Six
years ago, if you had told me that I will be posting on cheerleading, I would
have defenestrated you. But that is precisely what I am doing (posting and not throwing
you out the window), indeed driven to do it, by IPL, of all things. Truly sad.
In
a recent post on IPL I had written, “Get the cheerleaders out.” A good friend
commented that I got it all wrong and my suggestions to improve IPL must include
“[H]ow to increase suggestive moves for cheerleaders,” in the interest of
profit maximization. Given the state of affairs in IPL with such sharp focus on
selling to the exclusion of everything else, I could not disagree with him;
yet, I wanted the context of cheerleading to be teased out of my experiences.
My
first experience of cheerleading was at a NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic
Association) football game that the University of Kentucky was playing at the
Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky in the Fall of 1978, at which time
I did not know even the meaning of the word / phrase. Whenever there was a
pause in the game, (and, in American Football there are more and longer pauses
than action!), a set of athletic-looking students and a group of bewitching co-eds
(yes, female students in US universities were merely co-eds, to their male
counterparts) gather at the center of the field or line themselves in front of
the partisan home crowd, to invoke some rah
rah to get the team to perform better (and fail miserably, at least in the
Commonwealth Stadium) – to lead the cheer
for the team. It was all, I felt then, quite senseless.
Yet,
sooner than later, I managed to internalize at least part of the logic of
cheerleading. First, it is the cultural aspect. Cheerleading starts at the
school level, as a show of solidarity with the contestants. It just evolves and
fits into the university niche. Then, as I saw more and more of the stunts the
students do while leading the cheer – invariably every routine ends up with a
roar from the crowd, in all probability appreciation for the routine as well as
exhorting the team– go way beyond shaking of pom poms and other things. These
stunts are at the very least quasi-gymnastics. The performers, are at least
quasi-athletes; on par with Rhythmic Gymnasts
with props like colorful balls, ribbons, and rings?
In
a hurry to post this piece, I denied myself the pleasure of mining through the
hundreds of photographs, at least some of them of cheerleaders, I had taken at
the games, both football and basketball of the University of Kentucky teams to
include here. Instead, I chose the following from the stock available on the
Net. I think you will excuse me.
No,
I am not going to deny there is much suggestiveness, even in the costumes, but
that is not all. I discerned certain commitment to cheering for the team. How
effective these are, I am no judge.
I
do not know the motivations these cheerleaders may have had to get into this
act. They get to travel to away games; they get the choicest points to watch
the games from. They get their regular exercise routine. They gain exposure in
the university and perhaps popularity too. There may even be some scholarships,
I can’t remember. Of course, there are sacrifices, like studies (?), additional
expenses. Anyways, the norm then could also have been for the co-eds to scour
for suitable mates in universities, and cheerleading opened up such avenues.
But, let that be.
It
is when the NFL team Dallas Cowboys brought in Dallas Cowgirls (!) and NBA team
Los Angeles Lakers got high profile Hollywoodian cheerleading to the professional
ranks, I had to do another rethink on cheerleading. None, and I mean none, of
the rationale for cheerleading at colleges scaled up to the professional ranks.
It was just a job. Do you remember the flash-in-the-pan Paula Abdul? Good, if
you do not.
Cheerleading
for professional teams, like at the IPL, are mere dance routines and the only tangible
prop is the pom pom. Of course, the intangibles are galore – the suggestive
shakes, shimmying, the revealing costumes etc. Only the name Cheerleading is common between the high school
/ university and professional versions.
But
my friend and perhaps most others who have been taken in by IPL version of cheerleading
have not had the opportunity to contemplate as to how it may have come about,
evolved. For them, cheerleading does not have an evolutionary background; it is
more like the skyhook that dropped fully made human beings on the earth, like
the Intelligent Designers (IDiots) and
Creation Scientists claim (Philosopher
Daniel Dennett’s imagery). Perhaps this is true of how cheerleading got to IPL, but there is more to it, at least some of which redeem the activity.
This
post is to disabuse them of this notion, with the help of Wikipedia:
“Cheerleading (ˈtʃɪərˌlidɪŋ) is an intense physical
activity based upon organized
routines, usually ranging anywhere from one to three minutes, which contains
many components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers and stunting in order to direct spectators of events to cheer for sports
teams at games …”
Hope
I have succeeded enough to elicit some pom poming by cheerleaders!
Raghuram
Ekambaram
4 comments:
I am a fan of cheerleading pretty girls. I'm no fan of sports and games. I like to play and not watch. Girls are a pretty sight, however, and more interesting than the game. So, three cheers to cheer leaders.
But you must agree Matheikal that IPL cheerleaders are merely going through the motions. They and their acts are a far cry from what their tag implies. For this reason, when it comes to IPL, I am more of a fan of the game than cheerleaders.
RE
When i was a child my dad used to say "Cricket is a gentleman's game" . Has cheerleading shattered that image?
I would not want to pick a fight with your dad, Nutcase (I don't feel exactly good addressing you this way, but what can I do? :) ), but no competition has ever been truly "Gentlemanly", unless you ignore gamesmanship - Fischer v. Spassky? The Bodyline series? McEnroe v. Connors? It is a continuum with no discernible borders.
Yes, athletic competitions are moving away towards being more and more ruthless in competition.
In the case of cheer leading, I think what IPL calls cheer leading is a different animal from what I witnessed three decades ago at the university.
RE
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