Friday night lights, short skirts, pom poms and crowds cheering are all a part of…
Most people in today’s society believe that cheerleading is , one, not a sport and, two, for girls. Why is there a stigma against men in cheerleading? Many say they are “gay” or “sissies”, but what if they just actually have a passion for dance? Recently, there has been a spark in the news because two male cheerleaders have joined the Los Angeles Rams.
However, this sport has been co-ed for a long time now. For example, in some high schools cheer teams compete in competitive cheer but there hasn’t been any representation until now in the National Football League. Napoleon Jinnies and Quinton Peron made history on Sunday night when they made their first appearance at the 2019 Super Bowl cheering on their team. These two male cheerleaders are classically trained dancers and are natives of California that made it through a hard try out; like the TV show Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team. Football teams have male stuntmen that help the cheerleaders, but there hasn’t been any representation of men dancing with the cheerleaders until now.
The pair were featured on Good Morning America where their cheer captain commented some great commentary, “They really just fit the bill to be a Los Angeles Rams cheerleader,” the Rams’ cheer captain Emily Leibert said as she sat beside Peron and Jinnies on GMA. “They are intelligent, they are eloquent, they are more than qualified to be ambassadors out in the community.” She continued, “They bring so much energy and there’s something so magnetic about their performance. You really can’t take your eyes off them.”
Perron and Jinnies’ exposure has brought inspiration to another young man named Jesse Hernandez to try out for the New Orleans Saints making him one of three male cheerleaders in the NFL. Instead of receiving backlash, Napoleon and Quinton have received a lot of positivity and many other men have expressed how they are going to try out for different cheer teams in the years coming. According to Newsbeat, fans reactions to the NFL male cheerleaders were often positive to indifferent with many saying “it’s 2019.” If it wasn’t for Napoleon and Quinton, male cheerleading would still be looked down upon and as others try out the presence of men in cheerleading it will only become normal, appreciated and enjoyable.
Check out this video from Inside Edition documenting their experience making the team: