How cheerleading evolved from one man yelling in Minnesota to 4.5 million leaping cheerleaders

Cheerleading is having a moment.

What began with a man yelling, and for several decades was a male-only past time, became dominated by women by the 1940s and 1950s. In that era, stereotypes of wholesome women standing on the sidelines supporting men flourished. They've been hard to shake.

In the 1970s and 1980s, cheerleading changed again. This time it was due to sports leagues, like the NFL and the NBA, deciding to use women cheerleaders rather than high school girls, and by kitting them out in revealing outfits.

There are now about 4.5 million practicing cheerleaders , mostly in America, but spread across 70 countries.

Cheerleading can be divided into two types sideline cheering, which includes the cheerleaders who support high school and professional sports teams, and competitive cheering . Competitive cheering involves performances that go for several minutes and are filled with constant stunts. There are no pompoms.

Recently, cheerleading has had a spurt of popularity because of the Netflix documentary " Cheer ," which is about a college team's dramatic cheerleading season in Navarro, Texas.

Here's how cheerleading has evolved over the last century.

Cheerleading began with a man yelling. During a football slump in 1898, University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell picked up a megaphone and rallied the crowd. He chanted, "Rah, rah, rah! Ski-u-mah, Hoo-rah! Hoo-rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-so-tah!"

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Around the same time, Kilgore College students were caught drinking at halftime during a football game. So the cheer team was told to entertain at halftime to keep students occupied. These two events led to the earliest form of cheerleading.

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To begin with, there were few stunts or pyramids. Men jumped a little, and used megaphones to raise spirits. They were called "rooter kings" and "yell leaders." Famous American cheerleaders include presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

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It wasnt until 1923 that women were allowed to cheer. Uniforms typically comprised of sweaters and skirts past the knee.

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In the 1930s and 1940s, the number of women cheerleading grew as more women attended college. They also filled the vacuum created by the thousands of young men who were fighting in World War II.

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By 1940, 30,000 cheerleading teams were spread across American high schools and colleges.

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Soon, cheerleaders were almost all women.

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The performances reiterated a stereotype of women on the sidelines, supporting men.

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In 1948, former cheerleader Lawrence Herkimer created the National Cheerleaders Association, which held cheerleading camps. Herkimer patented the pompom, and was responsible for a few key cheer moves. It was a big moment in cheerleading history.

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In the 1950s, the perceptions of a wholesome, incorruptible cheerleader solidified. Documentarian Yu Gu told LA Mag that since then, "the sexualized body of the female cheerleader has become a moral and ideological battleground."

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In 1954, the Baltimore Colts established the first cheerleading team in the NFL. According to Vanity Fair, "Their look was more Jackie than Marilynletter sweaters, bobby socks, and homemade pom-poms." They were paid nothing.

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In the 1960s, cheerleading became more regimented. Bill Horan, a war veteran who trained cheerleaders like they were soldiers, ran the American Cheerleaders Association. Of this picture, Life magazine wrote, "Like jacks-in-the-box the girls fly into the air as the hard-eyed man shakes his fist."

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He told Life, "We keep the poor kids off balance. They dont know whether to kiss me or give me a hand grenade and run."

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In 1967, children as young as four started to learn how to be cheerleaders. It was becoming more and more a part of American life.

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But as feminism hit its stride in the 1970s, cheerleading was notably absent. One cheerleader told The New York Times in 1972 they could never burn their bras, because theyd never get through a game. Another said, "What in the world are they talking about?" when sexual exploitation was suggested.

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Race in cheerleading was another problem. In 1967, 1,300 black students protested in Illinois when only one African American cheerleader was picked for a high schools varsity team.

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In 1969, there were riots in North Carolina when African American cheerleaders refused to wave the Confederate flag. In 1971, hundreds boycotted class when an African American cheerleader was kicked off the squad.

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But cheerleading continued to grow. By the 1970s, 11 NFL teams had cheerleaders. By 2013, 26 out of 32 teams had them.

