CAMPUS NEWS
Male Cheerleaders Seek to Defy Stereotype
By Crystal Goodremote
I
n August, every male student received an
email suggesting that they try out for the
co-ed cheerleading squad. Out of all the
male students at Cedarville, only 19 showed up
for tryouts, and out of those 19 only nine de-
cided to become part of the team.
Why did only 19 of the 1,500 men on
campus try out? It could have been because
of the time commitment, or it may have been
because of the stereotype associated with male
cheerleaders.
Cheer squad captain Joe Gallagher said
that people here at Cedarville are nice about
it, but some will
still give you
“that look” when
they find out that
you’re a male
cheerleader.
Adam New-
born said that
“look” is exactly
what drove his
friends
away
from being part
of the team.
Newborn, a
freshman, said
when he and his
friends received
the email, they
decided to try
out for the team
as a joke. Gallagher said that’s what a lot of
guys do, but then some actually enjoy it and
join the team.
Newborn is one such example, though the
guys he tried out with chose not to be involved.
One of them said his girlfriend wouldn’t like
it if he was a cheerleader, and the others said
they just didn’t want to be classified as such,
Newborn said.
Like Newborn’s friends, Gallagher said
he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a cheerleader
either. Before coming to Cedarville, Gallagher
played varsity sports throughout high school
and planned to play in college — that is until
he was injured his senior year.
“I played sports, and I was used to cheer-
leaders cheering for me,” he said. The night of
the involvement fair his junior year, Gallagher
said he was heading over to talk to the track
coach when the cheerleading coach stopped
him and suggested that he join the team.
Gallagher said before joining the team
he wanted to find out what people thought
of male cheerleaders. When asking students
around campus what they thought of male
cheerleaders, he heard one of two things: that
“they are gay or they are perverts who want to
touch girls.” He decided to step beyond the ste-
reotypes and join the team anyway.
Photo by Stephen Port
The Cedarville cheerleaders practice six hours a week and perform at men’s basketball games.
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8
December 2011
“Cheerleading
is not a sport,
but it does
take good
athletes to do
what we do.”
Joe Gallagher
Cedarville
cheerleader
