Cheerleaders Are Deserting the Sidelines for the Playing Fields
Cheerleading has always been a finely tuned barometer of social change. In my few decades on earth, I’ve seen the status of saddle shoes and cartwheels and megaphones rise and fall as steeply as the radical and corresponding shifts in sex roles, teen-age fads, parental attitudes and political ideologies. In the late ’50s, when my oldest sister was in high school, being a cheerleader was everything a girl dreamed of. It meant you were beautiful in a conventional (coveted) way, probably dated a muscle-bound athlete and certainly held honored membership in the most elite of social strata. Now I hear that cheerleading is entering yet another new phase in its evolution. According to a wire service report from Montpelier, Vt., there will be no cheerleaders at all when the high school football team stomps the gridiron this fall. Cheerleading there, and elsewhere, is verging on outright extinction. If it sounds as if I have some firsthand knowledge in this area, the truth, alas, is that I do. I was a junior-high cheerleader. I wore black-and-white saddle shoes, bobby socks, a little red jumper and a big black sweater when the weather turned cold. And yes, I probably shed a tear or two at the appropriate cue-a broken bone, a bloody nose, a pulled tendon-not mine, of course.
ergonomics desks
Full Text: Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext) Sep 26, 1989