95 Fun Facts About Cheerleading

Who is credited as the first cheerleader, leading a University of Minnesota crowd in 1898?

Johnny Campbell jumped the fence onto the field during a game against Northwestern and led the student section in a chant; Minnesota won, and November 2 is still marked as cheerleading's birthday.

In 2010 a federal judge ruled competitive cheerleading too 'underdeveloped' to count as a sport under which law?

Title IX. Quinnipiac University had dropped women's volleyball and tried to count a new competitive cheer squad toward its gender-equity numbers; the judge ordered the volleyball team kept.

Cheerleading stayed mostly male until which war pulled the men off the sidelines and women took their place?

World War II. Women had been joining squads since the 1920s, but once the draft emptied the sidelines they took over for good, and by the 1970s roughly 95 percent of cheerleaders were female.

On Glee, which actress played Sue Sylvester, the tracksuited coach of the Cheerios cheer squad?

Jane Lynch won a 2010 Emmy as Sue, whose Cheerios compete with the glee club for the school's limited funding, which is why she is forever at war with it.

'Save the cheerleader, save the world' was the promotional tagline of which 2006 TV drama?

Heroes. The cheerleader was Claire Bennet, a high-school student who could heal from any injury, and NBC's whispered slogan caught on so widely that rival networks were soon parodying it.

In 2009 Wisconsin's Supreme Court threw out a dropped cheerleader's lawsuit by ruling that cheerleading is what?

A contact sport: a lower court had said no, since squads never touch an opposing team, but all seven justices held that tossing teammates in the air counts, so the teammate who dropped her couldn't be sued.

Lawrence Herkimer, who gave the herkie jump its name, also patented which cheerleading staple?

The pom-pom he patented, filed in 1968 and granted in 1971, had crepe-paper strands fixed to a built-in handle, so it could be shaken hard without the strands tearing loose.

Which company, founded by Jeff Webb in 1974 as the Universal Cheerleaders Association, dominates cheer camps?

Varsity Spirit made its money three ways at once, running the camps, hosting the competitions and selling the uniforms, a grip on the sport that later landed it in court.

Which competition format judges cheer squads on fight songs, sideline chants and band dances instead of acrobatics?

Game Day was created to reward what squads do on a real sideline rather than on a competition mat, and many schools now field a separate Game Day team for it.

What name does cheerleading give to private club teams that exist only to compete, with no school to cheer for?

All-star gyms started out as a training ground for school squads, then became popular enough in their own right to get their own competitions and, by 2004, their own world championship.

Where is the annual Cheerleading Worlds competition held?

Disney World, Orlando has hosted the Worlds since 2004, when it was meant as a final for American club champions; the name alone then drew teams from abroad.

In a cheer stunt, what is the person on top called?

The flyer is the one lifted or thrown: bases hold her from below while a back spot stands behind, there mainly to protect her head and neck if the stunt comes down.

Under rules adopted in 2006, cheer squads may perform their riskiest stunts at university basketball games only when?

At halftime and afterwards, and only on mats: the limits came months after a Southern Illinois cheerleader fell 15 feet from a pyramid during a tournament game and cracked a vertebra in her neck.

Between 1982 and 2007, cheerleading accounted for roughly what share of catastrophic injuries in US high-school girls' sports?

About 65%: of 103 fatal, disabling or serious injuries recorded among high-school girl athletes in those years, 67 happened in cheerleading, as stunts that lift or throw a cheerleader grew harder.

Greg Whiteley, director of Netflix's Cheer, had already made which docuseries about junior-college football?

Last Chance U followed players at two-year colleges trying to earn a way back to big-time football; Whiteley then turned the same cameras on a Texas cheer squad and later on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies became the first male cheerleaders to perform at a Super Bowl in 2019, with which team?

The Los Angeles Rams had added the two classically trained dancers only the spring before, so the team's playoff run carried them to the sport's biggest stage in their first season.

Which team had the first recorded cheer squad in NFL history?

The Baltimore Colts' cheerleaders performed alongside the team's marching band, which refused to disband when the Colts left for Indianapolis in 1984 and kept playing until Baltimore had a team again.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are officially nicknamed what?

America's Sweethearts became the title of Netflix's 2024 series on the squad, which follows one year's hopefuls from auditions and training camp through a full NFL season.

Which choreographer was hired in 1972 to audition and train an all-adult Cowboys Cheerleaders squad?

Texie Waterman, a Dallas dance teacher who had performed on Broadway, was brought in because the team wanted polished entertainers in place of the high-school students who had cheered until then.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were first widely seen by a national audience at which game in 1976?

