The Cheer Leader

In another life, I was the Mic Man at Cal football and basketball games. It’s long story. But one of the ways I got the job was pretending during tryouts that I would be a traditional yell leader. I had to wear a spirit sweater, perform group cheers featuring fight songs and stiff-armed dance moves, and even lift female cheerleaders above my head by placing the heel of my hand into a place that would certainly get me canceled today. I even received training from the legendary, drum-wielding Krazy George, the guy who invented the wave. Once I got the gig, I lost the sweater, the dance moves, and all the other traditional cheerleading accouterments and went with a double-zero football jersey and microphone. During those years, my greatest risk of injury was the sprained toe I’d have gotten if I dropped the Mic. (In the business, we call this a mic drop.) But I don’t remember any of the other school spirit leaders getting hurt either. Apparently, times have changed. Cheerleading has become serious, acrobatic, and dangerous. How dangerous? “Competitive cheer is shockingly dangerous: In the past 40 years, the number of catastrophic injuries sustained by cheerleaders is greater than those sustained by female athletes playing all other high school and college sports.” And it turns out one company holds a basic monopoly over the whole industry. “Nationwide, just over a million children, mostly girls, participate in cheer each year (some estimates are even higher), more than the number who play softball or lacrosse. And almost every part of that world is dominated by a single company: Varsity Spirit. It’s hard to cheer at the youth, high school or collegiate level without putting money in the company’s pocket. Varsity operates summer camps where children learn to do stunts and perform; it hosts events where they compete; it sells pom-poms they shake and uniforms they wear on the sidelines of high school and college football games. Each year, Varsity ships 4.6 million pieces of apparel, from $80 leopard-print ‘Cheer Mom’ fleeces to custom uniforms covered in Swarovski crystals.” David Gauvey Herbert in the NYT Mag (Gift Article): How Cheerleading Became So Acrobatic, Dangerous and Popular.

+ Scheduling Note: NextDraft will be off on Weds and Thursday.

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