As students come and go throughout the history of Watertown High School, we often find that some make larger impacts than others. However, these students may also struggle more than others, often times more than what can be seen from the outside.

One of these students is Marcus Moore.

Marcus Moore was a member of the WHS cheer team until he graduated in 2019. While he wasn’t as interested in the team initially, he joined his sophomore year because the rest of his friends had joined and he wanted to spend more time with them. He pointed out that being able to attend football and basketball games was an added bonus of being on the team.

Because Marcus was one of the two boys on the team, he was expected to be strong and good at tumbling, of which he was neither at the beginning. However, through hard work and determination, he earned the title as co-captain his senior year. As he was one of the only boys on the team, he was also a flyer which caused him to stand out even more.

Marcus said, “Every single competition we would go to, all of the other teams would refer to us not as ‘Watertown,’ but as ‘the team with the boy flyer.’ ”

Luckily, he was greatly accepted by his teammates and treated the same as his female counterparts.

Marcus may have been highly successful in his cheer career, but his school life was just the opposite.

He recalls never really being good at school, no matter the subject. Because of this, he treated school as a sort of joke his freshman and sophomore years. It wasn’t until his junior year where he realized that everything he did would impact his future.

When asked if he had any high school regrets, Marcus revealed that he had a horrible attitude toward school. If he felt a certain way about his work, peers, or teachers, he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. Looking back, he finds his attitude towards school embarrassing and realizes that he would act out for no reason at all.

“If I could go back and do high school all over again, I would, no questions asked,” he said. “I know for a fact that if I cared and put in the effort then my mental health would not be as deteriorated as it is now.”

All of his struggles in school caused him to end up in a dark space mentally.

This past spring, he took some time off from school to focus on himself because he was failing his math class, which allowed depression to take over his life. Once he returned to school, he dropped the class and decided to take the course online over the summer. Unfortunately, since he didn’t have the credits from the class, he was unable to graduate with the rest of his grade. However, he claims that the process of online school is fairly simple and he ended up passing the course. He is now waiting for his diploma to be delivered.

Now that he has graduated, what is next for Marcus?

He currently works for Planet Fitness in Watertown and coaches for Watertown Belmont Pop Warner Cheerleading. He is also still involved with the Watertown High cheer team.

He hopes to keep working and eventually attend cosmetology school. Once he is finished, he hopes to attend college for either sociology or psychology.

Marcus strongly encourages others to focus on their mental health over everything else.

“There is no way that you can be successful and happy within anything that you’re doing if your mental health isn’t at its best,” he said.

–Oct. 3, 2019–