Excerpt: 'Cheer!: Three Teams on a Quest for College Cheerleading's Ultimate Prize'

March 11, 2008 — -- Cheerleading may look like fun and games, but according to author Kate Torgovnick's new book, it's serious business.

"Cheer!" takes a dive into the competitive college cheerleading world and gives an intimate look at the sport. Torgovnick followed three highly ranked teams during the 2006-2007 season: the University Lumberjacks of Nacogdoches, Tex.; the Southern University Jaguars of Baton Rouge, La.; and the University of Memphis All-Girl Tigers. She found the women on the teams had a lot in common, including an obsession with staying thin. For a peek at the book, read the excerpt below.

Chapter 1

The Yale of College Cheerleading

The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks

Brad Patterson leans back in his chair. On the blue mat in front of him, more than 150 cheerleaders form an ocean of bodies as they practice. Brad crosses his arms over his chest, his baby face out of place on his bulky body. In his purple SFA polo shirt with sunglasses tucked into the open buttons, he appears laidback. But he's taking careful mental notes. It's the day before tryouts for the Stephen F. Austin cheerleading squad. As head coach, by the end of tomorrow, Brad will have to whittle the 150 people on the mat down to just thirty.

Stephen F. Austin State University is the Yale of college cheerleading. They've won their division, Cheer I at NCA Nationals, eight times. Just three weeks ago, they clinched a fourth set of championship rings in a row. In fact, the squad has won every year since it's been under Brad's direction.

SFA is located in Nacogdoches, Texas, a city that calls itself "The Oldest Town in Texas," although Brad tells me two other cities claim the same thing. As I made the two-hour drive from Houston, I passed logging truck after logging truck, making it obvious how the school chose the Lumberjack as their mascot. Nacogdoches is small — a main drag with the university on one side and strip malls on the other. A water tower looms above the town with the letters SFA emblazoned across it in huge purple letters.

Nacogdoches boasts only 30,000 people, but a third of them routinely show up at SFA football games. There's enough interest in cheerleading here to warrant two all-star gyms. But that shouldn't be surprising. After all, in Texas, football is often referred to as a religion, and cheerleaders are the high priests. As I watch the SFA hopefuls practice, Newton's theory of gravity seems broken — nearly every woman who goes up stays up. Still, Brad's lips are pursed. "This is one of my smaller tryouts," he says in a smooth Southern twang. "That's how it is the years we win — people get intimidated. In the years we don't win, they come crawling out of the woodwork."

Brad has recruited many of the people on the mat, scoping them out at competitions and swooping down to suggest that they try out. "At this point, I'm seriously looking at fifteen girls and twenty-five guys. But my mind can be changed during tryouts — it always is," he says.

Sierra Jenkins is no doubt one of Brad's top picks. Her über-blonde hair is piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail and a hello, my name is sticker is affixed to her black spandex shorts, dubbing her #48. She hails from Arlington, Texas, and has cheered since elementary school. In the fall, she'll be a junior, and she already wears two National Championship rings around her thin fingers. In fact, in the eight years she's competed at Nationals with school teams, she has never lost.

Sierra is used to being the best. As a college freshman, she headed to a top cheer college in Hawaii, where she established herself as a standout. But it wasn't the idyllic year of waterfall hikes and white sand beaches she'd imagined. "I was the biggest girl on the team. I thought I was fine, but my coaches were like, 'You gotta lose weight,' " says Sierra, a just-gargled-gravel roughness to her voice. "My first few weeks in college, all my dreams and aspirations went down the drain."

Sierra developed an eating disorder that brought her weight down to a scary ninety-five pounds. Still, she shone on the mat and was even made a captain. But midway through her sophomore year, Sierra realized she needed help. She headed home to Texas.

Back home, she enrolled in a junior college to keep in shape, and her flexibility and energy quickly made her the team's star. "I'm always trying to be like, 'Look at me. Look at me,' " she says. "My method is just to have more enthusiasm than everyone else. I want to see everyone's eyes going to me." Today, on the mat, Sierra does a Rewind. It's a move I first saw at last year's Nationals, when a cheerleader explained to me, "Every year, there's a move that's the move to try. This year, it's the One-Arm Rewind." The name makes complete sense once you see it — it looks like that old special effects trick where an editor plays the film backwards to make it look like someone is jumping up instead of down.

