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Former Freeport H.S. quarterback Isenberg emerging on national dance scene

Freeport, PA., — There is nothing more Alex Isenberg enjoys more than showing up to perform. These days, the 25-year-old professional dancer from Freeport is performing with A-list celebrities in New York and has his sights on Los Angeles in the near future.

For years before that, he was a star in another right, playing quarterback at Freeport Area High School before graduating in 2010. After high school, Isenberg had the opportunity to take his game to the collegiate level.

As a football player and student-athlete in general, he had it all: the skill, the drive and the competitiveness. However, it would be his unlikely footwork that would propel him to success after college.

“I had extremely flat feet,” Isenberg said. “They were so over pronated that they began hurting my knees and my hips to the point I would need surgery.”

Isenberg would then have major reconstructive surgeries that required doctors to break his ankles in order to extend to his Achilles tendons. This came at an age where many of his peers were getting involved in sports.

“That was a really tough time, because I was between 10 and 12 and wasn’t able to be active,” Isenberg said.

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Not only that, Isenberg was also born with a second birth defect, a cleft palate. He would require lots of medical attention in his early years.

“We would be at the hospital at least twice a week once I was born for like the first four or five months of my life,” Isenberg said.

Despite his early birth defects, it was his parents that continued to push him to achieve.

“My parents never let me be like something that was a negative,” Isenberg said. “They wanted me to understand this is who I was and this was a part of me and to own it.”

He definitely “owned it,” growing up to become a star athlete and student throughout his childhood and teenage years.

“It was never a weight,” Isenberg said. “It was never pulling me down. “It was more of me thinking, 'You have to work harder. You have to figure this out.’”

He always did.

Even before becoming a star athlete, Isenberg had long been established in a completely different world; dance. His mother, Lisa Isenberg, is the owner of Lisa Marie's School of Dance in Freeport and has owned the studio for over 30 years, five years before having Alex.

Having being raised around the studio, Alex naturally grew an interest in dancing and would win his first dance title before turning five.

As he grew a passion for sports, he never left his passion for dance behind.

“One supplemented the other,” Alex said.

Eventually, he would seamlessly marry the two different worlds together. In high school, Isenberg was so good at both that he was rarely bothered about doing one or the other. He even would have his football friends in attendance at his dance performances.

“A lot of people like to associate dance with this elegant, girly stigma but a lot of athletes are good dancers,” Alex said. “They might not admit it, but they can dance..

Now, with his football days behind him, Isenberg still finds himself performing in front of hundreds, or thousands as a dancer that is capable in many different genres, such as hip-hop, jazz and contemporary. He is also acting as well.

Alex Isenberg, born with two flat feet and a cleft palate, never made excuses. He emerged Freeport’s unlikely hero thanks to his newfound footwork and determination on both the athletic and dance arenas.

“These things humbled me and made me a lot more thankful for the things that I was given,” he said.

Even though he’s overcome some major hurdles to achieve his goals, such as playing football at Georgetown or performing with Liza Minnelli, he’s never looked at his hurdles as excuses. It’s simply all he knows.

“I don’t know any different,” Insenberg said. “I’ve been this way since day one.”

WPXI

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