If you’ve watched Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team or Netflix’s America’s Sweethearts, then you know that the often imitated never equaled Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) usually have big, curled hair that is never pulled up in a ponytail—until now. Rookie candidate Faith Ward recently went viral for letting people know that DCC director Kelli McGonagill Finglass and head choreographer Judy Trammell were allowing her to wear it up in a ponytail. We look into how that decision came to be and discover which cheerleaders wore their hair up publicly below!

Ward is a Rookie Candidate for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders 2025-2026 season. She is the first-ever team member from New Zealand and the fourth candidate overall to be from Oceania.

“I’m proud to be the first New Zealand DCC and the fourth Aussie to join the team,” she wrote on Instagram. “So beyond grateful and blessed to turn my biggest dream into a reality.”

She was officially announced as a team member on Thursday, July 17 and following the social media post, people were quick to notice that Ward had her hair up in a ponytail, which is very different from the rest of the girls on the squad.