Sierra stands in front of her partner, her knees bent. His hands are placed on her lower back and she leans back on his wrists. She swings her arms and flips backwards as he grunts and pushes up, like a track and fielder throwing a shot put ball.

Sierra flexes her feet sharply in the air, uncurling her body into a straight line. There's a loud smack as her feet land in her partner's open palm. Her big, brown eyes widen as she smiles. Her brows swoop in thin arches more fitting to a silent movie star.

Along the walls of the women's basketball gymnasium where tryout practice is being held, a mural is painted of women dribbling basketballs. Bleachers run around the perimeter of the room, where a few parents sit, nervously biting their fingernails. Brad admits that parents can be uppity about tryouts. "I'll get phone calls from moms who have kids in the seventh grade. They'll ask, 'What would she need to do to make SFA?' I say, 'Call me in five years,' " he jokes with a dry delivery.

There is no official agenda for today's practice — the cheerleaders are free to rehearse anything they want in preparation for tomorrow. Brad has asked that the cheerleaders find someone new to try out with, rather than auditioning with a regular partner. All day, guys and girls have walked up to each other asking, "Will you stunt with me?" like they're at a middle school dance. By the end of the day, they need to map out the three stunts they'll perform at tryouts.

Most of the cheerleaders in the room are hedging the uncertainty by choosing a partner from last year's SFA team. "Returners spots are not guaranteed," says Brad. "But it's rare that I won't take someone back. I pull kids from all over the country, so if someone uprooted their life and moved here, I'm not gonna replace them with someone who's just a little bit better."

Yvette Quiñones runs up to the table where Brad sits. Her soft belly pokes forward like a little girl unaware that she's supposed to suck in. She is one of the smallest women I've ever seen — 4'11" and ninety pounds, a stature she attributes to her Mexican heritage. Her pin-straight hair falls over her rounded cheeks.

Even though she looks young, Yvette will be a senior at SFA. She's one of the few returning flyers from last year's team, and she's already agreed to stunt with four guys at tryouts tomorrow. "I better make captain for this," she jokes, as yet another guy asks to be her partner.

The men flock to Yvette because of her bubbly demeanor and because they assume her small stature will make stunting a breeze. But Yvette knows that isn't always true. "Sometimes guys overtoss me since I'm so light. They can't control it," she explains. "So if it's not working out, I'll tell them, 'I know the perfect girl for you,' and introduce them to someone else."

Like academic scholars, cheerleaders have specialties. Men can be stunters or tumblers — a precious few do both well. Occasionally, a woman on a Coed team will be a tumbler, but more often they are flyers. Some flyers are fantastic all-around, while others concentrate on partner stunting, basket tosses, or pyramids. To decide who makes a team, coaches will often factor in what specialties they are currently lacking.

"It took me four years after community college because I couldn't pick a major," says Trisha O'Connor, the squad's assistant coach, a quiet woman in her twenties with long, reddish hair. She insists on calling me ma'am even though I am only two years older than her.

Trisha glances at Doug Daigle, whose shaved head and bulging muscles make him look like Mr. Clean squashed down to 5'10". This will be Doug's eighth year in college cheerleading. "I graduated in 2003 and started a career as an insurance agent," he explains. "I was making good money, but I didn't feel prepared for the real world. So I quit my job, applied to grad school at SFA, and came back. Brad was once my captain — now he's my coach."

"Doug's old as dirt," says Brad, shaking his head.

On the mat, Samantha Frazer talks to her partner from the air. Her eyes are lined in kohl, like a Texas Cleopatra, and everything about her is long, from her arms, to her legs, to her narrow face and its steep nose. "Pick it up, pick it up," Samantha commands as her arm bends. With the determination of an Olympic lifter, he powers her back in the air. "Yay," she says as she lifts her chin and smiles.