Super Bowl X was a 21-17 loss to the Steelers in Miami, but the telecast put the squad in front of millions of viewers and turned its cheerleaders into national celebrities.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' reality show Making the Team ran for 16 seasons on which channel?

CMT ended the show in 2022 after 16 seasons of auditions and training camps, and two years later Netflix picked the squad up for a documentary series of its own.

Which future pop star and choreographer was discovered while performing as a Laker Girl?

Paula Abdul was spotted by the Jacksons at a Lakers game and asked to choreograph their 'Torture' video, which led to Janet Jackson's biggest videos and then a singing career of her own.

In Bring It On (2000), the Toros discover their routines were stolen from which rival team?

The East Compton Clovers had never had the money to travel to nationals, so the Toros' previous captain could videotape their routines and win titles with them without anyone noticing.

Bring It On was the theatrical directing debut of which future Marvel filmmaker?

Peyton Reed followed Bring It On with a run of studio comedies, and in 2014 Marvel hired him to take over Ant-Man after its long-attached director, Edgar Wright, walked away.

The Broadway musical version of Bring It On had music by Tom Kitt and which other composer?

Lin-Manuel Miranda co-wrote the score three years before Hamilton, and because the stunts were real the cast mixed Broadway actors with champion competitive cheerleaders.

Netflix's docuseries Cheer follows the squad of which Texas two-year school in Corsicana?

Navarro College's coach Monica Aldama had built a run of 14 national titles in 20 years on one rule: keep going until you get it right, then keep going until you can't get it wrong.

Where is the NCA national championship that the Cheer squad chases each season held?

Daytona Beach, Florida stages the college finals at its oceanfront Bandshell, an open-air amphitheatre, so squads that drill in a gym all year perform their one routine outdoors beside the sea.

Which governing body, founded in 2004, won cheerleading full recognition from the International Olympic Committee in 2021?

The International Cheer Union began as a meeting of 13 national federations and first applied to the IOC in 2010; full recognition lets cheerleading bid for a place at a future Olympic Games.

Which Florida politician married Jeanette Dousdebes, a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader, in 1998?

Marco Rubio, who dreamed of playing in the NFL himself, has joked that he must tell his children the only parent who ever touched an NFL field was their mother.

Which actress played Torrance Shipman, the newly elected captain of the Toros, in Bring It On?

Kirsten Dunst made it between The Virgin Suicides and Spider-Man; the film opened at number one and spawned six sequels that kept the title but none of the original cast.

Which early-1980s hit had its singer dance in her own high-school cheerleading sweater in the video?

Mickey began as 'Kitty', a song the British band Racey had recorded about a girl; Toni Basil switched the name and the gender, then built the video on her days as head cheerleader at Las Vegas High.

Which future US president was a cheerleader at Phillips Academy?

George W. Bush was head cheerleader in his senior year at the then all-boys school, where a yearbook photo shows him leading friends in wigs and skirts in a skit mocking rival schools.

Which pop superstar was a cheerleader at Rochester Adams High School in Michigan?

Madonna was a straight-A student and cheerleader who finished high school a semester early and won a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan, then dropped out to chase a career in New York.

Omi's 2015 hit 'Cheerleader' topped charts worldwide thanks to a remix by which German DJ?

Felix Jaehn was brought in by Omi's new label after the song had been a radio hit in Jamaica in 2012; his remix carried it across Europe and, in July 2015, to number one in America.

Omi's 'Cheerleader' reached number one in America in July 2015 by knocking which Wiz Khalifa hit off the top?

See You Again, the Furious 7 tribute to Paul Walker, had spent 12 weeks at the top before it was dislodged by a pop-reggae song first heard on Jamaican radio three years earlier.

The company behind most US cheer competitions paid over $120 million in 2023-24 to settle what kind of lawsuits?

Antitrust: rival gyms and families accused the company of monopolising competitions, camps and uniforms, and the deals made it loosen rules tying championship entry to its own camps and partner hotels.

Cheer routines at competition are typically built to what counting system?

Eight-counts give every lift, tumbling pass and jump a numbered beat, so a whole squad set to custom music can hit each move at the same instant.

A competitive cheer squad trains all year for a routine that lasts about how long?

About 2.5 minutes is the limit at club and college nationals alike, so a year of practice comes down to one short burst that has to hold every lift, tumbling pass, jump and dance section.

Which High School Musical star played peppy Texan cheerleader Savannah in The CW's Hellcats?

Ashley Tisdale's Savannah cheers for a fictional Memphis university in a series drawn from a journalist's book about real squads, centred on a pre-law student who joins the team to replace a lost scholarship.

