Sport: All-America

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No one knows the name of the first college cheerleader. In the early days of U. S. football (1890s), cheering was confined to a few spontaneous yells of triumph or dismay, or an occasional manly three-times-three. At Harvard, substitutes or injured players first led this protozoic cheering—either a "short Harvard cheer" or a "long Harvard cheer." At the University of Southern California, prim-collared professors directed the yells. Minnesota was one of the first colleges to elect a "yell marshal." His whole duty was to get the spectators to recite in unison, "Rah-rah-rah, Ski-u-mah, Minn-so-ta."

Nowadays cheerleading is as much a part of the football show as passing and kicking. Last week, while the cream of the 1939 crop of U. S. footballers wondered whether they would be picked for one of the hundreds of All-America teams (chosen by sportswriters, Greek restaurants, department stores, cinema producers), the cream of college cheerleaders had the same worry: whether they would be picked for this year's All-America cheering squad, to be announced Christmas week.

The cheerleaders' All-America seven (because that is the size of the average college squad) is chosen each year by Gamma Sigma, national college cheerleaders' fraternity, with the aid of sportswriters and sportcasters. Gamma Sigma has no college chapters, no fraternity house, no key. Its 900-odd members are divided into two chapters: Alpha (for All-Americans) and Rho (for also-rans). To become an Alpha and wear the All-America insignia (a shield with two crossed megaphones) is as great a distinction among cheerleaders as getting a Phi Beta Kappa key is to a bookworm.

Candidates, rounded up by talent scouts, are elected to the All-America on the basis of: 1) the cheering section's reaction; 2) judgment in selecting the best psychological moment for a cheer; 3) acrobatic ability—not only proficiency in the common cartwheels, handstands and general high jinks, but also the Ritter Span, Nelson Arch, Duos.

The Ritter Span, invented two years ago by 20-year-old Andrew Mowbray Ritter, University of Michigan junior and Gamma Sigma's president, is a complicated back flip in which a performer leaps into the air, twists his body into a horizontal arc "which he holds momentarily," then lights on his hands, flips his feet over his head and finishes as erect as a West Point cadet. "Less than 30% of the Gamma Sigmas are able to do it," admits President Ritter, who broke his wrist Ritter-spanning last year. Most Gamma Sigmas can do the Nelson Arch (a less complicated back flip) and Duos (synchronized tumbling by two or more).

Among the promising candidates for this year's All-America is Bill Bofenkamp, "Rooter king" at Minnesota. Like most of his confreres, Bofenkamp is small and wiry (tall cheerleaders went out of style when acrobatics came in), spends two afternoons a week rehearsing with his assistants, has a repertory of a dozen yells, a dozen stunts. Back flips and tumbling are touchdown stunts. Skits are put on between halves.