Lead the way: Cheerleading's remarkable journey through the ages

             With the global covid-19 pandemic disrupting a variety of the world’s most popular sports, many ‘Armchair Quarterbacks’ like myself are really clutching at straws to get our fix of entertainment. Re-watching classic matches and season reviews can only quench my thirst for football to a certain extent. The annual NFL Draft is slowly approaching and although that enticing evening will keep the meter running, again, there are only so many mock drafts you can scroll through leading up to the event before déjà vu kicks in. With the 2020 NFL season now in doubt, I began to panic, ‘what if that’s it? What if it ends at 2019 and there’s never any more football?’ I quickly realised how insane I must’ve sounded then considered, I know all about the last years of football, but what about the beginning? As I compiled a list of ‘Football firsts’, one category really surprised me. Not the much loved ‘Hail Mary’ pass or even the story of Jay Berwanger, the first ever draft pick.

            Cheerleading. I brushed past the idea with sparse optimism, no disrespect to their amazing work rate, it’s just not the same as hard hits, gun-slinging passes, gut-bursting runs, it’s just not football basically. With this in mind I was stunned after a full-days research to discover the story of cheerleading features the likes of former president George W Bush, disputes with film productions, Playboy, the United States Department of Defence, four-hundred National Guards, Molotov Cocktails, civilian deaths, race relations, segregation, misogyny. The history of this famous American past-time isn’t all choreographed dance moves and bushy pom-poms.

            If you’re a die-hard football fan or just tune in once a year when the Super Bowl food fest takes place, you’ll have noticed the scores of attractive women enthusiastically hyping up the crowd in uniforms that leave little to the imagination. How did we get to this? When did the idea of surrounding 6ft-odd, 300-something lbs athletes with gorgeous women come into play?

            November 2^nd, 1898, to be exact… At least this is the ‘official’ date given to the birth of organised cheerleading. Of course, back at the tail end of the 19^th century the cheerleaders gracing the touchlines of the gridiron were quite the contrast to todays crowd pleasers. Johnny Campbell of the University of Minnesota has been credited as the pioneer of cheerleading. During a Minnesota college football game, Campbell rose in front of the home supporters before unleashing a cry of ‘Rah, Rah, Rah, Ski-U-Mah! Hoo-Rah, Hoo-Rah, Varsity, Varsity, Varsity! Minn-e-So-Tah!’. Students lapped up the chants and to this day, Campbell’s war cry remains a common feature at the Minnesota Golden Gophers home fixtures. College teams, specifically Ivy League sides, had adopted ‘Yell Leaders’ and ‘Rooter Kings’ at the end of the century to rile up their section of the crowd. The Princeton Tigers, one of college football’s forefathers who had competed in the very first competitive match, first coined the phrase ‘Cheerleader’ when they named three students as official cheer leaders to root the team at both practises and games.

            Men continued to represent their alma-mater as cheerleaders until 1923 when the University of Minnesota intervened yet again and allowed women to participate in the activity. Although Minnesota paved the way, very few schools followed suit and men continued to dominate until the 1940’s. World War Two was in full flow and with many young men signing up to fight, positions across all fields of work and leisure were there to be liberated. Soon, women would become incredibly skilled, popular aspects to the entertainment side of football. Although woman began to integrate into the cheerleading squads, people envied those selected and many men were still preferred. During a small period in Yale University's history when women were still overlooked, none other than future President George W Bush held a sacred spot on the squad. 
             Pro football hadn’t yet introduced cheerleaders to their paying customers. That all changed in 1954 when the Baltimore Colts became the first all-female professional cheerleading squad. The women, dressed in heavy sweaters with bold ‘COLTS’ stitching across the torso and skirts as long as a man’s kilt, made history that season. Although they enjoyed the camaraderie that came with cheerleading, the women were exploited almost straight away. Pom-Poms and banners were to be made by the cheerleaders themselves, the women were made to change into their uniforms in the boiler room and to add to the woes, no payment was received for performing. The facilities poor conditions and their complete exploitation of no pay was soon to change. Although, as alterations were headed to the world of cheerleading, new problems were on the horizon, including far more misogynistic, injustice control over the women and their rights.