Which future Texas governor was a Yell Leader at Texas A&M?

Rick Perry won a campus election to join A&M's all-male yell leaders, the school's answer to cheerleaders, and a college friend later said the job did more for his political future than any student-government post.

Season two of Netflix's Cheer addressed the criminal case against which season-one star?

Jerry Harris, the first season's breakout star, was arrested in September 2020 while the second season was being made and was sentenced two years later to 12 years in federal prison.

Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress played Missy, the gymnast who joins the Toros, in Bring It On?

Eliza Dushku's Missy is the newcomer who recognises the squad's routines as copied and takes her captain to Los Angeles to watch the team they were taken from.

At which level of American cheerleading have men made the strongest comeback, with large co-ed squads now the norm?

College is where men returned in numbers once cheerleading swapped simple sideline yells for pyramids, partner lifts and tumbling that reward strength.

Which network began airing the National High School Cheerleading Championship in the early 1980s?

ESPN struck the deal with Jeff Webb's young company, and the broadcasts gave competitive cheerleading a national audience and the network a fixture for its schedule.

Which former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader has directed the squad since 1991 and fronts its TV series?

Kelli Finglass cheered for the Cowboys in the 1980s, took charge of the squad in 1991, and her audition cuts later became television, first on cable and now on Netflix.

Which future US president became a cheerleader at West Point after a knee injury ended his football career?

Dwight D. Eisenhower tore his knee playing halfback for Army, then stayed on as a coach and cheerleader. Shortly before the injury he had tried to tackle the great Jim Thorpe.

In 2021 the US Supreme Court backed a Pennsylvania cheerleader suspended over a profane post on which app?

Snapchat was where Brandi Levy vented after missing the top squad, and her school benched her for a year. The justices ruled 8–1 that her off-campus post was protected speech.

Which band's 1991 breakthrough video featured pep-rally cheerleaders wearing the anarchist circle-A symbol?

Nirvana staged Smells Like Teen Spirit as a school pep rally that collapses into a riot. First-time video director Samuel Bayer believed he got the job because his rough test reel promised something punk.

Professional cheerleader Krazy George Henderson is credited by some with inventing which stadium crowd move in 1981?

The wave has its earliest video evidence in a 1981 baseball playoff in Oakland, where Krazy George led it around the Coliseum. He began cheering in 1968 while on his university's judo team in San José.

Which sitcom coined 'the cheerleader effect' for people who seem more attractive in a group than alone?

How I Met Your Mother had Barney Stinson coin the phrase in a 2008 episode. Five years later, researchers Drew Walker and Edward Vul published the first paper to report the effect.

Which comedian played Craig opposite Cheri Oteri's Arianna as the overeager Spartan Cheerleaders on SNL?

Will Ferrell and Oteri dreamed up the pair while playing around on an empty Studio 8H stage as SNL newcomers. The joke was that Craig and Arianna never actually made the squad.

In Bring It On, which camp award does Torrance fear has cursed her after she drops it on a dare?

The spirit stick is never supposed to touch the ground, which is why dropping it spooks her. Cheer pioneer Lawrence Herkimer, who gave the herkie jump its name, created the real one.

Which Oscar-winning actress was a cheerleader for the Bernards High School Mountaineers in New Jersey in the 1960s?

Meryl Streep cheered for the Mountaineers in Bernardsville, where her family had moved in 1963. Her classmates also chose her as homecoming queen in her senior year.

Which animated teen heroine captains her high-school cheerleading squad between missions against villain Dr. Drakken?

Kim Possible was meant to use skills any kid could learn, so her creators drew her crime-fighting moves from cheerleading and gymnastics. Christy Carlson Romano voiced her.

Which Pulp Fiction actor was a cheerleader at Morehouse in Atlanta while planning a degree in marine biology?

Samuel L. Jackson later swapped marine biology for architecture. In 1969 he joined fellow Morehouse students who held the school's trustees hostage to demand reforms.

Which actress played Isis, captain of the rival squad whose routines the Toros had been stealing, in Bring It On?

Gabrielle Union met the director repeatedly to work out how to approach Isis, the proud new captain who confronts the Toros. The part helped push her into the mainstream.

Which singer's first film role was playing herself as host of the cheer contest in Bring It On: All or Nothing?

Rihanna announces the finalists in the 2006 sequel and has to put up with a sore loser's complaints. The film's leads were Hayden Panettiere and Solange Knowles.

Which Oscar-winning actress, born to a German opera singer, was a cheerleader at Washington-Lee High School in Virginia?

