CC Athletics: The premier Cheerleading, Gymnastics, and Tumbling facility in the heart of Heflin, Alabama!

WHO ARE WE?

Owners Valencia Cantrell and Kaycee Cavender have over 30 combined years of professional coaching experience in recreational and competitive tumbling, cheer, and gymnastics.

Valencia has extensive coaching experience and success in high school and competitive cheer. As a former high school and Jacksonville State University cheer leader, her personal experience has fed into her coaching career and led to many successes. She served as the head cheer coach at Cleburne County High School for many years, including the 2020 national champion competition team, and led the effort to build a new competitive cheer team at Talladega High School who, in their first year, not only won a bid to compete at the UCA nationals but placed among the top ___teams in the nation.

Kaycee Cavender spent most of her childhood dancing at the Roanoke Academy of Ballet before crossing over to all-star cheer in high school. After high school she was a dancer in Southern Union State Community College’s show choir her freshman year and began coaching an all-star cheer team, a competitive hip hop dance team, and competitive gymnasts in a local gym. Despite gymnastics training not being available when she was a child, Kaycee has had a lifelong passion for gymnastics and has continued coaching gymnasts and teams across the state in USA Gymnastics (USAG) sanctioned competitions since 2004.  

HOW DID CC ATHLETICS BEGIN?

Kaycee and Valencia dreamed of opening their own gyms for most of their adult lives and joined together at the end of 2021 to make that a reality in their hometown. They met as complete strangers in November of 2021 are realized their combined passion for not only gymnastics, tumbling, and cheer, but the youth they would serve. Having a local gym to consistently offer these services was badly needed and by December of 2021, they were preparing to start teaching classes inside of a small room within the Heflin Armory. 

Perfect strangers quickly became the best of friends. When it came to choosing a name for the new gym, they took the “C” from each of their last names to form the “CC” and decided on “Athletics” because they wanted to offer a wide range of support to athletes of all backgrounds and abilities to best support their community. And just like that, CC Athletics was born!

In July of 2023, Kaycee and Valencia broke ground on a new property to build a new and bigger training facility and by February of 2024, they moved in and began offering more classes and competitive opportunities!