Leagues

NBA Cheerleading
NBA Cheerleading is a professional cheerleading league in the United States that supports professional basketball teams.

[edit] NFL Cheerleading
NFL Cheerleading is a professional cheerleading league in the United States that supports professional football teams.

[edit] CFL Cheerleading
CFL Cheerleading is a professional cheerleading league in Canada that supports professional football teams.

College Cheerleading

Most colleges and universities have a cheerleading squad. Most squads are coed (consisting of both men and women), but all-girl college squads are growing in rapid numbers in an effort to give female cheerleaders (especially female bases) who have cheered on an all-girl high school or all-star squads an opportunity to cheer at the collegiate level without making the transition to a coed squad. Unlike high school cheerleading, college squads can perform difficult stunts like rewinds, 2 1/2 high pyramids, and flipping and twisting basket tosses. Most college squads don't compete, but a handful of them compete nationally. Top collegiate squads include the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, Morehead State University, the University of Central Florida, the University of Alabama, and Stephen F. Austin University.


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Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer

In 1948, Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer, of Dallas, TX and a former cheerleader at Southern Methodist University formed the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) as a way to hold cheer leading clinics. In 1949, The NCA held its first clinic in Huntsville, TX with 52 girls in attendance. "Herkie" contributed many "firsts" to the sport including the founding of Cheerleader & Danz Team uniform supply company, inventing the herkie, (where one leg is bent towards the ground and the other is out to the side as high as it will stretch in the toe touch position) and creating the "Spirit Stick". By the 1960s, college cheerleaders began hosting workshops across the nation, teaching fundamental cheer skills to eager high school age girls. In 1965, Fred Gastoff invented the vinyl pom pom and it was introduced into competitions by the International Cheer leading Foundation (now the World Cheer leading Association or WCA). Organized cheer leading competitions began to pop up with the first ranking of the "Top Ten College Cheer leading Squads" and "Cheerleader All America" awards given out by the International Cheer leading Foundation in 1967. In 1978, America was introduced to competitive cheer leading by the first broadcast of Collegiate Cheer leading Championships on CBS.


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Cheer Stunts

Stunts are defined as building performances displaying a person's flexibility. Stunting has been referred to as building pyramids. Stunts range from two-legged stunts to one-legged extended stunts and high flying basket tosses. There are numerous variations of a basic stunts. A stunt group usually involves up to four bases holding or tossing another cheerleader in the air. In general, all-girl cheer leading stunts usually involve up to four other bases while co-ed ("partner") stunts are comprised of only one base (usually male) and his partner (the flyer, usually female). Pyramids are multiple groups of stunts connected aerially by the flyers. This connection may be made in a variety of ways, from a simple linking of hands to having a multi-level pyramid, with the flyers already in the air acting as primary bases for another flyer or flyers on top of them.


cited from wikipedia