Making the SFA squad would be a dream come true for Samantha. The same goes for her boyfriend, Hunter, a petite tumbler with light brown stubble. Both of them are trying out, and they're praying that they both make it so they can move to Nacogdoches together.

"Drop!" bellows Brad, all of a sudden.

On the mat, a girl has fallen straight to the ground, none of the guys having reached her in time to break her fall. All the men stop what they're doing and plunge to the ground for fifty push-ups while the girl slowly stands up and walks it off.

"She's picking mat out of her teeth," someone jokes.

But Brad takes this seriously — hence the push-up punishment. The number-one rule of cheerleading for men is simple: don't let your girl hit the ground.

Almost on cue, Sierra runs back into the gym. Brad's eyes follow her as she picks up a bag and rushes back out the door. "I like her more every day," says Brad.

I've never felt so tall. At 5'4", I'm used to being one of the shorter people in any given room. But as I stand at the corner of the mat surrounded by women stretching in the minutes before tryouts, I tower over them. Even the ones who appeared tall from afar, like Samantha, still only reach my nose.

Brad and his wife stroll through the gymnasium holding hands. His wife is half his size, a former college cheerleader herself, with a stylish bob and a balloon for a stomach. She's six months pregnant. Michael Preston, SFA's Director of Student Life and Brad's boss, walks behind them. "This is the worst day for me," he says. "There's all these kids and I don't know their abilities and they're trying all this stuff. I just hope they signed the waiver forms."

Brad, assistant coach Trisha, Michael, and I take seats at the judging table that faces the mat. Trisha neatly arranges stacks of information sheets and judging scorecards, all of which she's printed with matching Lumberjack logos in the corner. "Five minutes until we start," yells Brad, cupping his hands to his mouth.

The women strip off their sweatpants and T-shirts and stand in skimpy sports bras and shorts that barely cover their butt cheeks. A few of them shiver — the air-conditioning is on full blast.

Samantha is one of the first to be summoned. She stands up and claps as she walks to the mat, getting out her nervous energy.

For their tryout, each cheerleader must show Brad three things — their best running tumbling pass, the tumbling they can do from standing, and, finally, the three partner stunts that best show off their skills. For her running tumbling, Samantha will attempt a Full — the Holy Grail of college cheerleading, where a cheerleader flips and twists for one full rotation in the air before landing. Samantha looks pumped as she runs, and her body whips perfectly into the air. But she stumbles to her knees as she lands. "Oh, man," she says, throwing a fist toward the ground. Brad allows everyone one do-over on each move. She runs again. Handspring, handspring, Full. She lurches forward, her knees dropping to the mat again. It's not the way you want to start a tryout, but Samantha plays it off, turning to the others and pointing her index toward the ceiling.

Samantha is focused on redeeming herself in the partner stunts. But as she and her partner attempt a Rewind, he can't catch her feet. She falls like a defective Weeble. "Ugh," groans Samantha. They move on to a new stunt, and finally they nail it. Samantha kicks her left leg up in a move called a Heel Stretch. Her eyes are focused, unwavering from a point behind me on the wall. She hops down and bows.

Samantha's last stunt has a modest name: the Awesome. Her partner tosses her, catching both of her feet in one palm. Samantha's stomach muscles quiver as she holds the position for several seconds before hopping down. Samantha takes a seat, her thin lips in a straight line. "I tried out between two other girls — I'm 100 pounds and they're like eighty-five," she says. "Plus I didn't land a single tumbling pass. There's no way I made it." She sighs deeply.

The next group called to the mat is all men. "It's a sausagefest," someone behind me yells. As the guys get into place for their partner stunts, Yvette skips onto the mat, standing in front of guy #1. He throws her in the air like a juggler tossing pins. As she does a trick, Yvette blows kisses to the judging table. She hops down and high-fives her partner.

She moves over to the next guy in line — she'll be stunting with him as well. All in all, Yvette will stunt with five different guys today, her face glowing each time she's up in the air.

We're halfway through tryouts. Everyone is amazing, but it's hard not to feel jaded watching people do the same things over and over again. And then Sierra walks onto the mat.