Sandra Bullock also acted in school theater productions at Washington-Lee. Helga, the opera singer, also taught voice, and Bullock's grandfather was a rocket scientist from Nuremberg.

Gwen Stefani plays a cheerleader in the video for which hit, the first US download to sell a million copies?

Hollaback Girl topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in 2005. Stefani wrote it with Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo after someone had dismissively called her a cheerleader.

Which actress played the cheerleader fated to fight vampires in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Kristy Swanson led a cast that included Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens and Hilary Swank in her debut role. Writer Joss Whedon felt the film strayed from his plan, so he remade the idea for television.

Which actress played Kelly Kapowski, the head cheerleader and volleyball captain on Saved by the Bell?

Tiffani Thiessen's Kelly was the most popular girl in school and also captained the swim and softball teams. Her friends Jessie and Lisa cheered alongside her.

Which future US president was a cheerleader at Eureka in Illinois before working as a radio broadcaster in Iowa?

Ronald Reagan also played guard for the Eureka Red Devils football team and threw himself into drama and campus politics. For all that activity, he was only a mediocre student.

Who created the Laker Girls in 1979 as part of his Showtime vision for basketball entertainment?

Jerry Buss ordered up the dance squad soon after buying the team, at a time when cheerleaders were not common in the NBA. He wanted a troupe of top female dancers to add to the spectacle.

Which Desperate Housewives actress cheered for the San Francisco 49ers in 1984 before joining The Love Boat?

Teri Hatcher went from the 49ers sideline to playing Amy, one of the Mermaid showgirls who sang and danced aboard The Love Boat.

Which actress plays a cheerleader sent to a conversion therapy camp in the 1999 satire But I'm a Cheerleader?

Natasha Lyonne led a cast that included Clea DuVall and RuPaul. Director Jamie Babbit had to make cuts to bring the rating down from NC-17 to R, and the film went on to a cult following.

Which cheer coach, nicknamed 'the Queen' by her athletes, is the central figure of Netflix's docuseries Cheer?

Monica Aldama holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Tyler, and her championship program has been called a dynasty. As a student she cheered for Tyler Junior College.

Which Dallas Cowboys general manager remade the team's cheerleaders after seeing the stir Bubbles Cash caused in 1967?

Tex Schramm had Dee Brock rebuild the squad for 1970 as an all-female dance troupe, aiming to boost attendance. He is also credited with bringing instant replay to football.

Super Bowl XLV in 2011 was the first without cheerleaders because neither Green Bay nor which opponent brought a squad?

The Pittsburgh Steelers had gone without since their Steelerettes, all full-time students at Robert Morris in the city, folded after 1969. The Packers' cheer squads only perform at home.

Which team's cheerleaders formed the NFL's first cheerleaders' union in 1995, seeking better pay?

The Buffalo Bills' squad, the Jills, later became the first in the NFL to perform in two countries, at home games in Orchard Park and Toronto. Its management suspended it in 2014 after five former members sued over unpaid hours.

Which Oscar winner played Wanda Holloway, who plotted against her daughter's cheerleading rival, in a 1993 HBO satire?

Holly Hunter played the real Channelview woman convicted of trying to hire a hitman, hoping her daughter could take a 13-year-old rival's place on the junior high squad.

In which 2018 TV musical does cheerleader Addison fall for Zed, a football player from the walled-off side of Seabrook?

Zombies grew out of an unaired 2011 pilot called Zombies & Cheerleaders. Milo Manheim and Meg Donnelly play the couple who push their two groups to coexist.

Which future comedian was a cheerleader at Garden Grove High School in Orange County, California?

Steve Martin went from the Garden Grove sideline to a comedy troupe at a Southern California theme park. He has played banjo since an early age and worked it into his act from the start.

On Glee, which actress played Quinn Fabray, the Cheerios captain thrown off the squad because of her pregnancy?

Dianna Agron was the last of the regulars to be cast. Her character joins the glee club to spy on her boyfriend Finn, then stays on after losing her place as a cheerleader.

Which former Miss Ohio USA was a cheerleader, school newspaper editor and prom queen at Bedford High School?

Halle Berry was an honor student at Bedford too. She went on to finish first runner-up at Miss USA 1986 before turning from pageants and modeling to acting.

A 2017 US Supreme Court case over the stripes and chevrons on cheerleader uniforms tested which area of law?

Copyright can protect a garment's decoration, the court held, if the design would qualify as art when imagined apart from the uniform. A rival maker had been selling similar outfits at lower prices.

On Netflix's Cheer, which school forty miles away in Athens, Texas, is the featured squad's only rival in its division?

