{"id":90791,"date":"2025-07-25T07:29:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T07:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/90791\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T07:29:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T07:29:21","slug":"dallas-cowboys-cheerleader-faith-ward-on-her-journey-from-porirua-to-american-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/90791\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Faith Ward on her journey from Porirua to American fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ward attended a \u201cvery small, intimate school\u201d, just north of Porirua,<\/a> where she believes knowing all the teachers\u2019 names was a great way to grow up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like that definitely shaped me into the person I am today; it\u2019s very crazy to think that that\u2019s where my life started,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"FaithFaith Ward becomes the first New Zealander to make the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Photo \/ Supplied <\/p>\n

Ward\u2019s mum was a dance teacher at the Wellington School of Dance, and started taking her to her lessons. <\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ward recalls joining in, prancing around with ribbons to avoid being bored. <\/p>\n

She said she didn\u2019t even initially want to dance, but her mum noticed a natural rhythm and encouraged her to sign up for a few lessons.<\/p>\n

The dance lessons quickly became more competitive, and before she knew it, she was \u201cwinning a few awards, was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m actually maybe kind of good at this\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wellington School of Dance teacher Suzanne Denton started teaching Ward from age of 4, and said she had immense talent and determination.<\/p>\n

Ward was part of the dance school\u2019s competition teams and had a natural ability. Denton said she \u201cwas a delight to teach\u201d.<\/p>\n

The whole team was incredibly proud of her, and the achievement just \u201cshows what kind of person she actually is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denton said Ward is a true inspiration for the next generation of dancers that she teaches, and \u201ccoming from NZ, being able to achieve something like this on the world stage is very inspirational for all dancers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\" Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Faith Ward experimented with a whole range of dance formats while living in New Zealand as a child.<\/p>\n

Ward recalls begging her mum to let her try cheerleading at Big Air gym in Tawa as well as dancing, as that\u2019s what \u201call my friends from school were doing\u201d.<\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n

Big Air was Ward\u2019s first taste of cheerleading, which she said brought out a whole new side of the sport, and made her stronger as an athlete.<\/p>\n

An appearance on children\u2019s TV show What Now when she was 8 was a defining moment, where the gears clicked and she realised this was what she wanted to do as a forever job.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I kind of went, \u2018there\u2019s some opportunity in dancing. I could make this a thing\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the past few weeks, which Ward dubbed some of the hardest, most gruelling weeks of her life: she has made her dream come true as a Dallas Cowboy.<\/p>\n

The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders are renowned as one of the world\u2019s top cheer groups. Thousands of dancers go through intense training camps each year to try and secure a spot among the elite. They have been performing at Dallas Cowboy\u2019s NFL games since 1961.<\/p>\n

\" Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Faith Ward previously performed in the musical Annie at the St James Theatre Wellington in 2014.<\/p>\n

Ward said during training camps, they would be shown a dance taught just the day prior, and have to perform the entire routine. If the coaches weren\u2019t impressed, they\u2019d cut them from the programme on the spot.<\/p>\n

The cheerleaders became a global phenomenon with the launch of Netflix docuseries, America\u2019s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, which came out last year, showing a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an achievement no Kiwi has made before, becoming America\u2019s newest sweetheart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m honestly so honoured and so privileged to be representing NZ,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ward attended a \u201cvery small, intimate school\u201d, just north of Porirua, where she believes knowing all the teachers\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":90792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[60370,5229,8015,13136,59132,7311,1596,60371,11412,17746,1075,30344,31354,46405,60372,5824,60369,27788,358,4058,447,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,59133],"class_list":{"0":"post-90791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-22yearold","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-american","11":"tag-call","12":"tag-cheerleader","13":"tag-cowboys","14":"tag-dallas","15":"tag-dreamt","16":"tag-faith","17":"tag-fame","18":"tag-from","19":"tag-her","20":"tag-journey","21":"tag-little","22":"tag-making","23":"tag-on","24":"tag-porirua","25":"tag-since","26":"tag-texas","27":"tag-that","28":"tag-to","29":"tag-tx","30":"tag-united-states","31":"tag-united-states-of-america","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","34":"tag-us","35":"tag-usa","36":"tag-ward"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114912700909652199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}