Cheerleading
Highschool cheerleaders performing a heel
stretch.
Cheerleading is a sport[1] that uses organ-
ized routines that range from 1 minute to 3
minutes made from elements of tumbling,
dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct
spectators of events to cheer on sports teams
at games and matches and/or compete at
cheerleading
competitions.
Cheerleaders
draw attention to the event and encourage
audience participation. The athlete involved
is called a cheerleader.
Cheerleading originates
in the United
States, and remains a predominantly Americ-
an activity, with an estimated 1.5 million par-
ticipants in allstar cheerleading, not includ-
ing the millions more in middle school, high
school, college, professional, or little league
participants. The growing presentation of the
sport to a global audience has been led by
the 1997 start of broadcasts of cheerleading
competition by ESPN International and the
worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring it
On. Due in part to this recent exposure, there
are now an estimated 100,000 participants
scattered around the rest of the world in
countries including Australia, Canada, China,
Colombia,
Ecuador,
France,
Germany,
Japan,[2]
the Netherlands, New Zealand,
Sweden, and the United Kingdom. [3]
History
Princeton graduate Thomas Peebles intro-
duced the idea of organized crowds cheering
at football games to the University of Min-
nesota. However, it was not until 1898 that
University of Minnesota student
Johnny
Campbell directed a crowd in cheering "Rah,
Rah, Rah! Sku-u-mar, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah!
Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!”,
making Campbell the very first cheerleader
and November 2, 1898 the official birth date
of organized cheerleading. Soon after, the
University of Minnesota organized a "yell
leader" squad of 6 male students, who still
use Campbell’s original cheer today[4] In
1903
the
first
cheerleading
fraternity,
Gamma Sigma was founded.[5] Cheerleading
started out as an all-male activity, but fe-
males began participating in 1923, due to
limited availability