            Many believe the turning point in cheerleading came in 1967. An article on 'vanityfair.com' shuffled through the archives to a story in Dallas, Texas with a young woman by the name of Bubbles Cash. Cash, a local, burlesque girl entered the bleachers at the Dallas Cowboys stadium wearing a skirt much shorter than that of the on-field cheerleaders. Clad in Cowboys colours, fans took notice of Miss Cash immediately and to the ogling male crowd’s enjoyment, Cash dawned a large grin and a few winks as she cruised the stadium steps. Noticing the commotion, Dallas Cowboys’ General Manager Tex Schramm had an epiphany. Sex sells. Schramm, already a very established visionary with his hand in manufacturing ‘instant replays’ whilst working for CBS Sports, saw the opportunity to mesh ‘showgirls’ into the football experience. In a trial period Tex Schramm hired several models to motivate the crowd. Schramm’s experiment was a swing and a miss as the models suffered in the excruciating open-air heat of the Dallas Cowboys’ side-lines. In a recruitment scheme, the Cowboys broadcast a radio ad asking young females to apply for the team. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders instantly went for a different look, with outfits far more revealing than the inaugural attire the Baltimore Colts wore. For the first time cheerleaders were now being paid, a slap in the face at $15 per game, before tax, but a step in the right direction. Any cries of exploitation or misogyny towards the league officials would be of no use. Commissioner of the NFL, Pete Rozelle, had Schramm to thank for finding his feet in the football industry. Schramm had previously hired Rozelle in a P.R. role with the Los Angeles Rams.

            Merchandise like posters and playing cards with the girls’ image sold, some appeared on tv shows such as ‘Family Feud’, they were requested by the United States Department of Defence to visit armed forces oversees and perform their routines on U.S.O tours. It was a suggestive neon lit photoshoot that really ignited the sensation of this group of cheerleaders. Posters of the shoot sold nationwide raking in over $1.5 million for the Cowboys organisation yet the individuals being exploited had nothing to show for their time.

            Dallas were the first side to transition their cheerleaders from entertaining dancers at football games to making private and/or public appearances. Selected members were invited to common outings at car dealerships, corporate events etc, however, not all trips were of an appropriate nature. In the afore mentioned 'vanityfair.com' article, one former Cowboys cheerleader, Stephanie Scholz, recalls a time an individual in the organisation escorted a group of the women to an ‘event’ in Memphis. Upon arrival it became evident that this gathering was extremely ‘unofficial’. Just over half a dozen men occupied a 10,000+ seated indoor stadium requesting a ‘private show’. Scholz, also casts her mind back to a traumatic experience of stalking, escalating to the stage of changing both contact number and home address.

            NFL cheerleaders were beginning to rise to stardom into the 70’s but on the other football platform, the collegiate game, race relations and cheerleading began to seriously lock horns. At Madison High School in Illinois, 1967, the inclusion of one African American to the cheerleading squad was enough for seventeen of the school’s football players to abstain from football activities. Although the school refused to back down and barred the protesting players, almost the full 1000+ black population of the school decided they were to also boycott classes for an entire week.

            Just two years later, as more and more Southern schools began to admit black students, trouble was brewing in a North Carolina town. At Walter Williams High School in Burlington, NC, black cheerleaders refused to wave the infamous Confederate flag or dance to ‘Dixie’, the very Southern idealistic song. This decision by the few black individuals prompted the school to exclude African American’s for cheerleader roles, leading to an outbreak of violence across the community. The Governor of North Carolina announced a state of emergency and implemented a curfew between the hours of 8pm-6am. School administrating buildings were burned. Fox’s Fish Market was firebombed by a Molotov Cocktail. An estimated four-hundred National Guards and Highway Patrolmen were called in to ease the turmoil. Tragically, amongst all the conflict and shells flying, fifteen-year-old student Leon Mebane was shot seventeen times. By the time there was ceasefire, Leon was already dead.

            As race relations improved and the discriminatory aspect of cheerleading had cooled down, NFL squads began to evolve into a more accurate representation of today. By 1975, 95% of the half-a-million cheerleaders from Elementary school to College were female. In 1977 the Cowboys’ cheerleaders appeared on the cover of esquire for the very first time. Close to five-hundred women battled for less than fifty spots on the cheerleader’s roster. Dallas cheerleaders were required to attend five-hour rehearsals, five days a week. Suzanne Mitchell, a former P.R. executive was hired by Tex Schramm to manage the cheerleaders. Mitchell created a variety of rules that the girls had to abide by. Including no chewing gum or appearing at events where alcohol could potentially be on sale. Two strikes and you were out. If you missed two practises without valid reason you were kicked off the squad indefinitely.

            Another general rule amongst the league denied players and cheerleaders of the same team from having any sort of physical or emotional relationship. Whilst there have probably been numerous cases of harmless relationships over the years, an incident involving the Chicago Bears in the 1970’s underlined the degrading attitude towards these women. A member of the ‘Honey Bears’, Chicago’s cheerleading unit, had been having a relationship with a player on the team. Both were equally in the wrong of course but it was the female who paid the price, she was sacked by the organisation and the player faced no disciplinary whatsoever. Bears’ General Manager Jim Fink boorish comments on the matter, ‘Do you think I’m gonna bench him? He’s not gonna lose his job’, shone a light on the disregard some influential figures had on women in sports.

