Whatever happened to male cheerleaders in High School?

[astro]

IIRC being a male HS cheerleader in the 50’s & 60’s was OK, but now it’s “gay”. After seeing this article I tried to remember the last time I saw a male HS cheerleader. HS cheerleader squads seems to be almost exclusively female these days.

Cheerleader quits squad over gay remark

Kersey - He throws a 85-mile-per-hour fastball, boasts the strength of a wrestler and the agility of a gymnast.

But all 17-year-old Cole Graves wanted to do this fall was be a cheerleader for Platte Valley High School. Graves, a junior, made the squad but is now quitting because he says the taunts from classmates became unbearable.

“I didn’t want to stop, but this is just too much,” Graves said Tuesday.

People began calling him names from the first day of school, he said. But what prompted him to give up was a posting on the school’s Web site of the cheerleading squad’s picture with the caption “I’M GAY” under the photo of Graves and another male cheerleader

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Are there still male HS cheerleaders out there? If not, what happened to them?

[Scott_Plaid]

@astro

Are there still male HS cheerleaders out there? If not, what happened to them?

Well, I heard a crazy rumor that one was elected President of the U.S. A. , but I don’t believe it for a million years…

What?
Oh, you mean what happened to current HS students becoming cheerleaders. Oh.

In that case, I have no idea. Good thing this isn’t GQ.

[Seven]

I got kicked out of school for attempting to be a male cheerleader.

The high school was making a big to-do about 15 years of proper girls football (tackle, the same gear, etc) and how it was so “brave” of the girls to pressure the school into letting them play the game like the boys.

I started bothering the administration to allow me to be a cheerleader. They told me to join pep club. I said no because I wanted the same uniform as the girls. I wanted the skirt, the sweater, the pom-poms, everything.

After a few weeks the VP told me to quit bothering him or he’d send me home for the day. When I pointed out I was just following the lead of “those fine young girls 15 years ago” he kicked me out for two weeks.

That was in the mid 80’s. At the time there was one boy in pep club and he WAS gay.

[hlanelee]

I had the beginning of an idea for a truly tasteless post…but better judgement prevailed…maybe I am becoming…grownup. :eek:

[priapus]

I think Steve Martin was a cheerleader

[lissener]

Well, the obvious answer is that they don’t breed and so they died out.

[audiobottle]

When I was in highschool, probably about 8 years ago, there was a kid in my class who wanted to be a cheerleader. He was a gymnast, but since our school had no gymnastics team, he wanted to do the next best thing. As far as I know, he was completely straight. In any case, before he could join, he had to get special permission from all sorts of school adminstrators and his parents. I don’t think he actually did get on.
But you’re telling me that male cheerleaders were actually considered to be okay in the 50s and 60s? Crazy.

[bouv]

Most highschools don’t have male cheerleaders, but if you watch the cheerleading nationals on ESPN or ESPN 8 (The Ocho, ) then you’ll see the top national teams have several males. Not nearly as many boys as girls, but still a few. I suspect that in schools where cheerleading is the main sport, or the one that wins the most awards, it’s not seen to be nearly as “uncool” or “gay” to be a cheerleader.

[Scott_Plaid]

@audiobottle

But you’re telling me that male cheerleaders were actually considered to be okay in the 50s and 60s? Crazy.

Yeah, I 've got a picture of one here

[Mr.Moto]

Um, either the Masons, the Illuminati, or Skull and Bones got to your link there, friend.

fnord

[John_F]

I’ve thought of this one over the years and if I could go back and do it again I’d try out.

Tossing, twisting, twirling, and otherwise touching the cheerleaders on a daily basis. Throwing them over my head and HAVING to look up in order to catch them.

Put me in coach!

Anyway, if there are no male cheerleader in HS how do they show up trained at the college level? It can’t be that easy to learn how to do all that stuff on the spot can it?

[Scott_Plaid]

What?

I just tried my link again, and it worked just fine. Ah well, here is another link to the same picture.

[astro]

@Mr. Moto

Um, either the Masons, the Illuminati, or Skull and Bones got to your link there, friend.

fnord

Here’s a typical HS Cheerleader picture from 1956

Inthe early years up to 1936 the Cheerleaders were all Male (small pic so link is to page)

An in teresting article in Slate

The cheerleader has grappled with her identity since at least the early 1900s, as Natalie Guice Adams and Pamela J. Bettis explain in their delightful book Cheerleader!: An American Icon. Originally, male cheerleaders (or “rooter kings”) patrolled the sidelines at college football games, trying to organize the yells of spectators. The male cheerleader was something of a campus eminence, regarded as an up-and-coming entrepreneur and future captain of industry. In 1911, The Nation declared that “the reputation of having been a valiant ‘cheer-leader’ is one of the most valuable things a boy can take away from college. As a title to promotion in professional or public life, it ranks hardly second to that of being a quarterback.” (Not everyone saw cheerleading as a benevolent exercise in vocational training. A. Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard, called it the “worst means of expressing emotion ever invented.”)

[Otto]

@audiobottle

But you’re telling me that male cheerleaders were actually considered to be okay in the 50s and 60s? Crazy.

There were no female cheerleaders back in the early days of cheerleading, so not only were male cheerleaders considered to be OK in the 50s, they were the norm for decades before.

[Priam]

@Otto

There were no female cheerleaders back in the early days of cheerleading, so not only were male cheerleaders considered to be OK in the 50s, they were the norm for decades before.

Yup. My dad was a cheerleader at his school in the mid to late 60s and, to this day, doesn’t understand why we gently make fun of him for it.

[Balle_M]

Hmm…constant physical contact with sweaty teen hotties in cheerleading outfits?

Yep…totally gay.

[SkeptiJess]

My son considered becoming cheerleaders a couple of years ago. Nick was actually recruited by the cheerleading coach (who was one of his teachers) because he was a weightlifter. They wanted him to lift the girls, be the bottom of pyramids, etc. He considered it very seriously, but finally decided against it because it would have conflicted with wrestling. I don’t know whether or not they found another boy instead.

[Rick]

Back in the late 60s a friend of mine was a yell leader (male cheerleader)
This guy got more ass than a toilet seat!

[AskNott]

I’m class of '67. There were no male cheerleaders at my high school. No boys even tried out, and it never entered my mind to ask why. It was a girl thing.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

Based on my limited observation, it’s becoming the norm to have at least some males in a college cheerleading squad, since few females have the necessary strength to execute the more spectacular one-arm holds and catching moves. Maybe since high school squads don’t usually do these moves, the guys aren’t needed and so aren’t expected, respected, or accommodated in that arena.

Also, AFAIK there always have been male yell leaders but that’s not quite the same thing.