Skol! to the Haters
While I wait for the pro football season to start, here’s a fun little tidbit:
“Minnesota is credited as the birthplace of modern cheerleading. In 1898, male University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell led the first organized cheer at a football game. Men have continued to appear on both professional and collegiate cheerleading teams in the state since.”
— Sabreen Dawud, reporting fellow at The 19th
The 19th is an independent newsroom reporting on gender, politics, and policy. It’s no surprise to see it cover the history of cheerleading … but that doesn’t mean cheer is a women’s sport.
Here’s more from a social post The 19th published about the “scandal” of the Minnesota Vikings adding two men to its cheer squad:
The Vikings showcased their cheerleading team for this year’s regular season in an Instagram video earlier this month, featuring male cheerleaders Blaize Shiek and Louie Conn. Online responses from Vikings fans were not all that supportive, with several commenters stating that they were no longer fans of the team.
The Vikings responded to the backlash in support of the new additions to their squad.
“We support all our cheerleaders and are proud of the role they play as ambassadors of the organization,” the team said in a statement.
Shiek and Conn are not the first men to be NFL cheerleaders — in fact, as the Vikings noted, almost a third of NFL teams, a total of 12, have male cheerleaders. The Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints became the first professional league football teams to have male cheerleaders in 2018. The Rams went on to make history as the first male cheerleaders to perform at the Super Bowl in 2019.
Men also contribute to stunt teams on cheerleading squads and have for at least a decade. The Baltimore Ravens have a co-ed cheerleading team made up of both a dance and stunt team. The Ravens have a record number of men on an NFL squad, with 19.
Full disclosure: I’m in the local Vikings Facebook fan group (a remnant of my marriage to a Minnesotan), so I happened to see the news there first. There weren’t any haters, just a couple of wry comments, which I suppose is why I’ve stayed in the group longer than I stayed with my ex.
But as everyone knows, I’m a Cowboys fan through and through, so I would love to see a day when the Netflix series “America’s Sweethearts: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” has the plot line that they’ve added guys. It won’t be Season 3, which was just announced this week. But maybe Season 4? Stay tuned …