As she stands before us, it's striking how much darker her tanned skin is than her bleached ponytail. She runs and turns a flawless Full. For her standing tumbling, she looks straight at the judging table and shuffles backwards, bending back toward the ground and flipping over before launching into another Full.

"That's a law of gravity I just don't understand," says Brad as the rest of the cheerleaders clap. "I need more girls with Fulls."

Sierra pauses, her chest heaving as a partner steps behind her.

"Well, are you gonna go?" asks Brad.

"Not yet, my legs hurt too bad," she says.

Brad looks impatient as she takes another minute before flying into a Rewind. As she stands up in midair, she pulls her leg to the point where it appears to bend backwards. Her eyes bug out as she molds her mouth into an O. From here, Sierra does a Double Down, the hardest dismount in cheerleading, where a flyer whips her legs together from whatever position she's in and spins twice like a log rolling in water. Sierra makes it look easy. Whispers arise from around the room.

Sierra gets ready for her next stunt, a Full Up, where a flyer rotates once as her partner throws her into place over his head. As her sneakers land in her partner's hands, Sierra turns to the side and brings her right leg behind her, grabbing her foot over her head in a move called a Scorpion. Her body flattens like a pancake as she pulls her foot higher. I'm prepared for her hip to pop out of its socket at any moment. She sticks out her tongue and Doubles Down.

"That's skills," says Brad quietly as Sierra walks off the mat and sits down, an ear-to-ear grin on her face.

Tryouts are done and a different mood settles over the gym. Nervousness has been replaced by anticipation. "Everyone listen up," yells Brad. "Good job. In two hours, the list will be posted on that bulletin board over there." He points to the corner of the gym at a board with scalloped borders. "If you don't make it, there are coaches from Trinity Valley, Navarro, and Kilgore here if you would like to talk to them."

"Go get some food and come back then," says Brad.

"It's Like She's in an Antigravity Room."

I feel like I'm privy to a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as I sit in a conference room with Brad, Trisha, three community college coaches, and several SFA cheer alumni who make a point of coming to practices. They act as advisors for the program, and Brad wants their opinions on who should make the squad. The twelve of us sit in cushy black executive chairs, the corporate glamour hindered only by the chalkboards and two-way mirror that takes up one whole wall. One of the alums lays his hand on the table, four fingers sparkling with championship rings. Each one has a different pattern. My favorite has an axe shape beveled on a faux ruby.

"It's like she's in an antigravity room," says Brad.

"Sierra is not going to like her — she's used to being the star," someone notes.

"I should also say that she's trying out at Louisville," says Brad.

"Oh, Louisville will take her," moans one of the alumni women.

If SFA is the Yale of college cheerleading, then the University of Louisville is Harvard. In the NCA's Cheer IA division, Louisville is also after their fifth straight title this year. At Nationals, there are many divisions — Cheer IA, Cheer I, Cheer II, All-Girl I, All-Girl II, Small Coed I, Small Coed II, and Junior Colleges. A National Champion will be named in each.

But even though Louisville is Cheer IA and SFA is Cheer I, the two are rivals. At NCA Nationals there is a Grand National Champion — the team that scores the highest in the competition out of all the divisions. Louisville has been the Grand National Champion four years running. SFA hasn't won since 2000. Still, as Brad told me earlier, Division 1A teams are not better by virtue. "The division you're in is based on how many people attend football games — it doesn't have anything to do with the cheerleaders," he explained. "We can beat everyone, we've done it before."

Brad's interested in two more of the video tryouts. "She's ultra-skinny, which worries me," says Brad, as a girl with limbs the size of pencils stunts on the screen. "But tiny helps, just in the way that big helps when you're playing football." He also likes a tape from a partner pair from Georgia. The rest of the tapes he disperses to the junior college coaches like trading cards.

They move on to the nitty-gritty of judging the cheerleaders from tryouts. "Right now, I'm looking at twenty girls and sixteen guys, but I can only take thirty total," says Brad, blue eyes glued to his list. "I usually take twenty-seven, but I want a few extra because I always lose a few to grades. I'm not dragging ditches again this year." Because the university has stiff academic standards, last summer Brad had several cheerleaders who made the team but did not get admitted to the school itself.

