Perth dancer Faith Ward says she is “super excited and grateful” after making the world-famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders squad.<\/p>\n
Born in New Zealand and raised in Western Australia, the 22-year-old is the first New Zealander and the third Australian to make the prestigious team for the NFL franchise.<\/p>\n
Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n
She competed against thousands of cheerleaders for one of just six rookie spots on the 36-member cheerleading squad this NFL season.<\/p>\n
“I thought, this is my time to reach for my dreams,” she told ABC News Breakfast.<\/p>\n
“I took the opportunity and here we are.”Loading…<\/p>\n
The US cheerleaders have attracted huge global fame in recent years through wildly popular Netflix docuseries America’s Sweethearts.<\/p>\n
The two seasons of the TV series tracked the gruelling selection and training processes for the official cheer squad of the world’s biggest sports franchise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Faith Ward (second from left) has made the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad. (Supplied: Instagram\/@flexi_faith)<\/p>\n
Ward tried out for the team after a recruiter messaged her on Instagram.<\/p>\n
“I was like, ‘This is a fake account, this is a drill, there’s no way this is happening’,” she said.<\/p>\n
“And [the recruiter] was like, ‘No, we’re looking for international candidates’.”<\/p>\n
“So I was like, ‘Sign me up’.”<\/p>\n
The 2025 squad of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. (Supplied: Instagram\/@flexi_faith)<\/p>\n
A ‘cutthroat’ and ‘brutal’ process<\/p>\n
The gruelling audition process sees veterans compete each year against rookie candidates to retain their spot.<\/p>\n
“I think those athletes are hands-down some of the most hard-working people I’ve ever seen,” Ward said.<\/p>\n
While the Wellington-born dancer acknowledged it was a “cutthroat” and “brutal” process, she said the team’s director Kelli Finglass and choreographer Judy Trammell had “warm hearts”.<\/p>\n
“They’re really just wanting to see the best potential of you,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a hard industry to make it in and everyone wants to do it, so you’ve just got to push through.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Faith Ward with DCC director Kelli Finglass. (Supplied: Instagram\/@flexi_faith)<\/p>\n
Ward said just qualifying for the finals was more than she had ever dreamed of, adding she “couldn’t believe it” when she discovered she’d made the team.<\/p>\n
“I was waiting for someone to wake me up from my dream,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I kept turning to the girls going, there’s no way this is real.”<\/p>\n
Faith Ward is the first New Zealander to make the team. (Supplied: Instagram\/@flexi_faith)<\/p>\n
Now the final team has been selected, preparations begin for the NFL regular season, which kicks off in September.<\/p>\n
This includes meticulous practice of DCC’s most famous dance to AC\/DC’s Thunderstruck, which they will perform in front of 90,000 eager fans at AT&T Stadium, the Cowboys’ home ground.<\/p>\n
“It is going to be so iconic and so surreal to be representing Australia and New Zealand,” Ward said.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to make it feel like all those late nights of dance practice and training and hours I’ve put into my profession has paid off.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perth dancer Faith Ward says she is “super excited and grateful” after making the world-famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[46499,230,229,257,18459,2461,46020,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-224180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-american-sweethearts","9":"tag-cowboys","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-cowboys","12":"tag-dallas-cowboys-cheerleaders","13":"tag-dallascowboys","14":"tag-faith-ward","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114890472529312777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}