Male Cheerleader (Part 1)

I did not grow up hoping some day to be a cheerleader.  I was an all-area football player, I wouldn't be caught in polyester dancing around and doing some lame arm motions to a fight song!  But, I discovered, it was much more than that.

First year in college, sometime in the winter semester, I was with some friends watching some other friends play an intramural basketball game.  In the corner of the gym, the cheerleaders were practicing.  At half time, I turned my attention to them, watching them stunt (toss the girls around) and checking out the girls.  Suddenly, one of them approached me, and asked me if I wanted to come and try doing some things with them.  Really?  Me?  Why would I want to do that?  I'll pass, thank you, and keep my manhood in tact.

Just my luck, there happened to be a guy bigger than me.  He also happened to be an assistant coach, and was a Div.2 lineman in college.  He was about 6'-6" and at least 370 lbs.  "Big D" called me out, was insulted by what I'd said, and essentially scared me into coming over and trying some stunts with them.  At the same time, my friends were not helpful to my cause, and enticed me to just give it a try.  The bonus was I got to pick any one of the girls I wanted, which was a nice bonus.

After much cajoling, I reluctantly went over and plunged in.  To what, I did not know.  I picked out a girl, and they had me pick her up a bit to simply see how strong I was and if I could manage.  No problem, they're quite small.  Since I didn't yet know how to toss them properly up to my hands, they placed her up there for me, and had me try out some stunts from there.  Again, not too difficult for me (if you read my first post, you know I had already been lifting heavily for quite some time).  To equate a loose sense of form to manage the stunts in terms I understood, they used lifting terminology for me.  Clean and jerk, military press, etc.  There's a lot more to it than that, but that's what I understood at the time.  I had the girl standing in my hands at shoulder level, and they asked if I could "extend" it, which meant to put my arms up straight over my head.  They kept trying to give me pointers on how to properly get her up there, but I simply straight military pressed her up, which was apparently fairly impressive to the rest of the guys.  Stunting came easy to me, which impressed the coaches, and they asked me if I'd come to a few more practices and see more of the things they do.  Sure, why not?  I'll check it out.  I can always bail if it gets lame.

I feel I should note my stature at this time compared to the stature of the cheer team.  I was around 230lbs at the time, and 6'-0" tall.  Most of the guys were 5'-8" to 5'-10" and around 165-185lbs, and most of the girls were 5'-0" to 5'-2", and 90-110lbs.  This meant that I could muscle my way through a lot of things, where the rest of the guys had to use a much more precise form to manage the stunts.  This also meant that I would be doing much of the heavy lifting, which was fine with me.  The more lifting I was doing, the less lame arm motions and dance moves I'd be forced in to.

So, I went to a few practices over the course of winter semester, and learned how to toss the girls around and some better form so I didn't drop them on their heads.  Come April, the coaches asked me to come to try-outs for the team, and I had some decisions to make.  Is this really for me?  Could I pull this off and not be a douche?  Can I manage this with my already difficult architecture studies?  I consulted with friends and my parents, and decided that being in a sport again would be fun...especially one this challenging.  Yes, challenging - it was much more involved than I ever thought cheerleading could be.  It turned out to be way more time consuming and intense than I had given thought to (more on this aspect later).  I decided to go to try-outs, and see what this might become...

Thus far, practices had been informal and fun, and mostly just learning to stunt.  Try-outs, on the other hand, were a very serious matter.  I'm not sure if you've ever seen "Bring It On", but looking back the try-out scene from that movie is a fairly good reflection of how they went (without the high school cattiness).  There was the head coach, G, a cheerleader through and through who had cheered in high school, at MSU, and was now the coach at UDM.  There was the assistant coach, Big D, who had both played football and cheered during the basketball season in college, and there were some guest judges.  They sat on an elevated platform at a long table with notes and papers, and you got to go out in front of them and show them what you could do, alone (save for a partner for stunting).  Try-outs were 2 days long, the first day we had to learn a cheer with hand motions to be done in front of the judges, and the second day was the actual show.  There were 3 parts to the tryouts; tumbling (of which I was introduced to on day 1 of try-outs), the cheer part, and stunting.  Most of the people trying out had been doing this for years.  Surprisingly to me, many of the guys were on teams in high school, and had been on this team for a few years.  Up to this point I didn't even know guys were on high school cheer teams.  For the veterans, this was simply going through technicalities, they were pretty much already guaranteed a spot.  There were many high school girls that were trying out, a few guys, and there was me, an anomaly amongst cheer nation.