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In the 1970s, the Dallas Cowboys sunk cheerleadings "girl-next-door innocence" forever, according to Vanity Fair. Management decided to ditch school-age girls and use older women. They were required to dress more provocatively. Skirts were shortened. Weight was monitored.

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The squad became an international hit, and appeared in a film and on playing cards. The US Defense Department even asked them to do a global tour and cheer for US soldiers.

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In 1978, other NFL teams tried to beat the Cowboys cheerleaders by being more provocative. Sports Illustrated called it the "Great Cheerleading War of 1978."

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While cheerleading became sexualized in the NFL, the question of whether it was a sport was being debated with the introduction of Title IX in 1972, which focused on discrimination in schooling. Three years later, the Office of Civil Rights decided it wasnt a sport.

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In 1974, Jeff Webb established the Universal Cheerleaders Association, to make cheerleading more stunt-based and athletic, and to stop girls from flocking to other sports.

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This later became the Varsity Spirit Corporation. It runs competitions, and sells pompoms and uniforms. Today, it owns about 80% of the market for cheer uniforms.

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By 1975, about 500,000 people, mostly women, were cheerleading.

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In 1979, the NBA brought in cheerleading, too. The first team to have a squad was the LA Lakers. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Laker Girls were as important an institution to the league as the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders were to football.

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In the 1980s, private gyms were soon a cheerleading staple, along with clinics and camps. It became more athletic as gymnasts moved to cheerleading due to schools killing gym programs, because of high injury insurance payouts.

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In 1980, the Varsity Spirit Corporation held the first high school championship. A few years after that ESPN was broadcasting the competitions, and by the 1990s, cheerleading was booming.

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Cheerleading had left the sideline, and become the main attraction.

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Cheerleading continued to grow in the 1990s. One important new branch of this were the All-Star cheer teams, which started to form outside of school cheering.

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Cheerleading coach Rey Lozano told the Los Angeles Times that cheerleading was increasingly professional due to the influence of televised gymnastics at the Olympics, and the moves of pop celebrities like Paula Abdul.

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By 2000, competitive cheerleading was starting to gain recognition. As The New York Times wrote back then: "While in the past, cheerleaders were little more than over-caffeinated dancers in itty-bitty skirts, these days they are athletes, real athletes."

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In 2000, the film "Bring It On," catapulted cheerleading into the mainstream.

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In 2004, the newly formed International Cheer Union held the first world championships. The competition rapidly grew. Unlike sideline cheering, which is to entertain, this is about winning.

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Both types perform stunts like pyramids and spread-eagle jumps, but competitive cheering requires a higher skill level, and more rigorous routines. Its an expensive pursuit, costing competitive cheerleaders between $8,000 and $10,000 a year.

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And with more intense routines came more injuries. From 1982 to 2005, more than half of 104 catastrophic injuries among female school and college students were from cheerleading. These are injuries where the spine or brain is damaged.

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In 2006, national concerns over the safety of cheerleading peaked, when cheerleader Kristi Yamaoka fractured a vertebrae falling 15 feet from a pyramid. As she was taken off the court, she kept cheering in time to the music.

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By 2007, visits to the emergency room had doubled from the 1990s.

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Along with the focus on injuries, defining what cheerleading was, and whether it was a sport, continued to be an issue. In 2012, a federal appeals court ruled that cheerleading couldnt be an official athletic program.

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But in December 2016, the International Olympic Committee provisionally recognized cheerleading as a sport. One of the factors the Olympics noted in its decision was the young population.

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In 2014, sideline cheering had its own public crisis, when a cheerleader accused the Oakland Raiders of underpaying its cheerleaders, sparking a national conversation on how little they were paid nationally. They were getting about $5 an hour. The Raiders ended up raising it to $9 an hour.

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Someone also leaked the teams cheerleading etiquette book, which included how to make a good first impression and how to handle a distasteful meal. It also set out fines for not showing belly buttons at certain events.

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Despite the issues, and frustrations about not being taken seriously, cheerleading is still going strong, 122 years later. As of 2017, there were 4.5 million registered cheerleaders.

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And Netflixs "Cheer" is showing viewers what cheerleading is really like with or without the pompoms.

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