David-Lee Tracey played plenty of sports while growing up. He lived on the Bruce Trail and did a lot of skiing, and he was good enough to make the cross-country ski team at the University of Western Ontario. In fact, he was close to making the football and basketball teams as well. But it was in his fourth year at Western when Tracey found his calling. He tried out for and made the cheerleading team, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Tracey continued competing with the team into grad school, where he took kinesiology, and then he transitioned into a coaching role. That was in 1980, and he is now in his 36th year with the program, a remarkable run
that has included almost too many tournament and championship medals to count.
In 1986, Tracey started up Power Cheer, and in 1998 he opened the Power Cheer Gym, which today is the
largest dedicated cheerleading gym (10,000 square feet) in the London and Southwestern Ontario area. It has two standalone sprung floors, tumble trak, trampoline, large lobby and an amazing parents’ loft that overlooks the gym floor.
Over the years, ‘Trace’ has coached thousands of local athletes and has enjoyed an iconic career in the field,
running cheerleading camps around the country and bringing countless teams to competitions throughout North
America. He is both the coach of Western University’s cheerleading team and the cheerleading program at Fanshawe, which he started in 2007. So well-respected is Tracey that he is also currently a coach with the national team. He’s truly a cheerleading lifer, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
