Guys? Cheering? Hey, it’s a great way to get a workout

BY EILEEN BRADY
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Department-store cologne mixes with the scent of new leather coats, making the Williamsville holiday tournament smell like any other high school basketball event. The fans look the same, too — wearing their Christmas-gift clothing — but the sounds are a little unusual, especially in the corner where the Rochester High School cheerleaders shout at their team. 

“T − A − K − E, take it away!” 

The voices from the sideline are a little deeper. 

“T − A − K − E, take it away!” 

Something’s different. 

“T − A − K − E, take it away!” 

​Was that a baritone? 

Their megaphones help, but the male cheerleaders from Rochester High School add a little bass to the cheers for the boys’ team. They also add interest from fans, who are impressed as girls fly through the air launched by slingshot hands. 

Some fans, though, are simply impressed that a few of the cheerleaders are boys. 

Although they are more common than in the past, male high school cheerleaders are still rare. Sacred Heart-Griffin, Ursuline Academy and Riverton High School have two each; Auburn has four. 

Compared to 74,462 girls, just 745 boys participate in “competitive spirit squads” in the United States, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Five of them cheer at Rochester High School: seniors John Romang, David Leach, Jim Cousin and Josh Witcik and sophomore Jacob Hunter. 

Providing booming voices is just part of their function. They also help provide strength for “mounts,” “chairs,” “elevators” and “tosses” — the acrobatic moves that take cheering to a higher level, one closer to the gymnasium ceiling. 

No, they don’t wear skirts. Yes, they’ve already heard that joke. 

And they’re not there to make moves on the 12 girls on the squad. If that were the case, they say, they already would have quit by now. Being a cheerleader is too hard and too time-consuming for shallow motives. 

They see the girls more as sisters, not as potential dates. Nobody on the squad is going out together. 

The boys do have just one thing on their minds: They’re concentrating on not dropping the girls. A drop is the worst mistake imaginable. 

“‘Don’t drop ’em, don’t drop ’em, don’t drop ’em’ − that’s all I’m thinking,” says David, who sometimes gets teased about wanting to look up the cheerleaders’ skirts. 

“You can’t think about that. You have to focus,” says Jim, the only returning male cheerleader from last year. 

Jim says he has never let anyone fall. “I’d rather just thrash my body than them get hurt.”

The acrobatics come at a price, for the boys as well as the girls. On the first day of practice, John’s lip was split open and his nose got slammed. They regularly have red marks on their wrists where the girls hold on tightly. Often, their shoulders bear war wounds from where the girls stand on them. “You’d be surprised what a little rubber shoe can do,” Jim says. 

Jim joined midseason last year after another guy dropped out. Although Rochester alumnus Mike Bruce cheered in high school and then at Eastern Illinois University several years ago, it was the first time a significant number of boys volunteered to cheer together. 

“Last year, it took the kids awhile to accept it,” says Vicki Hannah, who co-sponsors the cheerleaders with Angie Simmons. 

The current guys are more willing to try new acrobatic routines, and they generally participate more. 

“Last year, the boys didn’t want to do any of the sideline cheers. But after attending camp, they learned them,” Vicki says. Four of the five attended a weeklong camp at the University of Illinois, where they learned cheers and proper techniques for the acrobatic routines from the male cheerleaders, who are more common on the college level. 

The guys now know about 25 cheers, but they admit they remember them better after hearing the girls first. 

So they usually come in on the second round of the cheer. It sounds better that way — “and we’re listening to see what they said,” John says. “We just have to be careful what we say — the megaphone makes it a little louder.”

When the boys joined the squad last year, it was frustrating to teach them the cheers, says senior Courtney Bell, who has been a cheerleader since seventh grade. However, she and the other girls enjoy having the boys there to perform more elaborate mounts. 

“Even the simplest T’s impress the crowds,” says Courtney, referring to the move in which the girls are held up horizontally above the guys’ heads, then flipped downward. 

Except for a couple of their apprehensive girlfriends, the guys say that girls in general are completely accepting. Other guys do the teasing. It doesn’t discourage them — not even David, who admits he catches the most flak from his peers and some adults. 

A former basketball player, David left the team last year to cheer them on this year. He was on his way to the weight room when Jim lured him to a cheerleading meeting and convinced him to join the squad by touting the physical benefits. 

Jim, who is “obsessed” with weightlifting, enjoys the workout. And if he hears a disparaging remark, he points out the strength aspect of cheering. “I always say, ‘I don’t see you pushing people over your head.’”

John and Josh already had decided a couple of years ago that they’d want to be cheerleaders, and they figured there was no better time than their senior year. 

As David points out, they get to watch all the basketball games free of charge, after getting free rides to the away games — two of the fringe benefits. 

​“If you don’t care what people think, your options in life are a lot wider,” John says.