If you want to know what cheerleading squad was featured in Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’ video, it was the California Flyers Orange Crush team.
Forget the stereotype of a blond cheerleader in tight sweater pining for the muscled quarterback. The world of cheer no longer means sideline squads that exist solely to support other teams. They are teams in their own right, not so different in some respects from the football and basketball teams for which they traditionally cheer.College and high school cheerleaders compete for national championships. They risk terrible injury. They get recruited for college scholarships. And, in some cases, they put in more practice hours than the football team. Some argue whether cheerleading is a sport - as many as 20 state high school organizations say it is - but one thing is not in question. Cheerleading is now an industry.There are about 3 million cheerleaders in the USA, and perhaps half as many more on dance teams.An estimated half-million cheerleaders attend cheer camps each summer. The past 10 years has seen the rise of All Star programs, in which kids as young as 6 begin intensive cheer programs with an emphasis on gymnastics. All Star programs exist apart from schools, like AAU basketball teams: They cheer only to compete.These burgeoning programs feed high schools and colleges. The University of Kentucky, which awards full in-state tuition scholarships, is a 12-time national champ.
Celebrity Cheerleaders
We get evening news from Katie Couric (Yorktown High, Arlington, Va.). We watch Madonna strut her stuff on stage (Rochester Adams High School). We elect George W. Bush (Phillips Academy; Andover, Mass.). We watch Oscar winner Halle Berry ( Bedford High, Ohio), Sandra Bullock (Washington Lee High, Arlington, Va), Teri Hatcher (Freemont High, San Francisco, Ca) and Cameron Diaz who all cheered for their respective highschools.Bush manned a megaphone in a quainter time, when cheerleaders pulled for their school teams, long before the notion of All Star cheer squads for toddlers. Traditional cheer teams at high schools and colleges still exist primarily to root for school teams, but many also compete on their own.Male cheerleaders are indispensable at the highest level of competitive cheer for catching and throwing. But in the wider world of cheer, 95% are female.
Competitions
The University of North Texas charges on stage. The music begins. Human pyramids form. Cheerleaders make tumbling passes and fly through the air. One thing is missing amid all the radiant, raucous rah-rah.Um, no football teams. ‘We cheer for us’ the squad says.
College Cheer
American Cheerleader lists 225 colleges and junior colleges that offer full and partial scholarships — from Penn State, which awards $1,500 annually to cheerleaders who maintain a 3.0 GPA, to Three Rivers Community College, Poplar Bluff, Mo., which awards a dozen full-tuition scholarships.Cheerleaders work hard for the money. At Memphis, they practice three hours a day, five days a week. Add in games and appearances and cheerleaders spend 20-25 hours a week at their craft — and far more before big competitions.”The big joke on many campuses is that they practice more than the basketball team.”It’s no joke: NCAA rules limit teams to 20 hours a week. But cheerleading isn’t an NCAA-sponsored sport so the hours these teams put in are considerable.
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