Since there are fewer guys to debate, Brad reads out the names of the definites in his mind as a junior college coach scrawls the names on a chalkboard. "You're taking him?" someone asks, as Brad names a tumbler whose GPA was so abysmal last year that he lost his scholarship and had to leave school.

"I'm willing to take a gamble on him," says Brad.

"Can you just have him take an easy schedule?" someone asks.

"If he took underwater basket weaving and sticking his finger up his butt, he still wouldn't show up for class," says Brad, shaking his head. "But he shows up to practice."

The group moves on to discussing the women. Brad takes a minute to look over his list. "We've got six returners. They're all definites," he says, calling Yvette's name along with the others. "And those three from the videos are definites." All nine names are written on the chalkboard.

"I would take Sierra over anyone," says one of the junior college coaches.

"Oh, I'm taking Sierra," says Brad, agreeing. The junior college coach etches her name in bubbly letters at the top of the list.

They've barely mentioned a quarter of the women at tryouts, and already there are twelve names on the board. Brad looks at his score sheets, crossing off the absolute nos. "So there's four women left, but I only have one more spot," says Brad. He reads the four names in the running for the last spot. Samantha is one of them.

Brad rubs his eyes. "What do you think of her?" he asks, referring to a tiny blonde.

"She's got legs like a thoroughbred," snips one of the guys. No one flinches, but it's amazing to me that someone would say this in a room packed with women.

"I like Marly," says someone else. "Her tumbling is better, and she's beautiful in the air."

"I like Samantha," one of the alumni finally says.

"But she's a headcase about her Full," says Brad. "She just can't do it."

Samantha's junior college coach rushes to her defense. "She'll work on it, she'll get it," she says.

Someone at the table has a suggestion. "If you took all four of them, that would only put you at thirty-three people."

Brad shakes his head. "We have twenty-seven full scholarships, so if I take thirty and a few leave, that's perfect," says Brad. Since at Nationals, only twenty people will perform, if Brad takes too many people now, not only will he be over budget but he could also have a morale problem if a third of the squad members are alternates.

"I need to talk to Michael Preston and see if I can take more people," says Brad. Someone passes him his cell, and he dials his boss's number. "Pick up your phone," says Brad. But there's no answer.

"I don't like alternates," says Brad. "I want everyone to be on equal footing, I want everyone to have a scholarship." His scholarship philosophy is unusual — in most sports, coaches don't hesitate to give uneven scholarships based on talent, seniority, and NCAA allotment.

"Some will feel lucky just to make it," nudges a junior college coach. "Maybe give two people a half scholarship? Is anyone rich and won't mind?"

"None of these kids should have to pay to cheer," says Brad. "I'm at a standstill. I don't know what to do."

I glance at my watch — the list was supposed to be posted half an hour ago.

"Take more and hope a few don't show up," someone says.

"But if they all show up, I'm jacked," says Brad. "I've gotta cut someone. Samantha has to be cut."

"I don't understand. Why take those two girls from the videos over Samantha?" asks a former SFA cheerleader, her mouth agape. "Samantha can do those same stunts."

"An itty-bitty girl can just do more. Samantha's tall," says Brad. "It's physics."

"Samantha's like 5'1"," says the alumna, reading my mind. "Look, she can't be an elite stunter. Whoever gets her for a partner will pout," says Brad. "My partner in college was taller and I didn't mind, but a lot of people don't stunt well with a tall girl. I'm just not that impressed with Samantha. She's gotta be cut."

"She works hard, and she's really developing," her junior college coach protests.

Brad looks at his list. "Shit." He buries his head in his hands. "We gotta get the team posted ASAP. If I post thirty-three names, Michael Preston is gonna have a heart attack," he says. "I've gotta come up with a plan." The room goes silent, glances shooting across the table. Finally Brad picks up his phone and calls Michael Preston again. This time, he leaves a message. "Remember how I told you I'm gonna take extra cheerleaders this year so we don't have the same situation as last year? Well, I'm gonna take eight extras," he says. Everyone in the room laughs. "We'll probably lose a lot, but if not, then I know I'll have additional fund-raising to do." He hangs up the phone and wipes a bead of sweat off his brow. "Someone come write this list."

