When most people hear the word cheerleading, they think of girls in short skirts. But in fact, the sport was started by men, for men. In 1903, the University of Minnesota created a “Yell Squad” composed of six males, which in turn led to a male cheer fraternity called Gamma Sigma. Texas A&M joined the band wagon in 1905 when they created “The Cheerleading State,” a group of males who led the crowd at football and basketball games. The sport remained dominated by men until the 1920’s, some famous figures like Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin Roosevelt were members of cheer squads in their college days. Women finally joined cheerleading in 1923 and began to dominate the sport during World War II when most of the men left to fight. They were not yet allowed to compete in collegiate sports, but were permitted to join cheering squads. Once women took over, cheerleading began to incorporate tumbling, stunting and props like the megaphone, and members of the squad were usually voted in by their classmates, which downplayed the importance of earning one’s spot through skill. Cheerleading continued to evolve and become more athletic and competitive in nature. Seeing a need for camps and clinics, Lawrence “Herkie” Herkimer, a former Southern Methodist University cheerleader, formed the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) in 1948. They hosted the first -ever documented cheer clinic one year later in Huntsville, Texas, with just 52 girls in attendance. NCA continues to be one of the largest cheerleading organizations in the United States, hosting hundreds of camps and competitions yearly. Herkimer did not stop with the establishment of NCA. He went on to create a cheerleading and dance uniform supply company called Cheerleader & Danz Team, invented a prop called the spirit stick, and made up the jump now called the “Herkie."

His contributions to the sport earned him the title “the grandfather of cheerleading". In the beginning, cheerleading took place only at college campuses, but the creation of camps and clinics in the late 1940’s inspired younger people to join the sport. In 1950, a high school squad named the Santa Cruz 49er’s went to a NCA cheer camp hosted by Herkimer. They were the first non-collegiate team to attend. In 1967, pee wee football leagues across the United States started to incorporate Pop Warner cheerleading into their programs. Pop Warner, a U.S. non-profit youth organization, allowed younger athletes without school affiliations to join cheerleading teams. Girls as young as five began to cheer and had the option to continue with the sport through their college days. Today, over 80% of public schools in the U.S. have cheerleading teams with a majority of the members between the ages of 12 and 17. There are over 3.4 million registered cheerleaders in the nation, and the sport only continues to grow. All Star teams began to emerge during the 1980’s because some athletes just wanted to compete without school or sports league affiliation. In 1987, NCA created an All Star division that separated the unattached teams from those representing schools and gave each group different rules and regulations, allowing those who solely want to compete bypass the sidelines of sports games. All Star cheerleading is perhaps the fastest growing cheer group, as new teams continue to emerge all over the world. In 2004, the USASF organized the first Worlds All Star competition, solidifying non-affiliated cheerleading as a legitimate force within the cheering community.

100 years after its conception, the sport of cheerleading continues to grow. People of all ages and from all over the world participate. Although it started out first as a male-only activity, before transitioning to an almost entirely female-based sport, cheerleading is now embraced by both sexes and while most cheerleaders are still women (97%), 50% of college squad members are men.

Cheerleading continues to make its way into the sports world, as well as the world of popular culture. There are television shows and movies that explore the competitive side of cheerleading, exposing the real challenges of the sport in the process. The new-found exposure plus the shift towards more serious athletic endeavors will no doubt bring more people and more fans into to the world of cheerleading

It is becoming harder and harder to deny that cheerleading is a sport worthy of respect and athletic status.

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http://cheerleading.isport.com/cheerleading-guides/history-of-cheerleading