Can someone help me with my college essay please :)

This is my first draft, I would like some feedback.

Ever since I was 7 years old, I have been devoting my life to all-star cheerleading. The lessons I have learned and the challenges I have overcome have shaped me into the person I am today. In the North, when the average person hears the word “cheerleading,” they automatically think sideline cheerleading, football, basketball, and the stereotypical unathletic, popular girls. All-star cheerleading could not be any more opposite. From the second I joined the sport, hard work and determination have been running through my blood.
There are five aspects to competitive cheerleading: stunting, tumbling, jumping, and dancing. In order to be a successful team, every athlete must participate in intensive training in and out of practice. We spend hours at the gym increasing our physical endurance, strength, and skill in order to be the best we can be. It takes many years develop the skills and abilities to be a successful cheerleader, but it’s well worth it when your team is named the National Champions.
I started as a little girl who would be in the gym working on kartwheels, watching the high schoolers, and striving to be like them one day. My coaches would always tell me, “Work as hard as you can, and some day it will pay off and you’ll be just as good as them.”
My goal remained the same; to be the best I could be. My determination brought me through many more years of cheerleading. Three or four years into my career, I started getting comments such as, “Cheerleading isn’t a sport” and “Cheerleading is easy, anyone can do it.” I tried not to take these comments to heart, but being young, it made me feel bad about something I am very passionate about.
As I started to grow older and more mature, I learned that what people think about you is much less important than how you feel about yourself. Cheerleading has taught me to express myself in unique ways no matter what other people say. I know who I want to be and what I want to do, and with determination, confidence, and strength such that I had these past ten years of my cheerleading career, any obstacle that comes my way, mentally or physically, I will be able to overcome it and stay true to myself.