Sophomore Kaitlyn Crocker found her passion and joy eight years ago: dancing. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she watched the hip-hop dancers at a local recital. Just when she thought she knew what the dancers were going to do, they would do a remarkable move no one saw coming.

“It was really amazing,” Kaitlyn said. “It looked like so much fun and it was so lively and exciting. I wanted to dance like that. I just wanted to be able to perform in front of an audience and to really have a good time.”

Because of the dance mixed with music, Kaitlyn decided right there that she was going to learn dance if it was the last thing she did.

“Since the dancers were having so much fun up there, I thought, ‘Why couldn’t I?’” Kaitlyn said.

Despite her new-found passion, Kaitlyn’s dedication would soon be put to the ultimate test.

A Kink in the Plan

At the age of eight, Kaitlyn joined the Performing Arts Center on Main Street to learn hip-hop, and since then she has been dancing hip-hop for seven years. Kaitlyn has experimented with ballet and jazz, but hip-hop will always be her favorite.

“It’s more fun than any other style,” Kaitlyn said. “You can add style into it, it’s not like you have to perform it a specific way– you can do it how you want.”

While preparing for Knightline tryouts, Kaitlyn found out about a hereditary problem with her feet, causing her toes to grow sideways and curl over. This caused her pain to walk, let alone dance. In the summer of 2011, Kaitlyn got a surgery on her foot where the doctor shaved her bone and clipped three tendons to better enable the bone to move. After the cut was healed, Kaitlyn spent six weeks with her foot in a cast.

“I wasn’t too upset at the time,” Kaitlyn said. “It would heal and get better eventually. I mean, I still could tryout for Knightline; all I had to do was give it

time to heal.”

After recovery, Kaitlyn went running with her sister, Delaney. During the run, she turned her other foot sideways, causing it to break.

“I was so upset when I broke my foot,” Kaitlyn said. “I didn’t see it coming. It was horrible. I was a mess.”

Pushing Forward

During her second recovery, Kaitlyn still practiced any way she could. She would try to do turns, and even though she would fall out of the turns, she kept trying. Kaitlyn would watch Knightline perform in order to stay motivated to heal and make the team.

“I felt so bad for her,” Kaitlyn’s mother Stephany Crocker said. “As a mother, you want what is best for your kids, and there was nothing I could do for her.”

Kaitlyn’s foot ended up healing earlier than expected All her efforts paid off when she made JV Knightline.

“Kaitlyn has always found a solution for every one of her problems,” Kaitlyn’s father Dennis Crocker said. “I’m glad she could do it again and achieve something that she really wanted to do.”

Kaitlyn’s next goals are to make the Varsity squad next year and to earn a scholarship for dancing.

“It’s helped me so much,” Kaitlyn said. “My coaches have taught me almost every dancing technique I

know now. “