Like many, I have emotional scars from high school. There was, of course, a gaggle of rabid ribbon-wearing girls that wreaked havoc on my life. They were brutally ridiculous; I was helpless.
No, I'm not talking about the popular girls who wouldn't talk to me. Sadly, nothing nearly as emo-glam as that. I'm actually talking about those masters of high school masochism: the cheerleaders. And the damage was self-inflicted (no, not involving my wrists): I just felt so guilty for making a mockery of them. It was too easy. Like shooting ribbon-haired fish in the proverbial barrel.
But perhaps, at our enlightened College on the Hill, things are different.
"All of those stereotypes stem from high school," the president of the Dartmouth cheerleading squad said, asking to remain anonymous out of concern for her future career. "It's just not the same."
Still, high school (non-acid) flashback: I was shocked by the sheer ruthlessness of cheerleading's Darwinism, which bordered on cannibalism. Every basketball game, the cheerleaders would chuck their most anorexic member into the air, and inevitably Twiggy would snap on the gym floor in front of all of us. The next week, tragic Twiggy would be sidelined as they heaved Twiggy Two aloft. They progressed in this fashion, eating away their own ranks until at least half of the squad was either injured or incapacitated.
So forgive me if I came to Dartmouth with a preconceived aversion to cheerleading, but I've been traumatized, and my wounded conscience can't seem to heal as easily as Twiggy's tibia.
However, it seems there really is hope. The Big Green cheerleaders are surprisingly legitimate. They've come a long way, they've practiced and have worked equally hard to promote themselves and our teams: these are no silly Twiggies.
"For the '08s, we don't exist," co-captain Taylor Howard '08 said. "But to the '11s, we've been a consistent part of their football experience."
It's been a fall of "firsts" for the cheerleaders: it's the first term they've had preseason practices and made it to the season-opening football game in 14 years. For the first time in at least four years, the squad has been able to travel to away football games. They've also had the help of a coach for the first time, as Alayne Kelley adds 15 years of cheer experience to the student-run squad.
Like all club sports, they receive only $200 per term in pure funding from the College. The rest of cheerleading budget, which includes the cost of uniforms, traveling, and pom-poms, must be covered through its own fundraising (though the school will match up to $500 per term, and the squad received a $2,000 boost from athletic director Josie Harper to help with its coach's stipend). Still, the grunt-work of managing their own finances is no small task.
But the administrative side work allows them to get to the fun stuff: the hours of practice during the week and their nine-to-five Saturday supporting the football team, while most of the campus sleeps off the Friday debauchery.
"We don't really attract that stereotypical girl," Irena Tzekina '08 said, pointing to the additional work as an explanation. "It's a self-selection process that creates a very diverse, very intelligent group of girls."
Green and white, you sure look good tonight! So goes the hypnotic chant, accompanied by a syncopated backbeat worthy of Timbaland, which the senior squad members cite as their favorite and most memorable number. The team's cheers are a combination of tradition (at the homecoming game, a group of cheerleader alumni from 1980s recognized certain chants) and innovation, and on occasion "google-searching to see what kind of motions we might like," as Howard explained.
There are currently 15 members on the squad, and 13 on campus this fall. Over half of the team are members of the class of 2011.
"Right now we're a really polarized squad in that we're half seniors and half freshmen," Howard said. "We really just want to install in them everything that we've learned these four years."
Currently, the squad cheers primarily for football in the fall and basketball in the winter, and uses the spring for training and conditioning. Ultimately, the goal is to compete in cheering tournaments during the spring.
"If it's in the budget for them, it really could happen," Howard said, referring to the freshmen members of the team.
"We would just really like to be able to come back to Dartmouth and see that our traditions still exist," the team's president said, calling to mind the cheerleader alumni at this fall's homecoming game.
With the anonymous Daughters of Dartmouth stirring the stew with their bitter flyers ("Thanks, Chi Gam!"), it's hard not to wonder how the Big Green cheerleaders fit into the giant chessboard of gender politics on this campus. It's one of those things " perhaps also rooted in high school " but it is difficult to deny that cheerleading has often been viewed as a thorn in the side of women's equality. And as some members of the team ask for anonymity even in an article written about their own squad, it seems that team members are acutely aware of being negatively typecast.
The cheer squad is not entirely female, but token male member Ken Wells '08 is off campus this term (interning for Merrill Lynch). And the not-entirely female team doesn't support solely male squads: in the winter, they cheer at both men's and women's basketball games. Still, the image of rabid-ribboned cheerleaders is an inherently degrading view of a sport unquestionably tied to women. Even calling cheerleading a "sport" is an issue for many.
But the Dartmouth cheering squad seems well on its way to manumitting itself from the high school stereotype. It keeps a rigorous practice schedule and works hard to hold its team together, but more important may be its three-dimensionality on campus. These are real people.
"I don't think anyone can spot us and be like, 'Oh, you are a cheerleader,'" Howard said.
"It's almost the other way around," Liz Stamoulis '08, the team's other co-captain said. "If someone already knows you, and then they find out that you're a cheerleader too " it just adds to the mix. 'How do you do all of it?' they want to know."
And they're no slouches upstairs, either. Two members actually requested anonymity, to prevent google searching later in life.
"I've got to have a serious job eventually," explained the team's president.
No silly Twiggies here.
