The Dallas Cowboys may very well be the most popular football team in the entire world. Athletes dream of playing for the team, and talented dancers dream of becoming their cheerleaders. It’s not hard to see what attracts so much young talent: after a few years with the Cowboys, it seems like anyone involved could write their own ticket.
However, life as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader isn’t necessarily everything it’s cracked up to be. That was what Victoria Kalina discovered after serving four years with the team and finally quitting. She eventually came to grips with how her time with the Cowboys was like an abusive relationship, and how she needed to leave for the sake of her own mental health.
But what was it that specifically drove Kalina away? And how did she later help to protect others from repeating her mistakes? Keep reading to find out!
A lifetime of dance training
Most of the time, breathless reports about people training for their entire lives to achieve a certain goal are (at best) gentle exaggerations or (at worst) clickbait fabrications. But in the case of Victoria Kaline, it’s both fair and accurate to say that she spent her lifetime preparing to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Her mother Tina had been one such cheerleader back in the ‘80s, and her daughter had dreams of following in her footsteps.
Tina snuck Victoria into dance classes only a few months after her daughter learned how to walk. And once Victoria was six years old, she began competing in dance competitions throughout Texas. Everyone in these competitions had their own motivations, but Victoria remained focused on a singular goal. Simply put, she was going to become a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader no matter the cost!
Achieving–and then leaving–her dream
Plenty who dream of becoming a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader fall short of this lofty goal. That wasn’t the case for Victoria Kaline, though. All those years of intense dance training and competitions had paid off, and she joined the Cowboys cheerleading squad when she was only 19.
By the time she was 24, however, she had left the squad. She didn’t exactly leave on good terms, either, as she had so many negative experiences that she couldn’t really bear to go back. And in addition to what she has shared in interviews, we know more about how bad things got thanks to a chilling new documentary.
A star of a scary new documentary
Victoria Kalina features very prominently in America’s Sweethearts, a Netflix documentary about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. The series follows the cheerleading squad throughout the 2023-24 season, and it’s surprisingly thorough. We follow these talented dancers through auditions, training, and the often heart-wrenching decision of whether to return.
The reason this documentary tugs our heartstrings so thoroughly is that it is unflinching about what these women had to go through. We know that all of them are like Kalina, dreaming of joining the team for their entire lives. But the reality of cheerleading can be pretty bleak: the series shows how cheerleaders are groped and stalked. One cheerleader discusses trying to rock the pom-poms while dealing with the suicide of her father, himself a Cowboys cameraman.
In one particularly sad section, two parents tearfully recall how they held off on getting a divorce to help financially support their daughter, a necessity because this billion-dollar team allegedly pays these cheerleaders burger-flipping wages. As for Kalina, she discusses trying to keep smiling and performing while dealing with such major issues as depression and bulimia.
Taking a break for her mental health
As reported by The Times, Victoria Kalina eventually began to realize that living her dream was more like living a nightmare. She eventually realized that she was in an abusive relationship: “I think I did lose some of my love of dance,” she said. “If you’re giving, giving, giving so much and it’s not being reciprocated — what’s the point?”
Eventually, she took a break from the team in 2021 to focus on her mental health. Later, she was grateful that the documentary gave her a chance to expose some of the terrible things she went through, including a brutal scene where she was mocked by audition judges. “It’s so exhausting, honestly, covering it up rather than telling what happened,” she said. “And I was just tired of trying to pretend that it wasn’t there.”
A new life and new dreams
If you end up watching America’s Sweethearts, you’ll see a scene near the end where Victoria Kalina declares she will audition again next year. However, she ultimately decided against it and never returned to the team. Eventually, a discussion with her mother (who was a former Cowboys cheerleader) helped her decide to not come back.
“Coming back as a fifth year, you should be on cloud nine, and very much welcomed back,” she said. “Since I wasn’t feeling that, yes, we want you back, kind of validation, I was like: okay, well, then why do it?” Now, she is chasing a new life and new dreams: she lives in New York, and she won’t stop until she manages to dance with the Rockettes during the holiday season.