Hey everyone. I’m coming at you from Daytona Beach, Florida where I am currently camped for the 2008 NCA Collegiate Cheer Championships, a competition known to cheerleaders by one word: Nationals. I spent today watching the preliminary competition, where more than 100 teams battled it out to make it to tomorrow’s finals. A few notes. First, two songs have already emerged as the must-include-in-your-routine-soundtrack hits of the year: Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” and Britney’s “Gimme More” (a song I secretly love). Second, zebra print sports bras are big this year. And third, Stephen F. Austin—one of the three teams whose lives I chronicled in CHEER! didn’t do so hot in preliminaries. They scraped by to make it to finals, but as we speak, they are out on the lawn practicing, making sure they don’t drop stunts tomorrow, when it really counts.
Even though I’ve been to Nationals the past three years running, I’m still blown away by the meticulous attention to detail female cheerleaders put into their hair and makeup.
The average female cheerleader spends 2-3 hours perfecting these things, which is a lot considering that the judges mark scores from more than 100 feet away. Teams tend to have a specific look—on some teams, all the women will have curls, others will all do low ponytails, and I even saw one team here last year who had matching cornrows. For SFA,
the women do enormous curls—they individually hairspray each strand of hair before wrapping it around the barrel of a curling iron. For makeup, the look is sparkly eyes, usually combining 2-3 shades of technicolor glitter. They also go for intense blush and bright lipstick. It’s almost like Kabuki masks—every feature is exaggerated to the highest degree.
Sometimes I’m bothered by how much appearance counts in cheerleading. I remember at tryouts at the University of Memphis, I was shocked that when I analyzed the scoresheet, “look” was the single item that earned squad hopefuls the most points. “I’d rather look at someone who’s cute and boring at a game,” their spirit director explained. At Nationals, the “overall impression” category lets judges score teams partially on appearance alone. Teams also receive scores for facial expressions—hence the winks and head bobs you’ll notice if you watch a competition. Overall, cheerleading is a sport where normal I’m-not-pretty-enough-feelings are put in a pressure cooker. (And don’t even get me started on cheerleading and body image—I’m saving that for another post.) At this point, cheerleading has evolved into something close to an extreme sport and it takes a high degree of athletic skill. So I can’t help but think that cheerleading would benefit tremendously from letting go of this focus on beauty.
‘
But on the other hand, I appreciate the honesty of it. I remember reading a study in a psychology class where college students (male and female) were asked to grade their peers. They subconsciously gave much higher grades to women who fit the traditionally-attractive mold. And I can think of so many fields—flight attendants, newscasters, even women’s magazine editors—where beautiful women seem to go far, yet it’s assumed that appearance isn’t a factor at all. At least in cheerleading it’s right there on the scoresheet. Everyone knows the playing field, right?
What do you guys out there in blog-land think?
On another note, check this out—a story about CHEER!, specifically about cheerleaders liking CHEER!, on the front page of the Daytona paper. Sweet.
And don’t worry about SFA—they’ll be able to pull it together for tomorrow. I’ll post of video of their performance if I can.
–
All Cheer, All the Time is a column by Kate Torgovnick. She has lots more to say about the pageantry of cheerleading in her book, CHEER!. It’s appeared on Good Morning America, and in Newsweek, People, and Sports Illustrated. Read more at Cheerthebook.com.
Riveting! I love this blog! It’s a haven to me because none of my friends are into cheerleading as much as I am.
Did SFA pull it together or not? Did they drop?
This makeup reminds me of the truly outrageous Gem.
While I agree with a lot of parts of this post, the “overall impression” category on a competition scoresheet isn’t really about the appearances of the individual cheerleaders on the team. It encompassess all the intangible elements – how much energy the squad gives off, how confident they appear, how much fun they are to watch, etc.
Hey Kate
Just started reading your book after having it recommended by a fellow British Cheerleader – so far, so awesome… loving the all girl squad from Memphis.
In England, where cheer is still in it’s infancy, we’re actually a lot less concerned by looks than teams in the US seem to be.
Universities/colleges have to take everyone who registers an interest or they don’t get funding – that of course means that some squads then sub divide into ‘competitive, dance and spirt’ squads. The implication here being that if you don’t fit into any of those catagories you may drop out but there is some evidence that what actually happens is that some of those girls/guys become amazing cheerleaders through sheer will and determination.
Our all star teams do have tryouts but we’re looking for ability over looks – and I really hope it stays that way but as we tend to follow the US in cheer trends, that might not always be the case.
As a coach, I try to promote the ideal that anyone can become a cheer athlete if they work hard enough and very little of it has to do with what their hair and make up looks like!
Sorry for long comment – feel free to edit!
Emma
Head Coach
London Rockets Cheerleaders