            Whilst the men thrived on the field, the women on the side-line were once again treated as second class citizens. In January 1978, the Dallas Cowboys disposed of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII but whilst players and management partied in the locker rooms, the cheerleaders were forced onto their plane at New Orleans airport where they remained for hours. The consensus amongst the group members was that the bigwigs in Dallas didn’t want their cheerleaders out boozing and celebrating back home, so were essentially held hostage on a runway. Ensuing the airport stunt, the group of cheerleaders decided to form their own group, ‘Texas Cowgirls Incorporated’. The Texas Cowgirls reached out to Playboy, offering a topless photoshoot. The Dallas Cowboys were furious by the cheerleader’s ‘betrayal’ and successfully sued the Playboy photographer Arny Freytag. The Cowboys were making a habit of hiking up lawyer bills. The franchise also sued Pussycat Cinemas Ltd over their porn production entitled ‘Debbie Does Dallas’. An adult movie about a prostitute seeking stardom with a cheerleading act named ‘Texas Cowgirls’ who sported very similar uniforms to that of the Cowboy’s trademark cheerleading outfits.  

            The San Diego Chargette’s suffered a similar issue with one of their cheerleaders, Lynita Shilling. Shilling joined the San Diego Chargers squad aged twenty in a bid to then pursue a career in acting. Things didn’t go as planned and fed up with the poor wage, no travel expenses and failure to make an impression in the showbiz industry, she reached out to Playboy. Shilling posed topless for the magazine and received $1,500 for doing so, the equivalent to ten seasons worth of wages with the Chargettes. Unsurprisingly, the hierarchy in San Diego sacked Shilling over the incident. It became very clear to some, but not all, that few NFL sides had no objection to misogynistically reaping the benefits of stripping down these young women so long as there were profits to be had yet shunned the idea of Playboy and other pornographic industries conducting similar business.

            Soon, football wasn’t the only place cheerleaders could find work, in 1979 the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA formed the Lakers Girls. Notably Paula Abdul was an early member of the group. The following year the University Cheerleaders Association held the first National High School Cheerleader Championship at SeaWorld. Three years later ESPN began televising the Championships. Things began looking up, in 1993, a Texas school reversed their decision banning pregnant women from becoming cheerleaders, breaking down as many discriminatory barriers as possible. In 1995 the very first issue of American Cheerleader was published. That same year the Buffalo Bills cheerleading squad, brilliantly named Buffalo Jills, formed a union. The union was designed to tackle a variety of H.R. issues such as how much of a say the women had in their appearance, duties and perhaps most importantly, how much pay they received. At the time, the 90’s, Buffalo were regular participants in football’s showcase final. The Bills reached a record four consecutive Super Bowls during the decade and on at least one occasion members of the Buffalo Jills remember how they were left to book and pay for their own travel to and from the big day.

            The cheerleading world looked to be on the right track as the new millennium approached but a number of allegations released into the 2010’s put another black mark on the activity of cheerleading. Former Oakland Raiders’ cheerleader Lacy T filed a class action lawsuit against her employers in January 2014. Lacy’s lawsuit consisted of various things but most importantly, failure to pay. Lacy eventually won her case and received a $1.25 million settlement. Many other cheerleading groups began to speak out against the sexist nature of their employers. Allegations over; Minimum wage, no payment for practises, fines for minuscule mistakes. The Buffalo Jills, Cincinnati Ben-Gals, New York Jets Flight Crew and Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleaders all filed similar complaints. Stories of Washington Redskins cheerleaders being flown oversee to perform shirtless before rich supporters and Houston Texans cheerleaders filing lawsuits regarding minimum wage show how difficult life for some of these women remains to date. Houston’s report was completed, fully equipped with examples of verbal bullying by squad coaches, vulgar terms like ‘Jelly Bellies’ and ‘Crack Whores’ were listed. As recently as March 2018, former New Orleans Saints cheerleader Bailey Davis prepped a lawsuit against her employers. The Saints organisation relieved Davis of her duties after she uploaded a revealing photo of herself on Instagram.  

            The history of cheerleading has almost completed a full circle as the 2019 Super Bowl saw male cheerleaders dancing on the big stage for the very first time. Choreography, athleticism, confidence, the requirements for cheerleaders is far more than a nice smile and a good figure. Although the act of cheerleading seems more testing than one would first think, it doesn’t quite compare to a rock-solid line-backer flying headfirst into you, hence why it may go unnoticed from time to time. Nevertheless, they are a key factor in the entertainment side of one of the worlds most prestigious, wealthy institutions. Researching the history of this past-time and discovering the hardships endured by generations of women have been a real eye opener as a man who could perhaps take the respect and equality, he is given for granted occasionally. Whilst I can’t promise not to glance each time a beautiful woman is dropped in front of my television screen, dancing at games, before I do so, I’ll remember what I’ve learned. Those who paved the way for her. Those who continue to fight in the industry against the few disgusting representatives who are yet to accept equality in their own little world. Those who led the way.

Some of the stories I gathered for this piece were from excellent articles by both ‘vanityfair.com’ and ‘motherjones.com’ on cheerleading through the ages.