High School Why Aren't There Many Male High School Cheerleaders?

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Feb 24, 2011
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I know that teams such as Graves County, Bartow, Dyer County, Lewisville, Sun Prairie and Owensboro have male cheerleaders on their teams but the likes of Dunbar, Bob Jones and Houston do not. Thoughts?
 
I feel like @OldskoolKYcheercoach has addressed this before in detail, but generally going coed is hard because you rarely have guys at that age coming in with experience. You are starting them from step zero and making them into cheerleaders, as opposed to a female athlete who is 9 out of 10 times, coming in having cheered before.
 
Also, in the Sputh, there is a lot of social pressure on male cheerleaders. College guys can handle it, but it’s a hard sell for a 14 yr old. A lot of our All Star guys really struggle with it-we had one choose to go to homeschooling this past year largely due to bullying.
 
I feel like @OldskoolKYcheercoach has addressed this before in detail, but generally going coed is hard because you rarely have guys at that age coming in with experience. You are starting them from step zero and making them into cheerleaders, as opposed to a female athlete who is 9 out of 10 times, coming in having cheered before.

All of the above are true. Coed has to become a tradition. We have a male on the team this year. Incoming freshman who cheered in 8th grade, but isn't quite big and strong enough yet for true coed stunting. It's going to be a while before that happens. A frank conversation with him and his mother was all it took for them to understand that we are going to give him a chance to develop correctly. That's what's best for him and the program, but it means we will not be competing coed this year. My all girl team has spent many years developing their skills and it would not be fair to them to change gears just to bring one boy on the team.

Graves County has been coed since the school opened in 1985-86 with a couple seasons of exceptions through the years, most notably around 1999-2000 with a poorly advised coaching change.

Owensboro has 8 or 9 years of coed tradition.

McCracken County does as well, but many people don't realize that Reidland HS was one of the small coed schools that consolidated into McCracken county a few years back.

Like all things cheer-related, it just take a lot of time that most people are not willing to invest.
 
All of the above are true. Coed has to become a tradition. We have a male on the team this year. Incoming freshman who cheered in 8th grade, but isn't quite big and strong enough yet for true coed stunting. It's going to be a while before that happens. A frank conversation with him and his mother was all it took for them to understand that we are going to give him a chance to develop correctly. That's what's best for him and the program, but it means we will not be competing coed this year. My all girl team has spent many years developing their skills and it would not be fair to them to change gears just to bring one boy on the team.

Graves County has been coed since the school opened in 1985-86 with a couple seasons of exceptions through the years, most notably around 1999-2000 with a poorly advised coaching change.

Owensboro has 8 or 9 years of coed tradition.

McCracken County does as well, but many people don't realize that Reidland HS was one of the small coed schools that consolidated into McCracken county a few years back.

Like all things cheer-related, it just take a lot of time that most people are not willing to invest.

I could not agree more. This thread is why I decided to join the boards after lurking for years. Seven out of the 14 years I have coached at my school we have been very small coed. It was very rare at that point in my state. Honestly, I was never interested in coed until I had a sophomore boy interested due to his background in martial arts. Ever since we have 1-3 boys cheer per year. I have only added new boys through my current males recruiting, siblings of other current cheerleaders or they come from allstars.

Just to reiterate what @OldskoolKYcheercoach posted, it does get easier once the student body gets used to seeing male cheerleaders at games. It eventually becomes the norm and makes is somewhat easier. I have yet to have more than three per year though!
 
I could not agree more. This thread is why I decided to join the boards after lurking for years. Seven out of the 14 years I have coached at my school we have been very small coed. It was very rare at that point in my state. Honestly, I was never interested in coed until I had a sophomore boy interested due to his background in martial arts. Ever since we have 1-3 boys cheer per year. I have only added new boys through my current males recruiting, siblings of other current cheerleaders or they come from allstars.

Just to reiterate what @OldskoolKYcheercoach posted, it does get easier once the student body gets used to seeing male cheerleaders at games. It eventually becomes the norm and makes is somewhat easier. I have yet to have more than three per year though!

I love to coach coed.

I’ve had to learn to love coaching all girl.

I had to work harder to develop the culture all girl than I ever had to do at my last school where I had developed quite the coed tradition. The right set males will filter about 90% of the ovary-related drama because they just have no tolerance for it.

When I took my current position, I actually told the AD and incumbent assistant coaching staff that I wanted to build coed. I spoke at great length to the football coach, the strength and conditioning coach, etc. It never caught on.

*******Read on for non-related rambling about culture which is one of my favorite coaching-related topics:*****

So we had 3 years of me beating a dead horse and a rough, rough, rough culture.

Then I turned my attention to learning to coach females and developing the culture intentionally as opposed to allowing it to happen accidentally.

If you’ve said “I think we will have a good season this year because we have good seniors.” Or “I dunno, it might be rough because we lost good seniors and I don’t know about this incoming class,” that’s an accidental culture. You can change that. I love to talk about it, and would be happy to do so with anyone who messages me an email address. No money involved. If you want your kids to be more coachable, have better body language, develop skills faster, have more drive, have less drama, love each other a little bit more, and say “thanks coach” when you correct them...ask me how. Brace yourself though, a lot of my ideas are so off the mainstream path that you’re going to think I need a shrink.
 
I love to coach coed.

I’ve had to learn to love coaching all girl.

I had to work harder to develop the culture all girl than I ever had to do at my last school where I had developed quite the coed tradition. The right set males will filter about 90% of the ovary-related drama because they just have no tolerance for it.

When I took my current position, I actually told the AD and incumbent assistant coaching staff that I wanted to build coed. I spoke at great length to the football coach, the strength and conditioning coach, etc. It never caught on.

*******Read on for non-related rambling about culture which is one of my favorite coaching-related topics:*****

So we had 3 years of me beating a dead horse and a rough, rough, rough culture.

Then I turned my attention to learning to coach females and developing the culture intentionally as opposed to allowing it to happen accidentally.

If you’ve said “I think we will have a good season this year because we have good seniors.” Or “I dunno, it might be rough because we lost good seniors and I don’t know about this incoming class,” that’s an accidental culture. You can change that. I love to talk about it, and would be happy to do so with anyone who messages me an email address. No money involved. If you want your kids to be more coachable, have better body language, develop skills faster, have more drive, have less drama, love each other a little bit more, and say “thanks coach” when you correct them...ask me how. Brace yourself though, a lot of my ideas are so off the mainstream path that you’re going to think I need a shrink.

I'm taking you up on that!
 
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