Flip through any high school yearbook of the mid-1970s or earlier and turn to the page featuring the cheerleaders. Chances are, there, gleaming off the page, will be the sparkling eyes and fresh, perky smiles of girls oozing with S-P-I-R-I-T.
In their matching sweaters and skirts, these young women were living what was deemed the ultimate high school experience, as American as apple pie.
As described in a 1975 cheerleading handbook, their purpose was to
”provide an important decorative background for the athletic events in the school.”
But the girls took on other roles as well. In fact it seemed that as a group, the cheerleaders had the inside track to becoming student leaders and homecoming queens, and many were among the most popular girls in school.
”You wanted to go and cheer for the boys` teams,” said one former cheerleader. ”That was the way you could really be part of it.”
With the decade of the 1980s, though, there were ripples of change that continue to make waves today. And while some area schools report steady interest in cheerleading, others say their cheerleaders are hurt by a lack of recognition and that the girls burn out by the end of the season.
Nonetheless, many girls still dream of becoming cheerleaders, while others are no longer content to be part of the decorative background when they can compete themselves.
Explained Neil Krupicka, gymnastics coach at Hinsdale Central High School: ”Kids today are finding out that the place to be to really build your character is on the playing field.”
Eugene Strobe, athletic director at Hinsdale, said that shift has produced something of an evolution in the way cheerleading is viewed.
”I don`t think cheerleaders are on as much of a pedestal as they used to be,” said Strobe, who has been at Hinsdale Central for 26 years. ”They are still respected and they still feel they are making a valuable contribution-which they are-but they`re not the only show in town like they used to be.”
In the peak years of the baby boom, competition was extremely fierce when it came time for cheerleading tryouts.
”That`s not the case anymore,” noted York High School`s cheerleading sponsor Jan Jumper.
”Back in the `60s and `70s, there were 200 to 300 girls competing,”
said Jumper. She now sees only 40 to 50 hopefuls at cheerleading tryouts and attributes the drop to enrollment decline, time constraints of working teens and another significant factor: ”I definitely feel the increase in woman`s sports has affected the interest in cheerleading.”
In the last decade, the push has been to open doors for young women to compete in sports. As a result, athletic girls who previously might have gone to cheerleading or pompon teams now find their choices increased.
Girls discovered that sports offered added incentives, such as college scholarships and valuable lessons in dealing with pressure, defeat, criticism and success that boys had known for years.
Then the advent of cable television, with its profusion of sports, exposed girls to a variety of women`s athletic competitions that the major networks had had neither the time nor interest to cover.
A recent spot check of Du Page County high schools found that girls today are offered up to 20 different sports. Similarly, junior highs sponsor a half dozen or so. Basketball, gymnastics, cross country, indoor and outdoor track and even badminton are among those played.
The variety has forced schools to ”spread the wealth” among athletic girls and pushed students to make some tough decisions between sports and cheerleading.
Schools that have recognized the conflict are responding to give girls more leeway. Many high schools now offer cheerleading in fall or winter seasons so that girls can alternate cheerleading in one season with athletic participation in another.
Other schools have as many as 37 cheerleaders, which allow the girls more flexibility. Schedules rotate members who are on duty at any particular event. In the last few years, the pot has been sweetened with dollars, too. Some universities offer scholarships to cheerleaders. The International Cheerleading Foundation, of Shawneee Mission, Kan., gives a total of $10,000 in scholarship money at its annual International Open Cheerleading
Competition.
Individual schools are also noting more unusual changes. Boys are showing an interest in becoming cheerleaders. Schools are also sending their cheerleaders to back their girls` athletic teams as well as boys` teams. But at other schools, cheerleading is being eliminated altogether in favor of a larger pep club, to give more students a chance to participate.
The cheerleaders themselves are becoming more vocal in the improvements they hope to see. What they say they need is a little respect.
”The girls want to be treated as a sports team, not treated as an activity,” explained Jumper. ”Maybe the (athletic) teams practice more days during their seasons, but we practice 12 months a year. It`s an unbelievable commitment for these girls.”
At Wheaton Central High School, athletic director Lenore Wilcox noted that cheerleaders now hold their own recognition ceremonies, rather than sharing the spotlight with the teams they cheer for.
”We don`t want them to see themselves as just tagging along,” said Wilcox. ”It gives them a better feeling about themselves.”
Cheerleaders are also finding identity in competition with other cheerleaders. At Naperville Central High School, where interest in
cheerleading remains strong, athletic director Ross Truemper said:
”Cheerleaders are included as part of our total athletic program. We send them to their own state competitions. We see them as a competitive group as well as a performance group.”
Each year, some 150,000 students participate in camps, clinics and competitions sponsored by the Dallas-based National Cheerleading Association
(NCA). In the last five years the demand has also grown for youth cheerleading camps for girls age 7 to 13, according to the NCA.
”We get thousands of calls at Halloween when parents want to buy a little costume for their younger daughters,” said Lawrence Herkimer, NCA president and owner of a $43 million-a-year cheerleading supply house, ”so it shows there is interest there.”
Cheerleading stirs up such emotions from parents, especially mothers, that lawsuits have been threatened after failed tryouts, and proposed changes in cheerleading traditions are often criticized most soundly by parents.
But Krupicka noted: ”People are recognizing that the girl athlete is a citizen of the school and that you don`t have to be a cheerleader to be in that area of popularity. One recent homecoming queen here was a swimmer. That is really nice to see.
”Now there are just as many sports for girls as there are for boys and I think now they`re being pulled two ways. I feel kind of bad for the kids.”
Those new ideas have given girls options that many believe were long overdue. If they have the talent and desire, girls of the `90s can be cheerleaders, athletes or both.
