MSU’s cheer coach first stepped away to pursue yoga hobby, but found new love in doing both.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- As if owning a local business isn’t hard enough, Nikki Love-Adkins is the head cheerleading coach at Missouri State and takes care of her family at home.
From 2000-2004, Love-Adkins attended MSU and was a cheerleader for the school. She’s been a part of the MSU family for as long as she can remember.
“I’m so glad that I was a cheerleader because I think I would have been too shy to get involved in anything else,” Love-Adkins said. “I had people that had my back all those years.”
She cheered for the university at the same time the Lady Bears went to the Final Four with Jackie Stiles on the team.
While cheering was a strong force in Love-Adkins’ life, she picked up another hobby in college: yoga — which would determine her future career.
Shaping her future
“When I started, I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Love-Adkins said. “I was just kind of showing up to my mat because I felt drawn to it. It wasn’t until after I had my daughter that I felt like a big relief from being on my mat.”
Love-Adkins’ daughter has life-threatening food allergies, which she said can cause a lot of stress.
“I noticed that after I went to my mat, I felt more calm,” Love-Adkins said. “I felt like I could manage her environment better. And I wanted to share that with people.”
After this revelation, Love-Adkins became focused on teaching yoga. During this time, her now business partner began hot yoga.
“I like instructing yoga because I like showing people that there’s another way to stay calm,” Love-Adkins said. “There’s another way to get through the chaos and the problems. You have to take care of yourself first and you have to teach yourself how to prioritize.”
Love-Adkins said her friend suggested they start their own hot yoga studio in Springfield.
Love-Adkins now co-owns Sumits Hot Yoga with Stephanie Lewis, who graduated from MSU in 2005, when it was still called Southern Missouri State University.
When Sumits Hot Yoga opened in Springfield, Lewis and Love-Adkins began attending classes there and then worked their way up to become instructors. One day, the owner at the time asked if they would like to buy the studio from him. It’s been nine years since.
“It was kind of a dream we had,” Lewis said.
Lewis said she enjoys yoga because she can listen to her own body, instead of someone else telling her what to do. She also said yoga gives her a fulfilling way to stay healthy since she isn’t “a fan of working out.”
“When I leave, I feel like I did get a workout, but I was able to gain something from it that was more than physical,” Lewis said.
When Lewis moved out of Springfield to Kansas City in 2017, the pair had to find a way to continue running the business together.
“Basically, I do all the back end stuff from here,” Lewis said. “Like the marketing and payroll, things that can be done remotely I do from here. (Love-Adkins) takes care of the day-to-day stuff at the studio.”
Lewis does come and visit the studio often, however. Since her family lives in Springfield, she comes back about once a month.
But being new business owners came with added responsibilities. At the time, Love-Adkins was the head cheerleading coach at MSU, with Lewis as the assistant coach. Both women then decided to quit coaching at MSU.
“It was a little too much to be doing both,” Love-Adkins said.
Building a lifelong friendship
For three years at MSU, Lewis and Love-Adkins shared the same mats, wore the same maroon and white spirit colors and chanted the same “G-O B-E-A-R-S!”
When preparing for Nationals in Orlando, Florida, the team had to practice twice a day.
“It was probably the highlight for everybody, to go to Florida,” Lewis said. “It was really fun.”
Love-Adkins said the traveling and the number of practices bonded the teammates together.
“You’re basically doing trust falls with people multiple times a day, every day, so you get super connected,” Love-Adkins said.
Even though Lewis moved in October 2017, Love-Adkins and Lewis still talk on the phone almost everyday.
“We’ve stayed in touch over the years,” Lewis said. “We were both in each other’s weddings.”
Lewis said their husbands are friends, as well as their daughters. The pair most likely know more about each other than “anyone else in the world,” she said.
“(Love-Adkins has) always been someone I look up to and try to be like,” Lewis said.
While Lewis said she wants to be more like Love-Adkins, she admits the reason they work so well together is because they are complete opposites.
“We really balance each other out,” Lewis said. “Her strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa.”
Lewis used the words caring, kind, honest, passionate and authentic when describing Love-Adkins. Love-Adkins, Lewis said, practices what she preaches.
“She is super real,” Lewis said. “She’s a great person. You can trust her with anything, and I love her to death.”
Returning to her alma mater
Due to a “bit of a turnover” with new coaches, Love-Adkins was asked to come back to coach the cheerleading squad in 2017.
Kilee LaChance, junior elementary education major, has been cheering under Love-Adkins’ guidance since the second semester of her freshman year.
LaChance said there was a disconnect between the teams before Love-Adkins came to coach.
“We just didn’t have as much organization,” LaChance said. “Now that she is there, we are all more put together and we are more of a family, which is really nice.”
LaChance said Love-Adkins pushes the squad to work hard and instills a strong work ethic — a drive that doesn’t stop when cheer practice ends.
She said Love-Adkins wants the team to be good people as well as good athletes.
“I think she’s really good at pushing us to do better,” LaChance said. “Even when we say that we can’t do something, she knows that we can. She believes in us.”
LaChance said Love-Adkins is personable and easy to talk to.
“I just think it’s awesome that she came back to help us because she really brought our team together,” LaChance said. “We have had so much more improvement because of her coaching style and the person she is.”
Not only does Love-Adkins push the team to do better, but she also has an understanding side.
LaChance said Love-Adkins will talk with her athletes so they feel they can perform the skill to the best of their ability.
Love-Adkins has also made practicing hot yoga a mandatory event for the cheer squad. She does this to help minimize injuries and protect the muscles while stretching.
In making this practice a requirement, Love-Adkins said a lot of cheerleaders have become yoga instructors or gone through the process of becoming one.
“One (former cheerleader) is teaching in Kansas City,” Love-Adkins said. “And one is finishing up his certification now.”
Love-Adkins said hot yoga is very intense and forces a person to truly focus on themselves.
LaChance said Love-Adkins is very passionate about the team attending yoga classes.
“A big thing with her is just refocusing our minds,” LaChance said. “It’s just a time where we can put everything back together.”
For Love-Adkins, hot yoga has proven to help with injury prevention, and it also shows athletes how to manage their stress.
“Yoga teaches them to stay calm in stressful situations,” Love-Adkins said. “A two and a half minute routine in front of a crowd is a very stressful situation.”
On top of stress management, Love-Adkins said hot yoga teaches cheerleaders to prioritize and breathe, as well as keep muscles strong so there are fewer injuries.
“It’s the most dangerous sport that there is,” Love-Adkins said. “So keeping that injury prevention top of mind is important too.”
Outside of cheer and yoga, Love-Adkins focuses on health and wellness due to her daughter’s food allergies.
“We are super proactive about what goes into our mouths and what goes into our bodies,” Love-Adkins said.
She spends a lot of time in the grocery store reading labels.
Love-Adkins’ love for cheer and yoga is paying off. Now, her cheer legacy is being carried on through her daughter, who just started cheerleading at 12 years old.
Love-Adkins said her husband is very supportive of both of her professions. If it wasn’t for him, she said she would not have come back to coach.
Now, she’s a coach, instructor, wife and mother, balancing all of these roles easier than a bakasana.
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