Head Cheer Coach Nicky Van stands outside of Kelly/Shorts Stadium with the CMU cheer team.
Nicky Van is prepared to lead his team into the National Cheerleading Competition, Saturday, but the pain of what kept him from nationals a year ago still lingers.
On the one-year anniversary, Van said he remembers the emotions from that chilly January 2015 night exactly. He sat at his kitchen table eating dinner when the phone rang.
Van’s sister Tracy was on the other line and what she told him sent shivers through his body.
Their father, Dan, had just experienced an aneurysm, which caused hemorrhaging in his brain.