Last night, Fired Up opened in theaters across the country. By now you probably know the movie’s conceit—two high school football players decide to join their school’s cheerleading squad so that, rather than crushing skulls at football camp, they can spend their summer surrounded by hundreds of women in short, pleated skirts. Sure, it’s not going to win any Academy Awards. But I do have to give the movie props for inverting the most common stereotype of male cheerleaders out there—that they must be gay.
When I first had the idea to follow three college cheerleading squads for a year and write a book about it, I sort of bought into that stereotype. And I was stunned to find out that male cheerleaders were actually the opposite of what I was picturing in my head. Below, who guy cheerleaders really are:
1. They’re jocks. Most guy cheerleaders started out as football, baseball, or basketball players. Some of them had an injury that took them out of their original sport—others didn’t get college sports scholarship they were looking for and decided to change focus. There’s one guy in my book who played both football and rugby before becoming a cheerleader. “Cheer is by far the hardest sport I have ever been a part of,” he said.
2. They almost all give the same three-word explanation of how they got into cheerleading: “For a girl.” This is where Fired Up gets it right. Most guys don’t think, “I should be a cheerleader” on their own. Sometimes a girlfriend, a female friend, or a sister suggests it. Other times, a guy will be working out in the weight room at his college, and a random female cheerleader will come up to him and suggest he come to a practice. Almost all of the guys say it only took one practice to get hooked. Why? Because in basketball, it’s hard to come up with, say, a new dunk. But cheerleading is constantly evolving—and there’s tons of room to innovate and try new moves.
3. It quickly stops being about the women. Cheerleading is one of the only sports where men and women compete on the same team. And though they may start out with the idea of their team being a dating service, the guys quickly find that they develop big brother/little sister type relationships with the women on their team. Though on any given squad, there may be one or two couples, for the most part, dating and hooking up with teammates is discouraged. Cheerleaders on other squads, though—they are fair game.
4. They’re strong. Very strong. I watched one guy cheerleader tear a phone book in half, and another lift the tail end of his car.
5. They’re in it for the long haul. In sports like basketball and football that are governed by the NCAA, you’re only eligible to play for four years. But cheerleading isn’t technically a sport—and it isn’t under the NCAA’s umbrella. So it’s very common to meet guy cheerleaders who are cheering for their 5th, 6th, even 7th year in college. One guy in my book is even cheering for his 8th year in college.
6. They feel body pressure, too. The aesthetic in coed cheerleading is to have teensy girls and ginormous guys—the size differential makes it easier to perform acrobatic stunts. But for guy cheerleaders, this means that there’s a ton of pressure to be even bigger and stronger. As one guy explained to me, it’s considered embarrassing for a guy cheerleader to be under 200 pounds. Most eat a ton and work out to put on weight. But steroid use is also surprisingly common in the cheerleading world.
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Kate Torgovnick is the author of CHEER!: Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleaders, a non-fiction romp through the world of competitive cheer. The paperback comes out in 17 days. Preorder your copy here.
Is the movie fun? Inverting stereotypes is always welcome in my book.
Congratulations on the release of your paperback!
And yet, in your book, as I recall there was very little mention made of the guys. Why didn’t you share this insight there?
Cristina—it is a fun movie. Not life changing and plenty of other stereotypes reinforced, but I do like that it bends this particular one.
And TC—thrilled to hear that you checked out CHEER!. Here’s hoping you enjoyed it. Though I do have to say that there is tons on the guys in it—probably about a third of the major characters in the book are dudes, and several chapters talk in depth about the issues above.
I remember well the stories of the girls hopping schools chasing their rings; feeling disappointed in their partners not stunting with them and the way that affected their general moods; getting hurt and being neglected in their injuries; letting their team down and being ostracized for it (how’s Kern doing anyway these days?); and sharing stories about “other” schools placing too much emphasis on body image (although you didn’t name names, I’m guessing it was HPU that was the one offender, given the geography).
The guys…? I don’t recall anything!
The only guys I remember hearing from were the coaches. But if you say there are male cheerleaders in the book sharing their thoughts, I’ll trust you
It’s been quite a few months since I read it (prob back in May; I got the book new), so I may just have to review. But this particular post just seemed to have made it more clear than anything I recall from the book about why guys cheer. (Most likely my male mind just blocked out anything related to them at the time 
BTW I did enjoy the book. I found out about it because you were quoted in some news article or other I read last spring, (that I’ve otherwise long forgotten). I had a few complaints at the time (mostly about you interjecting yourself in the story occasionally, usually in reference to some kind of culture shock) but it was still engaging for many reasons. I hope you’ve had great success with it. What did the participants think? Have you kept in touch with any? Have you gotten any feedback from others involved in the sport?