History of Cheerleading

 

Believe it or not cheerleading actually began as an all-male sport, then eventually transformed into girls making up 97% of the sports population. As early as the 1870’s Princeton had started their very own “Princeton Cheer” which the students and athletes chanted during football and basketball games. By the 1880’s Princeton had started their very own all-male pep club. A graduate of Princeton, Thomas Peebles, took the Princeton cheers to the University of Minnesota, where football and fight songs were becoming very popular. In 1898, Johnny Campbell assembled a small group of males to energize the team and the crowd.  Johnny picked up a megaphone and rallied the team to victory with the first organized cheer. Cheerleading sky rocketed from there. In 1923 women were allowed to cheer for the first time at the University of Minnesota. During this time, cheerleaders added tumbling and acrobatics to their routines. Although women were joining teams in the ‘20s, it wasn’t until the ‘40s that they joined in large numbers, since so many men went off to fight in World War II. In 1948 Lawrence Herkimer founded The National Cheerleading Association (NCA). In this year Herkimer also held the very first summer NCA cheerleading clinic and went on to develop his signature “Herkie” jump, the spirit stick and the pom pom.

By the 1960s, cheerleading could be found in about every high school and grade school around the United States. Many other cheerleading organizations were also being founded such as Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA), which taught higher level skills. All-star cheerleading started in the late ‘80s, and grew rapidly through the ‘90s. All-star cheerleading focused on athletic training and competition performances. Since cheerleading is very closely associated with football and basketball, cheerleaders were first cheering at games and in the 1960’s pro football teams began allowing cheerleaders to cheer at games, leading the students in many cheers. This type of cheerleading has remained mostly the same even today, only adding more difficult stunts, tumbling, and jumps, while leading students in cheers. However all-star and competitive cheerleading had changed drastically since the beginning of cheer. Competitive cheer has transformed into a squad of athletes with a well-rehearsed routine with perfected skills, including difficult stunts, baskets, jumps, tumbling, and dance.

100 years after cheerleading first started, the sport of cheerleading continues to grow. People of all ages and from all over the world participates. Although it started out first as a male-only activity, cheerleading transitioned into almost entirely a female-based sport. Cheerleading continues to make its way into the sports world, as well as the world of popular culture. There are television shows and movies, such as Bring it On and Fired Up that focus on the competitive side of cheerleading, showing the real concepts of cheerleading. The new exposure plus the shift towards more serious athletic attitudes will bring more people and more fans into to the world of cheerleading.