Surprisingly, it was an all-male activity, starting in early 1877. Thinking about how cheer is viewed today, you are considered weird if you participate in this sport as a male.

Females were permitted to participate in cheerleading in 1923 at the University of Minnesota, and it took a little while for other schools to follow their footsteps. “In the 1940s, collegiate men were drafted for World War II creating the opportunity for more women to make their way onto sporting event sidelines” (1) and this was the first time that women actually did something to take over.

1950’s was when cheerleading became more popular, the 60’s was when it was mainly considered a feminine sport, and the 70’s was when girls primarily cheered at public school games.

Wikipedia stated that as of 2005, 97% of modern cheerleaders were female, but cheerleading was co-ed in the collegiate level, making it a 50/50 split between males and females. Thinking about this statistic made sense to me, because whenever I had a cheerleading camp that brought in collegiate level teams to help us out, there was surprisingly more guys rather than girls.

I personally think it’s cool when a guy is on a cheerleading team, it creates diversity within the sport. The guys are always looked at differently when they are apart of the team, but they don’t care because they think the sport is fun, and they are really good at it! They don’t care what other guys think, and some even follow them, creating more of a co-ed team and making it even better.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerleading