what is cheer professors?

Cheer Professors is the home base for all cheerleaders, coaches, researchers, parents, grandparents, guardians, fans, and anyone interested in learning more about or discussing the sport of cheerleading. Our mission is to provide interesting, fun, research-driven insights about all things cheer-related from current events to historical analysis. We are excited to announce the upcoming publishing of our new book Cheer Matters: Gender, Race, Sex and Belonging in an American Institution in 2026! In the meantime, check out our blog posts, FAQs, featured books, and scholarly resources, or contact us.

who are the cheer professors?

The Cheer Professors are a group of academics, researchers, and writers all with an interest in cheerleading who teamed up to create Cheer Matters, and the content on this website. They come from all different backgrounds—just like cheerleaders—each with their own unique interests and topics of research. They have more professional and academic accolades than we can count and while we could use this space to list all those out we wanted to get a little more personal.

So to get to know our cheer professors a little better outside of their professional lives we asked them three questions:

1. Were you ever a cheerleader? If yes, when and where?

2. How did you get interested in researching cheerleading?

3. If you were to be on a cheer team, would you want to be a base, flyer, spotter, or tumbler? Why?

Here are their responses

  1. I was a cheerleader at Winnsboro High School (Louisiana) from 1976-1980. I was head cheerleader my senior year. I was a cheerleader when all you had to do was a cartwheel and a split. We tried out during recess in front of the student body who then voted. It was strictly a popularity contest.

  2. As a feminist researcher, I went into the closet for many years about my former cheerleader self, viewing (incorrectly) that cheerleading and feminism were incompatible.  While a professor at Oklahoma State University, I was part of a feminist research team studying middle school girls and leadership.  We spent a lot of time at a middle school in Ponca City just hanging out with girls and asking them a lot of questions. Whenever we would ask them “who are the leaders at your school,” many of them would say the cheerleaders.  So, Pam Bettis and I started diving deeper into cheerleading and discovered that the Ponca City School District had been embroiled in a controversy five years earlier about racial inequalities on the cheer teams.  As sociologists, we really got interested in the policy changes that were made to encourage more diverse representation.  We presented our findings at the American Educational Research Association conference and were approached by an editor from Palgrave Press. She asked us if we had ever considered writing a book about cheerleading. From that conversation, Cheerleader! An American Icon was birthed, and we have been writing about cheerleading pretty much ever since then.

  3. For sure—a flyer. I like to be the center of attention plus I think that in this day and time, I’d be pretty good at it because I’m athletic. (In addition to being a cheerleader,  I played softball and tennis in high school).  I also think it would be exhilarating to be thrown into the air and then do all kinds of crazy stuff coming down.

P.S. As the editor of Cheer Matters, Dr. Adams is also kind of like our team captain.

Natalie Adams

  1. I have been a cheerleader my whole life. My earliest memories are of watching my mom coach her high school’s cheer team and attending cheerleading youth camps in the summertime. I began cheering competitively when I was 9 and fell in love. Cheerleading was my entire life and I cheered through high school for multiple all-star gyms and schools in Ohio and Louisiana. Although I ultimately decided against cheering in college, I quickly realized I couldn’t live without cheerleading and began taking tumbling classes at the local all-star gym. From there I became a coach, spent a summer doing UCA Staff, and now will be coaching at my home gym of Buckeye Cheer Elite when I move home post-graduation.

  2. I would say the opportunity to formally research cheer fell into my arms, but I think others reading this might disagree. During my senior year of college, I was assigned a research paper for a class called Gender and Society and I thought Oh, here is my chance to finally write on something I am REALLY passionate about. That paper, titled “Cheerleading, the Gendering of Sport, and How Feminity’s Historical Lack of Value is Harming Athletes,” ended up surpassing the 10-page requirement by 20 pages but it did far more than get me an A+ in that class. After an hour-long conversation and reading my paper, Dr. Adams offered me the opportunity to write for Cheer Matters and then later the position of Student Assistant to help build Cheer Professors. That all happened in the span of about 4 months and now I’m here. Honestly, my head is still spinning but I could not be more grateful to be able to be involved in the sport I love in such a meaningful way.

  3. Everyone always thinks I would be a flyer because I’m short and pretty outgoing but I never wanted to work on my flexibility enough to really do it. I have always been a base. I like that basing makes me feel strong, confident, and capable. It is always how I felt I could best support my team. Though I have said for years my dream is to fly the center prep in pyramid because of the sass that requires. As center dancer on quite a few of my teams, I really think that would let my flying abilities shine (Open teams hmu).

Isabelle Bennington

  1. I never was a cheerleader, although I was the mascot for one football season for my high school, so I know pretty much all the cheers for Lockport (NY) High School Class of 1991.

  2. As someone who grew up loving sports—basketball and hockey primarily—I saw how constraining and complicated identity was for girls and women who played sports. Look too “cute” and you won’t be taken seriously but if you don’t look “cute,” well that wouldn’t work either. As I pursued my master’s degree, I became interested in how women carved out identities for themselves in arenas that tried to force an identity on them. Cheerleaders did just that—they took this “appropriately feminine” activity and created a highly athletic space for themselves. I was fascinated and wanted to learn more.

  3. I would definitely be the base. I’m sturdy, dependable, and want my team to succeed. And I don’t like being the center of attention.

Amy Mortiz

  1. I started cheerleading in fourth grade in the Pop Warner program and continued through my sophomore year of high school. When I first started cheerleading as a young girl, I liked the inherent community and femininity within the sport. I always found it difficult to make friends and I wasn't one for overt physical exercise, so I appreciated the friendships I built through cheer along with the fun movements and dance we would do for games. However, when I got to high school cheerleading became more competitive and with that came a push towards advanced athleticism, something I was not as interested in progressing in. I still loved cheerleading at football games, I loved being part of a team and building friendships, but I hated training and practicing gymnastics. Quitting cheerleading was hard but it allowed me to pursue things I enjoyed more, like reading books and working part-time at an ice cream stand. 

  2. I started researching cheerleading because I was interested in gender, especially how the body allows us to communicate gender. Cheerleading had long sustained an image in my mind as the ultimate way to communicate one's femininity. Everything from the uniform, with its twirly skirt, to the ostentatiously fake curls, to the cute dance moves felt like it allowed me, an awkwardly petite preteen, to embody the identity of womanhood. 

  3. When I was younger, I was a flyer, but I hated it. I hated the basket tosses and hard landings and the risks of injury. I always wanted to be a back, who could stabilize and provide support. But at 4'9", I was never made for anything other than flying. That said, if you asked me honestly, I'd say I think cheerleading was always more fun when it focused more on the cheers, jumps, and dancing, rather than the stunts. I know that might be sacrilegious, but I always loved the yelling and the clapping and the pompoms more.  

Caitlyn M. Jarvis

  1. Nope! Mostly because I'm not the most flexible person, so I couldn’t contribute much to the tumbling. I did try gymnastics for a little while, but it didn’t go well and didn’t last long. Haha. That’s when I realized my talents were better suited elsewhere, so I switched to soccer, volleyball, track, and cross country. I became known as one of the biggest 'cheerleaders' for my teammates. I also went to a cheerleading camp when I was younger because, like Caitlyn, I loved the cheering aspect of it. That enthusiasm carried over to other sports I participated in and when I’d watch high school sports! 

  2. I struggled with an eating disorder in high school and disordered eating in college. During that time, I began researching these issues and discovered the intersection of eating disorders and disordered eating in sports like cheerleading.

  3. Probably the base, but mostly the one holding the signs and screaming at the top of my lungs! 

Ashleigh n. Shields

  1. Contrary to popular belief, I actually was a cheerleader! Albeit, only for one or two football games, if I recall correctly... Growing up as a gymnast, I remember there being quite the contention between gymnastics versus cheerleading, and I never had any interest in picking up poms. That is, until a couple of my friends in middle school rallied a crew together to cheer for our 7-8th grade football team. See photographic evidence attached! St. Stephen's Middle School, 2011, Saginaw, Michigan, USA.

  2. I started graduate school as a Master's student in the fall of 2020 (great year!), and was flipping through various streaming services trying to find a new reality TV show to binge. I randomly came across Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team on Paramount+, and remembered loving the show when I was a wee tween-aged gymnast. When I watched it then, I found a sense of comfort and familiarity with the coaching styles and rigorous training regimes the 'candidates' would have to endure. Coming back to it as a graduate student–having been exposed to Physical Cultural Studies and Sociology of Sport literature no less, taking a keen interest in (intersectional) feminist-related inquiry in sporting spaces–I rewatched the show in awe, unable to turn off my newly found critical (physical) cultural studies lens. To my utter shock, I found next to no academic literature that focused solely on "America's Sweethearts." Given I started my Master's degree (virtually) in the fall of 2020, and the ambiguity prompted by COVID-19 related precautions, I analyzed Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team for my Master's Thesis research, which my advisor–jokingly–aptly appointed as "the perfect COVID" thesis. 

  3. Tumbler! No question. Thinking back to my time in gymnastics, I was always a strong tumbler and was never as fearful trying new tumbling skills, as opposed to release moves on the uneven bars or flipping on the balance beam. I think tumbling is also where the two sports best overlap with one another.  

Lauren R. Nowosatka

  1. I’ve never been a cheerleader, but I always dreamed of being a flyer. Unfortunately my 5’10” height and inability to do even a simple cartwheel put those dreams to rest. 

  2. Brandi Levy’s 2021 Supreme Court win caught my attention. I then became interested in the intersection between cheerleading and the law and how that fits in the complex fabric of the First Amendment. Ms. Levy’s case serves as an important reminder that cheer is worthy of academic study, an important part of American culture, and anything but trivial. 

  3. If I were on a cheer team, I’d love to be a flyer! Their ability to soar through the air with such precision and control is so impressive. But being 5'10", I'd most certainly be better suited as a base!

Zoie Comer

  1. I was emphatically NOT a cheerleader. We actually didn’t have cheerleaders at my high school, so I didn’t have a chance to be a cheerleader, but even if we had, I would definitely not have taken them up on the opportunity. Like the many lesbians I discuss in my chapter, I liked to think of myself as a “real” athlete in high school. I started playing Varsity high school soccer in eighth grade and played basketball on JV and Varsity teams from 7th grade on. I also played Varsity field hockey in high school and Varsity lacrosse, although I didn’t enjoy either of those sports. I also was, not surprisingly, good at softball, but we didn’t have a team.

  2. My interest in researching cheerleading is less a reflection of my own interest in cheerleading per se and more of a result of my long-standing scholarly investment in Girls’ Studies. Whether I like it or not, cheerleading’s significant place in American girls’ culture is pretty hard to deny, yet I would argue that it has been clearly neglected as an object of study in academic examinations of girls’ culture. Also, I truly love Babbit’s film But I’m a Cheerleader and so jumped at the chance to write about it.

  3.  Again, I fully admit that I do not know a lot about cheerleading, but I would suspect that the role of “base” would be undoubtedly assigned to me, were I on a team. I am not a small person and certainly no “tumbler,” and making me “fly” would not be an enviable task for anyone (involving serious hydraulics) and not a welcome suggestion to me. So, “base” it is.

Barbara Jane Brickman

  1. Yes! I became a cheerleader at the age of 40, when I joined Sacramento Spirit. This was a LGBTQ-allied adult performance team in Sacramento, CA that performed at various community events to raise funds for charitable causes. We weren’t very good, and I was by far the oldest member, but I joined for the research opportunity. I had already begun studying cheerleading by then, and figured, what self-respecting ethnographer would pass up the opportunity to get personally involved? There is a big difference between observation and participant observation and I jumped at the chance to do the latter. Plus, I was drawn to the LGBTQ allyship. I had no prior cheer experience before, though I was athletic and involved in many different sports.

  2. I became interested in studying cheerleading back in graduate school because, as a Canadian recently transplanted to the U.S., I was curious about the iconic status of cheerleading in American culture its continued popularity/relevance even after the passage of Title IX. I didn’t have the opportunity to follow through on my interest until I took my first job at U Penn, and began working with Emily West, a new graduate student there. We discussed doing a research project together on cheerleading and decided to go for it. Cheerleading had some of the qualities as my earlier work on daytime talkshows—highly popular, highly performative, and highly contested.

  3. Actually, I would want to be the coach, so I could give orders without having to do the physical partl! But if I had to choose an active role, I suppose it would be flyer because that’s what I have the most experience with. If actual skill level were no barrier, however, I’d choose tumbler—how cool is that to catapult your body through space, twisting and flipping and defying gravity? I have and always had zero gymnastics ability, so I admire it in others. 

