Cheerleading of the ’20s: Epitome of masculinity | Yale Daily News

Cheerleading of the ’20s: Epitome of masculinity | Yale Daily News:

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(That is so gay. I have heard gay people say "That is so gay.") 


The Yale-Harvard crew race of Aug. 3, 1852, marked the first official intercollegiate sporting event, but it was not until the first intercollegiate football game, between Princeton and Rutgers on Nov. 6, 1869, that the first cheer was recorded . A rocket cheer that came to be known as the “Princeton Locomotive”, the words originally consisted of “Siss, boom, Ahhh!”, possibly followed by chanting “Princeton”. The cheer, however, was in fact copied from a rocket cheer by the New York 7th Regiment during their Civil War march through Princeton. The earliest cheering, then, had its roots in military chants that were re-contextualized with the rise of organized intercollegiate sports.

Eventually the formation of organized crowd participation at collegiate athletic events in the late 1800s necessitated the designation of official cheerleaders. Out of the role created by impromptu volunteer leaders emerged a new position: that of the “yell leader,” also known as the “rooter king,” “yell king,” “yell master,” or “yell marshal.” These individuals would “stand at ground level with their backs to the field, waving their arms and exhorting the crowd.” By the early 1900s, these yell leaders banded into the first official cheer leading squads. Though the official date of its conception is unclear, by 1912 the Yale Cheerleading Squad had become a distinct entity.

The 1916 cheerleaders — like many of their classmates ­— came from elite secondary schools such as Andover, Hotchkiss, St. Paul’s and others. In fact, George W. Bush ’68, his father George H.W. Bush ’48 and his grandfather Prescott Sheldon Bush ’16 were all members of the Yale Cheerleading Squad. In these ways, the early cheerleaders truly served as leaders of the Yale community in all aspects of their lives.