According to a recent Newsweek article, cheerleading is now more popular than ever. It’s even exploding internationally, which by the way sounds fairly dangerous.  Anyway, this story brought me back to my own pom-pom days.

I don’t talk about it much, but I was a bit of a pioneer in the male cheerleading field.

Listeners may be too young to remember my court case, but before I took “the man” to court, all male cheerleaders were required to wear the same thing as the girls.  I wouldn’t stand for it, as my limbs get cold easily and my leg hair is too thick to shave with conventional human razors.

Anyway, the rest is school spirit history.  Guys got their cheering pants, and I experienced the kind of respect and dignity that only comes from being a male cheerleader.