lot to do with her auditioning. She explained: “ I know my time is limited. I don’t want to let any time go. I want to make every day count.” And the mother of two is doing just that.
Lewis has been approved by doctors to take the field this fall saying “I can’t wait to get on that field, just being able to put a cheerleading uniform back on and go at it for my favorite team is unbelievable to me, and I’m having a blast.”
But now what do her two sons (11 and 14) and husband think of their mom and wife accomplishments? Lewis says “I’m a soccer mom and I’m a basketball mom and for many years I’ve supported my husband with his education and his career, and I think they’re just excited to cheer for mom for once.”
The premiere of the squad will be on Friday August 15th against the Tennessee Titans for the first exhibition game of the season
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