Laura Grindstaff

  1. No, I was never a cheerleader.

  2. Similar to Laura I was fascinated by cheerleading as a Canadian who moved to the US. Although there was a cheerleading squad at my high school, the activity was not as common and did not loom as large in the culture as it does in the United States, where I moved for graduate school. I got interested in researching cheerleading because of Laura! I was taking her ethnographic methods class and she offered the opportunity to join her in the project about college cheerleading.

  3. Probably a tumbler. I did gymnastics growing up and floor was my favorite part of it. The tumbling is exciting and visually impressive but not as death-defying as the flying, where one small mistake could lead to disaster—bad for the flyer, and such a huge responsibility for the base and the spotter.

Emily West

  1. I was never a cheerleader, I did play in my high school marching band, and always enjoyed playing during Friday night lights.

  2. My current book project is a history of Mexican women in the U.S. during the twentieth century. I highlight the ways in which their sporting participation contributed to identity formation, institutional and transnational belonging, as well as political organizing. While conducting research on the Chicana/o Movement in Texas I kept reading about the student-led walkouts in Crystal City, TX. As I dug deeper I found that cheerleaders were not only the reason why students walked out, but were active leaders in the movement. This prompted my interest on the sidelines, which often get overlooked within the sporting spectacle and their importance in place-making and belonging. 

  3. I'd say a base, I am strong and can hold it down.

Paulina Serrano

  1. I was a cheerleader in high school, fulfilling—at that point!—a lifelong dream.  I had always admired cheerleaders as a young girl, and I loved my experience cheering.  My high school cheer squad included 8 girls and 6 boys, which was unusual in Washington state; we saw both positive and negative reaction to our male yell leaders. 

  2. At Oregon State University, I was fortunate to join a research project with Dwaine Plaza and Kathleen Stanley looking at sports and gender norms and the history and changing role of men in collegiate cheerleading.

  3. I definitely would want to be the flyer on a cheer squad to soar to crazy heights; I was too tall to do it in real life! 

Michelle Inderbitzin

  1. No.

  2. I worked for a pro sports team that had disbanded a dance team shortly prior to news media coverage of the labor issues in pro cheerleading back in 2014. When media attention landed back on pro cheerleading in 2018, I was in the middle of my PhD program studying gender in sport organizations and knew I wanted to examine the topic from a research perspective

  3. I would want to be a flyer – I’d love the have the strength to make flying through the air look so effortless.

Lauren C. Hindman

Kathleen Stanley is a retired Senior Instructor of Sociology at Oregon State University.  Her courses were wide-ranging with many focusing on gender issues in society and popular culture. Check out her chapter with Dwaine Plaza and Michelle Inderbitzin in Cheer Matters!

Kathleen Stanley

Dwaine Plaza is a Professor of Sociology at Oregon State University and the co-editor of Carnival is Woman: Feminism and Performance in the Caribbean Mas and Higher Education Beyond COVID: New Teaching Paradigms and Promise. He has written extensively on the topic of Caribbean migration within the international diaspora. He also publishes in the area of race, and gender relations in the United States. Check out his chapter with Kathleen Stanley and Michelle Inderbitzin in Cheer Matters, “From Campus Leaders to Rowdy Boys:  Masculinity in College Cheerleading.”

Dwaine Plaza

Stanley J. Murphy is an attorney in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and a member of the bars of Alabama, Florida, the District of Columbia, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a graduate of Haverford College and the University of Alabama School of Law. He is a former Senior Counsel for the University of Alabama System and is an adjunct professor at its law school, where he teaches advanced seminars on Higher Education and Civil Immunity law. Check out his chapter with Zoie Comer in Cheer Matters!

Stanley J. Murphy

Amira Rose Davis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas-Austin. Her work has appeared in numerous scholarly and popular outlets, such as Washington Post and LA Times and she is completing her first book, “Can’t Eat a Medal”: The Lives and Labors of Black Women Athletes in the Age of Jim Crow (UNC Press). Davis is the co-host of the feminist sports podcast, “Burn it All Down” and the host of Season 3 of “American Prodigies: A History of Black Girls in Gymnastics.” Check out her chapter with Paulina Serrano in Cheer Matters, “Sidelined No More: Cheerleading, Embodied Activism, and the Politics of Racial Belonging.”

Amira Rose Davis