The History of Dance Teams
MTV leaped into people’s homes with the advent of cable television on Aug. 1, 1981. Rap, hip-hop and other musical styles were on the rise and America was taken over by quick, flashy images. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” debuted and dance and choreography became bigger and more prevalent than ever before. Hip-hop dance, with its unique energy, lent itself naturally to cheerleading and dance team routines. It would be years before the genre was added as a category to dance team competitions. Though this may seem like ancient history, dance teams’ humble roots really began over a century earlier. Though cheerleading and dance teams are very different groups now, they both were born from a single assemblage of spirited individuals.
At Princeton University in the 1870s, a group of male college students organized themselves into a pep squad for reasons that are not altogether clear. It’s unclear if their purpose was to cheer for their school or celebrate their wealth and good fortune. Several years later, in the 1880s “yell captains” stood on the sidelines at Princeton’s football games rooting for their team. The first organized yell— reminiscent of today’s “Sis, Boom, Bah! Rah Rah Rah!”—was documented and laid the foundation for cheerleading.
Thomas Peebles, a Princeton yell captain, graduated in 1884 and took the famous cheer and the game of football to the University of Minnesota. During a losing streak, fans were frustrated and the yell captains were organized to rally their team past their losing ways. John Campbell, one of these yell captains, jumped out in front of the fans and began to shout. It was in that moment on Nov. 2, 1898 when modern day cheerleading was born. Minnesota won, the losing streak ended, and the power of pep and cheer was well on its way. The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression brought more pep squads to add enthusiasm and spirit to school games. Some squads remained in the stands, while others performed on the field with the drum and bugle corps in military drill style. These were the earliest of drill teams. All performed in an organized fashion, with precision, and gave the fans something exciting to anticipate. At the same time, girls began to join the ranks of cheerleading.
In 1929, a Texas physical education major and accomplished pianist named Gussie Nell Davis, was hired by the Greenville High School in Texas. She created a pep squad that would march onto the field during halftime. In the fall of 1930, her Flaming Flashes debuted. A few years later, after hearing a drum and bugle corps from another school, Davis added a corps to accompany her pep squad. Around the same time, Kay Teer, a determined high school student tried out to be a cheerleader at Edinburg High School in Texas. She made the squad, but was upset by the more than 50 girls who did not make the team. Inspired by the local ROTC marching squad, Teer asked her school’s principal if they could create a pep squad using the girls that didn’t make the cheerleading team to march on the field during halftime. The principal liked the idea and in the fall of 1930, the Red and Blue Sergeanettes debuted. Some consider this squad to be the first modern drill team.
Prohibition was over, but Dr. B.E. Masters, dean of Kilgore College in Texas, wanted to find a way to keep football fans in the stands during halftime, instead of gathering underneath them to drink. He also wanted to attract more girls to attend Kilgore College. Masters approached Miss Davis and in 1939 she was hired as director of physical education. A precision dance group that would perform on the field at halftime with a marching band was her solution to his problems. On Sept. 12, 1940, the 48-member and five-captain squad debuted in boots and uniforms manufactured by the same company that made the local drive-in carhop uniforms. The Rangerettes would go on to perform on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “Ice Capades” and across the globe. They still high kick it today. Kay Teer received a Ph.D. in physical education in 1943, which included a master thesis on drill teams in 1939. Her work also included a drill team competition that would later become the Miss Drill Team USA in California. This competition continues today, but this was still just the beginning for dance teams—even the phrase had yet to be coined.
Back on the cheerleading front, “Mr. Cheerleader,” as the industry would come to call him, jumped into the air at Southern Methodist University in the 1940s. With one leg straight in front, the other bent slightly behind, and an arm extended upright overhead, “the Herkie,” named for its creator, Lawrence Herkimer, would become one of the most recognized cheerleader jumps. In 1948 Herkimer began running cheerleading camps through what would become the National Cheerleading Association (NCA). Dance was taught alongside cheerleading at these camps.
In the 1950s, Herkimer invented and patented the pom-pon out of colored crepe paper. Poms added more flair and spectacle to cheer and drill team routines, but rainy days proved to be quite the mess. Plastic replaced the paper in the 1960s and poms in their various shades and sizes further changed the face and routines of these squads.
At the University of Oklahoma, Jeff Webb became a yell captain during his senior year. After graduating in 1972, he worked the summer at an NCA camp and was offered a job by Herkimer. Webb decided to put off law school and accepted the job with the NCA where he was groomed to become Herkimer’s protÈgÈ. Later that year, Webb became vice president and general manager of the NCA.
That same year, Congress passed Title IX, which banned sex discrimination in schools in both academics and athletics. The demand and interest for girls to do more athletic activities and organized sports took off. Herkimer saw the need for his camps to better fulfill the needs of drill teams and began to expand his dance programs at the NCA camps. In 1976, the NCA Superstars were created to give dancers what they had earned and deserved, and dance camps began. Later the organization’s name was transitioned to NCA Danz and in 1999 it became the National Dance Alliance (NDA).
Meanwhile, Webb saw that the traditional style of cheerleading wasn’t keeping up with the athletic and competitive needs of girls at that time. In 1975 he decided to create the Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA) to better suit a more athletic style of cheerleading. The UCA began offering camps and then uniforms for this new brand of cheerleading and drill teams.
Musically in the 1970s, funk and soul were emerging genres and the landscape of dance was evolving into more fluid and funky styles. “Soul Train” debuted in Chicago in 1970 and because of its popularity, the following year it was syndicated in many major U.S. cities. Disco was on the rise and in 1980 the movie “Fame” appeared in theaters. New dance styles were hitting mainstream America and dance was sweeping the nation.
Webb and Kris Shepherd, a former cheerleader at the University of Arkansas, created the Universal Dance Association (UDA) and began using the phrase “dance teams” instead of “drill teams” to better promote and describe the activity.
In the 1980s hip hop came onto the scene. With its driving beat and fresh style, the genre pumped new life into cheerleading and dance. This style fueled professional cheerleaders and dance teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, Dallas Cowboys and countless other teams. In some instances in the professional circuit, the role of cheerleading would be blended with that of the dance team.
Without cable television, the dance team world probably would not have exploded like it did in the years to come, but this explosion was not solely due to MTV and hip hop. Back in 1978, CBS ran the first televised competitive cheerleading competition organized by the International Cheerleading Foundation. A few years later, Webb wanted televised cheerleading competitions to expose Americans to his company’s new athletic style of cheerleading, dance team camps and uniforms.
In 1982 Webb made a deal with a small start-up company called ESPN and by 1983 they began to expose Americans to this new form of entertainment. As a result, dance teams and their competitions exploded in the 1990s. Then, over 125 years after the first pep squad was formed at Princeton University, hip hop was officially added to dance team competitions, which brings us to the 21st century. Be it high kick, pom, jazz, hip hop or anywhere in between, dance teams will continue to entertain and reinvent themselves.
A.C. Mccall is a dance teacher, writer and novelist of teen fiction.