But Ward gave it a shot and discovered that competitive cheering is no joke. A few weeks ago she was trying out for the first time at Cheer Athletics in Dallas, the nation’s largest competitive-cheer gym, in the heart of cheer country. It’s the start of a new season, and gyms nationwide are forming their all-star teams–squads that aren’t tied to any school or sports team and exist solely to compete. They start with regional meets in the fall and build toward next spring’s national competitions, where teams perform routines no longer than two and a half minutes, set to frenetic dance music. As kids are propelled 20 feet in the air and beefy guys hold contorting girls aloft by one foot, judges score them on a combination of skills, choreography and showmanship. The coveted prize: a jack-et embroidered with a national-title logo.
At the Dallas tryouts, along with some 400 other kids 3 to 18, Ward was vying for a spot on one of Cheer Athletics’ dozen teams, which are divided by age and skill. While some kids buckled under the pressure–one girl bawled after a botched routine, one vomited from sheer nerves–others dazzled. Ward, a compact 5 feet, 95 pounds, with an abdomen that seems chiseled from stone, soared ethereally as she threw a “double full,” a backflip combined with two aerial twists–a move unthinkable for a cheerleader 10 years ago.
Make no mistake: cheerleading has abandoned the sidelines and seized center stage. Ward is its new face: physically tough, intensely competitive, several notches short of peppy. Flush with kids like her, all-star teams are growing by 50 percent each year, and today some 2,500 gyms or clubs nationwide have cheering squads, says Bill Seely of Varsity Spirit Corp., which runs cheer camps and competitions. Many of the students come not only from gymnastics but from basketball, soccer, even football. The result: increasingly athletic skills–and more injuries. Rebekah Johnson, 17, a Cheer Athletics “flier” who spends most of her time hurtling through the air, recounts a typical medical history: dislocated hip, fractured kneecap, two ruptured discs. Cheerleading, in fact, is the leading cause of catastrophic injuries among female athletes, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. Jody Melton, president of Cheer Athletics, says coaches and rulemakers are boosting safety precautions as the sport matures.
At the end of the Dallas tryouts, coach Gianni DeNegri is fired up about this year’s crop of kids. “It’s awesome, y’all,” he marvels to the other coaches gathered around a conference table cluttered with cans of Miller Lite. “There are [full twists] throughout the entire program, and that’s insane.” The meeting soon resembles a raucous Moroccan bazaar as the coaches haggle over kids and divvy up teams. All are fighting to get the right mix: agile tumblers, strong “bases” to support stunts, featherweight girls who can be flung into the air. As they trade players and sassy comments, one girl is dubbed “rhythmless nation”; another is the “weakest link–g’bye.”
All-star teams like these have become cheerleading’s elite. It’s ironic, given that these programs began in the early 1980s as repositories for kids who couldn’t make the high-school squads attached to football teams. But over time, all-stars attracted the students who wanted to train instead of attend pep rallies and the coaches who felt burdened by school rules and teaching obligations.
The increased athleticism has drawn in plenty of teenage boys, who made up only 213 members of competitive high-school squads in 1994 and by 2000 had grown to 1,212, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In California the guys on the Bullets coed team are mostly football players–and, in fact, spent last Super Bowl Sunday at cheer practice. John Luce, a former Cheer Athletics team member who gave up football for cheerleading, says he’s endured ribbing for the “gay-cheerleader thing,” as he puts it. His response: if you think cheering is for sissies, see if you can handle it.
Like most all-star kids, Luce lives for the national competitions. “We’re here for the pressure,” he said back in March at the United Spirit Association nationals in Anaheim, Calif.–the last big competition of the year. “It’s like a drug.” His Cheer Athletics team was warming up on the practice mat just before its final performance, with two competing squads nearby. There the intimidation started. “You don’t ever look at them,” said Shannon Six. “You don’t react to their stunts. You have to pretend it’s just y’all.” The whole way to the competition floor, the kids fought the mounting tension. Some retched; others clasped hands in prayer. In the end, Cheer Athletics took first place. Luce, his eyes brimming with tears, said: “Everyone should be able to feel this.”
That’s the high Erykah Ward, the new arrival at Cheer Athletics, is after. She’s made one of the gym’s select teams, the Wildcats coed squad. But she has been crying regularly at practice, frustrated that her skills aren’t improving more quickly and in pain from a neck injury. “I’m coming home with all kinds of bruises,” says Ward, adding that her muscles are so sore she needs help walking up the stairs at school. “I’ve never been to practices like this. They work us to death.” This from the girl who once thought of cheerleading as laughably lax.