Day 1, we mill around for a bit at first and go through some introductions.  As a whole, we form a huge circle and do some stretching, then form into lines of 5 or 6 (lead by the veterans), and go through some warm-ups.  The warm-ups lead to simple tumbling - forward/backward rolls, cartwheels, etc.  Suddenly, they decide to start busting out back handsprings.  I'd never done this, never been shown how to do this, and was quite amazed at the ease they showed in doing them.  I watched 3 or 4 people in front of me easily whip off a back handspring, and decided that I could probably handle it if they could.  Wrong.  I waltzed out on the mat, in front of everyone, and tossed myself backwards.  I managed to not rotate much, landing on my head and neck, crumpling into a pile on the floor.  Gasps filled the air, and I bounced back to my feet.  "I'm fine, I got this, no problem."  Someone called out "do you need a spot?".  "Nope, no problem.  I think I will get it this time."  Now, every one's eyes were on me.  All lines had stopped, everyone focused on my next move.  Naturally, I just go for it again.  And once again, I stop short in the middle, slam down on my head and neck, and crumple to the floor in a pile.  Gasps again, me bouncing to my feet again.  I was then instructed that I needed a spot, which I now accepted with reluctance.  Cheerleading can't be THIS hard, can it?

We finally wrapped up the tumbling warm-up, and switched to stunting.  This was the part I was getting pretty good at, at a fairly quick pace.  I discovered early why stunting with the veterans is MUCH better than choosing another newb to the sport of collegiate cheer.  New girls who are not used to being tossed in the air tend to flail, which leads to the guy getting kicked.  I decided to pick a hot little chick who was a HS senior at the time to flirt with her.  She proceeded to kick me right in the testicles on the first toss.  Wow, nice to meet you!  Surprisingly, this did not deter me in pursuing her (but this is another story).  I ended up helping her perform her stunt portion of try-outs the next day.

After the first day, I had a bit of new found respect for what I was getting into (sans the lame "cheering" part).  I liked everything except looking like a spazzed-out fool, high on spirit and excitement.  There was a lot of contact (when people fell off stunts, which happened often), a physicality to it that I had never expected, and a technicality to performing.  When people say that it's not a "true sport", I have to disagree.  The people who tend to say these things must have never tried it, because it is as difficult a sport that I have ever played.

The next day when the full-on try-out portion began, my nerves had settled some.  I was getting more comfortable with the veterans, making a few friends, and using a spot for my terrible tumbling.  Try-outs went smoothly (how many times in this post can I use the term "try-outs"?  Is there another term I could switch between?), and I was fairly confident that I'd make the team.  A few days later, the coach called to not only confirm I was in, but also to extend me a scholarship!  Only a few weeks before I was questioning whether to even give this a try, and now I get a scholarship?  I'm in! 

I was informed that non-mandatory practices were held periodically throughout the summer, along with occasional workouts with a tumbling instructor.  All summer long I went to as many of these practices I could (still living at my parents, it was a 2.5 hr drive one way).  I continued my quick learning of stunting, managing to nearly match the veterans in stunting ability by the end of summer.  My fearlessness and muscle control played a big role in quickly learning to throw a back handspring on my own.  It wasn't pretty, but it was progress.  The tumbling instructor told me on more than one occasion that a man my size was not supposed to be able to control his body as well as I could.  I would never manage to be a strong tumbler, but I could string together multiple back handsprings as well as back tucks (flipping in the air without hands).  As summer came to a close, 2 weeks before school started, the team shipped off to cheer camp for a week.