The History of Cheerleading Believe it or not, but cheerleading started in the late 1800’s in Great Britain when people were cheering at competitive sporting events which then spread to the United States of America. In the United States, the first cheerleaders were from a group of six men from Princeton University, which was called the Princeton Pep Club. The man that organized the Princeton Pep Club was Thomas Peebler. Thomas Peebler was a graduate of Princeton University who started a cheer/chant of “Sis Boom Rah”. Cheerleading has come a long since the Princeton Pep Club, but yet it is still not receiving the respect it should be receiving in today’s world. The history of cheerleading over the past century has evolved from six men in the Princeton Pep Club chanting at a football game to one of today’s most popular and difficult sports for both girls and boys. Cheerleading started as a man’s sport and overtime evolved into a sport that is based mainly on females. When people now a days think of cheerleading, they think of girls flaunting around in their short skirt and tight uniform top, but cheerleading began as a male sport. During the year of 1903, at a University of Minnesota football game, there was a group of six males that created a yell squad, which led to a male cheer fraternity called Gamma Sigma (iSport, History of Cheerleading). The Cheerleading State, which consisted of a group of males who led crowd chants during basketball and football

games, was started in 1905 by a group from Texas A&M. The sport of cheerleading remained mostly men until the mid 1920’s, which is when girl’s started to discover and participate in the sport of cheerleading, which then led to girl’s finding their passion for sports. Women joined the sport of cheerleading around the 1923’s and began to dominate the sport of cheerleading during World War 11,