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Before Organized Cheerleading

The roots of cheerleading can be found in the rebellion of male students during the late seventeen hundreds. In the 1860’s students from Great Britain began to cheer and chant in unison for their favorite athletes at athletic events soon having the gesture of support cross over seas and begin the roots of cheerleading to sprout in the United States. College students in America were dealing with living in the post-Revolutionary War era and were having to deal with harsh, severe authority that was being burdened upon them by their teachers. In response to faculty’s abuse towards students, college kids began to act out maliciously. The undergraduates began to burn down buildings located on their college campuses, assault faculty members, and riot spitefully. As a more subtle way to gain independence, students began to invent and organize their own extracurricular activities outside their professors’ control. This brought America both sports and cheerleading to participate in, beginning first with college teams. In 1860 the United States of America witnessed its very first intercollegiate football game. It took place between Princeton and Rutgers University, and marked the day the original “Sis Boom Rah!” cheer was shouted out by student fans.

Women Making Their Mark

In 1923, at the University of Minnesota, women were finally admitted into cheerleading after the first squad formed nearly forty something years prior. Although this seemed like a huge step towards women joining cheerleading it was a long and lengthy process for other schools to follow in Minnesota’s footsteps. As the late twenties began to approach, many school manuals and newspapers that were published still referred to cheerleaders by using words like “chap,” fellow,” and “man”. The fact that women had begun to take part in cheer was very much overlooked until the 1940’s. When the 40’s emerged World War II was just beginning, forcing collegiate men to be drafted and sparking the chance for more women to make their way onto sporting event sidelines. This is the war that prompted cheerleading to become female dominate. As noted by Kieran Scott in Ultimate Cheerleading: “Girls really took over for the first time." An overview written on behalf of cheerleading in 1955 explained that in larger schools “occasionally boys as well as girls are included,” and in smaller schools “boys can usually find their place in the athletic program, and cheerleading is likely to remain solely a feminine occupation.” By this time, in many instances, if you asked a high school teacher how they would identify extracurricular activities, as far as gender was concerned, many stated that sports were strictly male and that cheering (and sewing) was very much classified as a female extracurricular. From then on throughout the 1950’s cheerleading in America also reached a new spike in popularity. By the 60’s, Americans began to consider the activity a “sissy” extracurricular for boys and when the 1970’s approached, girls primarily cheered at public school games. Cheer could be found in virtually every school ranging from adolescent to grade school level across the entire country, and pee wee and youth leagues had even began to appear.

In 1975, it was estimated by a man named Randy Neil that over 500,000 students actively participated in cheerleading in America from grade school all the way up to the collegiate level. He also approximated that roughly ninety-five percent of cheerleaders within America were without a doubt female. And since 1973 cheerleaders have started to attend female basketball and other all-female sports as well.

Professional Cheerleading

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (1983)

The 1950’s were when the formation of professional cheerleading first started, during this time the first cheer squad in National Football League (NFL) history was recorded. Following this event, perceptions of American cheerleading changed. The Baltimore Colts were the first team to mark the start of the nation’s trend to have cheerleaders present at their sporting events. Professional cheerleaders began to be selected on account of two reasons: visual sex appeal, and the ability to dance. Women were exclusively chosen as members because the main marketing group being targeted were male. Thanks to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders the desire for “go-go dancers on the sidelines” were a must for all National Football League teams, forcing them to ditch the traditional high school type cheerleaders and instead look for “slightly older, sexier, and scantily-dressed women.” This yearning for a sexual based craving helped to instill the idea that women were only good cheerleaders due to their “attractiveness." These pro squads of the 70’s established cheerleaders as “American icons of wholesome sex appeal." By 1981, a total of seventeen Nation Football League teams had their own cheerleaders and within these squads there were 580 participants. The only teams that failed to have NFL cheerleaders at this time were New Orleans, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Denver, Minnesota, Pittsburg, San Francisco, and San Diego. Subsequently professional cheerleading eventually spread to soccer and basketball teams as well. This caused the American view of cheerleading to be blurred during the 1990’s. Due to the fact that professional cheerleading is both erotic and feminized forces it to be devalued. On the other hand, college and grade school cheerleaders are coed, ascending to be more athletic and competitive as each year goes by, qualities normally genuinely valued. This makes for the confusion of both positive and negative stereotypes although the majority still sticks to casting cheerleading in diminishing terms.

Youth Cheer

Organizations that sponsor youth cheer teams are usually sponsors for either youth league football or basketball teams as well. This allows for the two, under the same sponsor, to be intermingled. Both teams will hold the same mascot name and the cheerleaders will cheer/perform at the football or basketball team's game that they share a sponsorship with. Examples of such sponsors include Pop Warner and Pasco Police Athletic League (PPAL). The YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) is also a well-known sponsor for youth cheerleading leagues.

Under Cheer Orgs

United Spirit Association: In 1950 Robert Olmstead directed his first summer training camp, and USA later sprouted from this. USA’s focus is on the game day experience as a way to enhance audience entertainment. This focus led to the first American football half-time shows to reach adolescences from around the world and expose them to American style cheerleading. USA has choreographed material for professional and competitive cheerleaders alike. USA provides competitions for cheerleading squads without needing them to have prior qualifications in order to participate. The organization also allows the opportunity for cheerleaders to become an All-American, participate in the Macy's thanksgiving parade, and partake in both the London New Year's Day parade and other special events much like UCA and NCA allow participants to do.

Other Images

Each NFL team had one of their cheerleaders present at the 2006 Pro Bowl to represent their team.

Competitive Cheer - paramount cheerleaders doing a scale