Trinity Valley matters so much because cheerleading has no professional league to move on to. The national championship the two squads fight over is the highest level there is.

In the 2001 comedy Sugar & Spice, a high-school cheerleading squad commits which crime to help a pregnant teammate?

Bank robbery is their answer to the rent. The squad studies heist films for technique, and one member visits a parent in prison for tips on finding weapons.

Which actress leads the 2019 comedy Poms, about women in a retirement community who start a cheerleading squad?

Diane Keaton starred with Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier and Rhea Perlman. The squad begins because the community insists that every resident must belong to one of its clubs.

Which later WWE headliner wrestled as Nicky in the male-cheerleader stable the Spirit Squad in 2006?

Dolph Ziggler got that name in a repackaging after the squad broke up. The gimmick was Vince McMahon's own idea, and all five members were recognised as tag team champions at once.

University of Minnesota cheerleaders are credited with introducing which sideline prop to their routines in 1898?

The megaphone in its plain acoustic form lives on in cheerleading because it is cheap, lightweight and rugged. Almost everywhere else, electric versions have replaced it since the 1960s.

Which actor plays a Texas Ranger who goes undercover to protect cheerleaders in the 2005 comedy Man of the House?

Tommy Lee Jones poses as an assistant coach after University of Texas cheerleaders witness a murder. He later tackles a rival mascot whose weapon turns out to be a water gun.

Which TV producer behind Charlie's Angels and Dynasty was a cheerleader at Southern Methodist University in the 1940s?

Aaron Spelling graduated in 1949 and first reached the screen as an actor. His later productions ran from The Love Boat to Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed.

Which singer played Lina Cruz, a cheerleader uprooted to Malibu, in the 2009 sequel Bring It On: Fight to the Finish?

Christina Milian's Lina revives her new school's struggling squad by merging it with cheerleaders from her old team. The film made more than $20 million in home-video sales.

Which tumbling move, like a cartwheel but landing on two feet together, turns a run into backward momentum for flips?

Round-off landings face back the way the athlete came, which is why the move launches so many tumbling passes. It was once also known as an Arabian handspring.

Which future WWE personality cheered for the Ravens at 18 before winning a contest to join WCW's Nitro Girls?

Stacy Keibler won $10,000 in that contest and spent it on season tickets for the Ravens, the team she had cheered for. She had first started watching wrestling with her boyfriend of the time.

Which actress from The Office once cheered for the St. Louis Cardinals football team and performed burlesque?

Phyllis Smith gave up dancing after a knee injury and moved into casting. She was a casting associate on The Office when a part was created specifically for her.

Future US senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran were both cheerleaders at which Southern university?

Ole Miss counts both future Mississippi senators among its former cheerleaders. Lott was also president of his fraternity, Sigma Nu, while Cochran belonged to Pi Kappa Alpha.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders began their USO tours in 1979 by visiting US troops stationed in which country?

South Korea was the first stop for troops stationed far from home over the holidays. Shows for the military overseas then became a regular part of the squad's calendar.

In 2022 Justine Lindsay became the NFL's first openly transgender cheerleader after making which team's TopCats squad?

The Carolina Panthers had already put several men on the TopCats a year earlier, a first for the squad. Male cheerleaders in the NFL mostly take part in the stunts.

Which Legally Blonde actress was a cheerleader at Harpeth Hall, an all-girls school in Nashville?

Reese Witherspoon was such a multi-achiever growing up that her parents nicknamed her Little Type A.

Which crime novelist wrote Dare Me, a 2012 mystery set among cheerleaders that later became a TV series?

Megan Abbott's story follows 16-year-old narrator Addy, her friend Beth and their coach through a tale of friendship, obsession and power. Abbott also co-developed the screen version.

Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress worked as a San Diego Chargers cheerleader in 1991 before her acting break?

Charisma Carpenter auditioned for the lead role of Buffy but was cast instead as Cordelia Chase, the snobby and popular high-school student.

Which Oscar winner, daughter of a Swiss father, was a cheerleader at Katy High School in Texas?

Renée Zellweger was a keen athlete at Katy High too, playing soccer and powderpuff football.

Which news anchor, once a cheerleader at Yorktown High in Virginia, played herself interviewing Sue Sylvester on Glee?

Katie Couric guest-starred in a 2011 episode, quizzing the coach after her cheerleaders had lost their championship.

Which Gossip Girl actress was a cheerleader, choir member and class president at Burbank High School?

Blake Lively graduated from Burbank High in 2005, and the choir she sang in there was a championship-winning one.