"You're Exploding My Budget."

By the time the list goes up, it's an hour and a half later than Brad had promised. Some of the SFA hopefuls have waited in the bleachers with baited breath, while others have left and come back bearing McDonald's bags. Cheerleaders are not a carrot-stick-and-grilled-chicken-breast kind of crowd.

A stocky alumni cheerleader walks in, holding a sheet of paper. On it are the names of the thirty-three people who will be SFA Lumberjack cheerleaders. All eyes turn to him as he strolls with an air of circumstance. He loosens a pushpin from the bulletin board and secures the list in place.

The cheerleaders surge forward and crane their necks to get a look. Sierra's bleached ponytail is visible at the front of the pack — she quickly finds her name and walks away, a sly grin on her face. Yvette is a few steps behind her and nods as she sees her name at the top. As the others check the list, there are no big, dramatic reactions — no screams of joy or tears of sorrow. I have a feeling they could tell when they walked off the mat whether they made the team. They've had the past few hours to process their fate.

Samantha walks into the auditorium, her fingers interlocked with her boyfriend's. They edge their way to the front of the pack. Samantha uses her index finger to scan the list. At the bottom of the final column is the name she least expected to see: Samantha Frazer. She jumps up and down, clueless to the fact that a half hour of debate went into the decision to give her a chance. She grasps her boyfriend in a hug. He congratulates her, but his face remains stern. His name is not on the list — he'll have to settle for SFA's less prestigious Small Coed squad. (Many colleges have multiple squads — again, it largely depends on what the coach and school want.)

"When I saw my name, I almost had a heart attack, but at the same time, I saw that he didn't make it," says Samantha, walking away. "I'm a big ball of emotions right now."

Fifteen minutes later the new team meets in a classroom across campus. Plastic chairs have been lined up in exact rows, but as people file in, they pull them into clusters with their friends. People hug and congratulate each other. Brad walks in, folder in hand. Everyone gets quiet. "Congratulations. You just made the team that is probably the best in the country right now." "Go Jacks!" screams Yvette in a high pitch.

Brad passes around a packet to each cheerleader. "This is our contract. Our mission is to set the cheer standard for around the country and to be exemplary ambassadors for the school. You must maintain a 2.0 GPA. You must be available for events over the holidays, even winter break. You will have no spring break — that's when we'll be getting everything in line for Nationals," he says, barely looking up.

"Your scholarship will be forfeited if you break the college's drug or alcohol policies," he continues. "Do not do anything in uniform that would be deemed inappropriate — that includes drinking, smoking, and stealing from gas stations." Two guys exchange a glance and crack up. I'm guessing there's a backstory.

"Just don't do stupid stuff," he says. "I'm not your father, I can't tell you what to do, but if you get in trouble, there will be repercussions." Samantha leans back in her chair, using her knee as a desk to sign her contract. Sierra is perched on the edge of her seat. People stand up and walk toward Brad to hand him their signed contracts. Many of the women have light bruises in the shape of fingerprints on their waists.

Michael Preston walks in the room. Without saying a word, Brad follows him into the hall. All I can hear as they walk away is, "Are you crazy? You're exploding my budget." The cheerleaders don't seem to notice — they continue gabbing. Michael and Brad return a few minutes later. "From here on out, you guys are Stephen F. Austin cheerleaders," says Michael Preston. "We try to keep it fun around here — that's why we're so good. We just won four National Championships in a row. There's already pressure for the fifth. This year, I wanna score higher than Louisville. I want that Grand National Champion trophy."

"S! F! A!" chants Yvette, the new squad members following her lead. "S! F! A!"

The team forms a circle in the middle of the room, and Brad explains a team cheer. "Put your axes up," he says, sticking out his arm, his thumb holding the pinky and ring finger down. They yell together, "Ohhh … Jack, Jack, Jack, L-C-L-M, '07 National Champs," pounding their axes toward the ceiling.