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How cheering turned into "Cheerleading"

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Sep 8, 2010
by: Alex Wright
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I am a cheerleader and I was interested in how basic cheering of fans in the stands turned into the sport of Cheerleading. How did cheering turn into "cheerleading"? The results were very interesting and actually surprising...

What seems like a female dominated activity today, Cheerleading actually originated as an all male sport. Cheerleading has morphed from being percieved as a strong and spirited male activity to being stereotyped as an activity meant for fit, pretty, flexible and “dumb” girls. Actually,  Men dominated cheer squads and women weren’t allowed to join any team until the early 1920s and women did not heavily start becoming cheerleaders until the forties.

The sport of cheerleading was started by a guy Johnny Campell  in 1880 ( around the time that fight songs were becoming popular) who picked up a megaphone and led the crowd with cheers when the U of M football team was on a loosing streak. The team was led to victory and the theory that having cheerleaders really can motivate a team to win. Also for almost 20 years cheerleading was solely for men. “During this decade, cheerleaders added tumbling and acrobatics to their routines, and a University of Oregon cheerleader used flashcards for the first time. Although women were joining teams in the ‘20s, it wasn’t until the ‘40s that they joined in large numbers, since so many college-aged men went off to fight in World War II.” When women joined, that is when tumbling, dancing and stunting joined cheer as well. The whole point of cheer was to fire up the crowd and draw as many people to the games to cheer as posssible. Therefore, the style of dance and uniform changed to draw more people to the games, AKA the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and the Lakers Girls. This type of cheer style still lives on today.

History Timeline of Cheerleading
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  • 1883- Great Britain: students began cheering their favorite athletes on at sporting events

  • 1884- Princeton: Thomas Peebles started a yell of "Sis Boom Rah!"

  • 1889- University of Minnesota: Johnny Campbell was the first cheerleader. Campbell started yelling with a megaphone "Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-U-Mah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Minn-e-so-tah!" After that people started calling him a yell leader

  • 1899- University of Minnesota: Johnny and five guy friends organized cheers, fight songs, and raised school pride. This was the first cheerleading squad.

  • 1903- Gamma Sigma is named the first cheerleading fraternity

  • 1910- University of Illinois: held the first Homecoming Week

  • 1923- University of Minnesota: Female students are allowed to cheer, they bring tumbling and gymnastics to the routines

  • 1949- Dallas: Herkimer has the first workshop under the NCA name

  • 1950- Santa Cruz, Ca: Herkimer develops the Herkie jump and NCA in incorporated

  • 1953- Herkimer founds the Cheerleading Supply Company

  • 1956- Herkimer invents the first pompom

  • 1960- Baltimore: the Colts add the first professional cheerleading squad in history

  • 1967- Pop Warners cheerleaders are added to pee wee football

  • 1968- Fred Gasthoff makes the first vinyl pompom

  • 1972- Title IX was passed. Varsity is founded, so was the famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

  • 1973- Cheerleaders start cheering for women's sports

  • 1974- Jeff Webb quits his job with NCA and starts up UCA

  • 1976- UCA shows their first liberty (stunt) at summer camp

  • 1979- UCA shows their first basket toss at a summer camp

  • 1980- All Star squads start forming everywhere

  • 1995- American Cheerleader Magazine make its debut

  • 1997- 15 states say that cheerleading is a sport

  • 1998- Minnesota: The Cheerleading Alliance is founded

  • 1999- ESPN on the record says that cheerleading is a sport

  •  

I found this information by going into google and typing in "the history of cheer". I then found some more information like the cheer timeline by searching on "related searches" etc. 

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Works Cited
( http://www.varsity.com/event/1261/being-a-cheerleader-history.aspx)
( http://www.varsity.com/event/1261/being-a-cheerleader-history.aspx)

 

Comments

Alex, I think this post is

Submitted by Nafisa.Masud on Tue, 2010-09-14 11:21.

Alex, I think this post is really interesting. Despite popular opinion, cheerleading began as an all male sport and I find that very surprising. I think this post was a great way to approach the stereotype about dumb cheerleaders