All the stories I am reading today seem to be about the lies of history. You think you know something, but you don’t. It is Christopher Columbus all over again. For example, November 2nd is Daniel Boone’s birthday. He was born in 1734 near Reading, Pennsylvania. When he was young, his family moved to North Carolina, where Daniel loved to hunt in the forest. He educated himself by taking books with him on his hunting trips. He went on long hunting and exploring expeditions, and he crossed the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. I have not done this, even though it is just up the road. But I have driven through that giant tunnel and I have to say, it is pretty awesome, except for the Kentucky part. But, almost everything else that people “know” about his life is fiction. Even during his lifetime, Boone was a figure of legend. He was captured by Indians, and he lived with them as an adopted son before he escaped. This is because Daniel Boone was a man of few words, so his biographers took free rein and invented long, eloquent speeches for him. They also embellished the facts, shocking I know, these biographies have Boone wrestling with bears or swinging away from Indians on vines. I mean really, have you been to Kentucky? He became so famous as a pioneer hero that the poet Lord Byron included him as a character in his epic poem Don Juan, in 1823. Fortunately, he had a good sense of humor about it. One quote that we are fairly certain he did say was, I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. Men get this. But that is not the only story I read today that defies those “fact that everyone knows” Take Cheerleading. Today is the anniversary of the creation of cheerleading. All those supposedly and stereotypically cute, petite, stupid, and slutty girl girls in skimpy outfits going YAY while the manly men do manly things in manly ways. Occasionally there is a boy, but he is either totally gay, or an incredibly devious yet insecure horndog. That is, if the movies are to be believed. But Cheerleading began in a completely different place. It made its debut at the University of Minnesota on this date in 1898. You knew I was going to touch on the 19th century somehow, didn’t you? Pep clubs had been around for a couple of decades, especially at Princeton, where their all-male pep club led the crowd in unified chanting to motivate the football team. In 1884, Princeton alum Thomas Peebles moved to Minneapolis, and brought the pep club concept along to the University of Minnesotas football games. Two of the universitys rugby players, John Adams and Win Sargent, came up with a team yell that same year to cheer on the rugby team: Ski-U-Mah, which neatly rhymes with Rah, rah, rah! But up until that point, all of these chants and cheers were led from the stands. Then, in the fall of 1898, after the University of Minnesotas football team had suffered three consecutive losses, and fans were desperate for a way to raise team spirit for the seasons final game against Northwestern. The pep club brainstormed plans to further involve the spectators, and nominated a group of yell leaders to lead the crowd in the now-traditional chant, Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-U-Mah! Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Minn-e-so-ta! One of the yell leaders, Johnny Campbell, took the radical step of running out to the playing field with a megaphone. He faced the crowd, whipped them to a frenzy, and got much of the credit for Minnesotas victory. Cheerleading was a male-only sport until 1923, when the first female cheerleaders took the field. Aw, look at her, she thinks she can be a cheer leader. She is just so spunky. You go right ahead there little camper, just let us know when you get tired and we will be right here to take over for you. Surprisingly, this phenomenon didnt really take off until the 1940s, when the male student body was depleted by World War II. The 20s also saw the advent of acrobatics, human pyramids, and dance moves to accompany the fight songs and chants. Because, as it turns out, women are cleverly inventive, more adventurous than men, and terribly viciously competitive against each other, which by the way scares us delicate manly creatures to no end. But, everyone likes a good scare, now and again, don’t we?
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 15:37:50 +0000