Click here for a look back in time at recent, and not-so-recent Super Bowls.
Philadelphia Eagles Liberty Belles at SuperBowl XV
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Check out this short special about the NBA back in the 80s. The first minute or so has some brief clips of the Laker Girls back in the day, but the rest of the video is worth watching too. Given how famous they were, and still are, it’s really puzzling why there’s so little vintage Laker Girl stuff out there on the interwebs. It’s been 30+ years. I’m convinced someone is hoarding all of the good stuff. Blue & Golden girls: Original Bomberettes will be back on the field to perform at halftime during Saturday’s game  Donna Fiala leads a rehearsal of Bomberettes who will relive their glory days from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in a performance at Saturday’s alumni game. Winnipeg Free Press 10/21/2011  Barb Sloggett shows she hasn’t lost her touch when it comes to baton-twirling. More than 100 women, including some who last raised a pompom in the 1950s and 1960s, will dance and cheer once again for their favourite team at this weekend’s alumni game. The Blue Lightning, the Bombers’ current cheering squad, invited the original Bomberettes back to perform — and they answered by the dozens. On Saturday, the current cheerleading squad for the Blue Bombers will clear the field for 129 of the former cheerleaders at halftime during the Bombers’ game against the Montreal Alouettes at Canad Inns Stadium. “Yes, we are very pleased with the response!” Stacey Stone, head coach of the Blue Lightning Dance Team, said in an email. “I’m so excited. I can’t even speak,” said Linda Reichert, who was a Bomberette in the 1970s. Reichert works in the Winnipeg Free Press marketing department. The response underscores something special and innocent about the early squads. Postwar boosterism of the 1950s created the Bomberettes in the first place. These women raised families of fans, children and grandchildren and set the course for generations of season-ticket holders. They made lifelong friends of fellow squad members, raised money for charity and even ice-skated with torches of real fire every March of Dimes, an Easter Seals fundraiser.  The Bomberettes appeared at many events in Winnipeg including the 1975 Schmockey Night, a variety show that raised money for charity  They performed with the RCMP musical ride. Good memories explain part of the fervour, said several who recalled their time with the Bomberettes as some of the best days of their lives. Bomberettes from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s have been practising under their original coach, Donna Fiala. At 80, Fiala still sports the lithe figure she had in the 1950s when she first led the Bomberettes as coach. Her daughters, who were child mascots with the squad — they are returning, too — smiled as one returning member observed Fiala hadn’t gained an ounce since her publicity stills shot 60 years ago. Their mother still wears the same dress, too, they said, laughing. Fiala is the official record-keeper for the Bomberettes’ history; her collection of snapshots, publicity stills, programs and news clippings account for probably the most comprehensive souvenir collection of the Bomberettes of that era. It was her passion. “I loved it,” Fiala said. “I loved the teaching. My mother and my sister made all the uniforms. My daughters were the mascots; it was a family thing,” Fiala said. “I was in the field for 28 years.” “God, we’re good,” Linda Peter Boughton joked as Fiala led 23 of the former cheerleaders in a two-step while they simultaneously twirled batons at a recent practice. Fiala instilled discipline, many recalled. “We had a plan. No smoking. No drinking and we enjoyed the discipline of the Bomberettes. Donna was a very gentle person, but she had certain expectations,” Boughton recalled. Bomberette members said Donna’s combination of good, clean fun and lots of discipline made a lifelong difference. “It never leaves you. It changed my life, definitely.” Boughton said.  On the Blue Bombers’ field ready to perform. By Heather Svokos Here we are, in the homeland of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, about to wage a Super Bowl battle … without the aid of cheerleaders. Seems like some kind of cruel, cosmic joke, right? But the Packers and the Steelers are among six of the NFL’s 32 teams that don’t have official cheerleaders. (The others: the Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions and New York Giants. For the record, the Packers do have a non-pro cheer squad, courtesy of St. Norbert College and University of Wisconsin-Green Bay — but they’re not generally invited to road games, and they weren’t invited to this year’s Super Bowl.) As a native Pittsburgher, this revelation got me to thinking: Why no cheerleaders? I dismissed the cold-weather-state rationale once I learned that the Minnesota Vikings have cheerleaders. (Brrrr, ladies!) So, is it because the city of my birth is some hidden bastion of feminism? (Sorry, I fell off my chair laughing.) More likely is the blue-collar factor: A fancy city like Dallas may have embraced the razzle-dazzle, but towns like Pittsburgh, Green Bay and Milwaukee have a no-nonsense reputation. It’s all about the ugly, bone-crunching football. My friend and fellow ‘Burgher Leslie Rubinkowski validated my theory: “It’s the yinzer ethic — the cheering happens after you win the game. Before that, you kick ass.” (For you non-Terrible Towel-wavers: “Yinzer” is a nickname for someone from Pittsburgh, derived from our regional colloquialism “yinz.” As in: “Yinz ready to order?” It’s like “y’all,” minus the charm.) But I still wanted to find out a little more, and my mission for answers took me on a little history quest — directly to a woman named Dianne Feazell Rossini, who was, in fact, a cheerleader for the Steelers in 1963. So they did once have a squad, aptly namely the Steelerettes. Rossini now lives and works in Uniontown, Pa. — the town where I grew up — and runs a website dedicated to the story of the Steelerettes (www.steelerettes.com).
As I plumbed for insights from her, we struck up a delightful correspondence. We’re used to today’s pro sports cheerleaders — Cowboys Cheerleaders, Laker Girls — being industries and brands unto themselves, but back in the early ’60s, when the Steelerettes first formed, they were recruited from nearby schools. The Steelerettes came from Robert Morris Junior College. A look at Rossini’s website shows that the first squad, in 1961, wore hard hats and gold suspendered jumpers with skirts that hit below the knee. Not exactly va-va-va-voom attire. But at the time, the notion of cheerleaders was revolutionary — and so not welcome by the team’s conservative owner, Art Rooney, known as “the Chief.” “According to the Chief, women didn’t belong on a football field — period!” Rossini told me. The demise of the Steelerettes came in 1969, when the squad’s captain approached Rooney and asked if they could update their outmoded look. His response was to have them fired, according to a 2007 story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The older I get, the more I agree with the Chief,” Rossini says. “For a long time I wished the Steelerettes had continued on to the glory days of the ’70s. How exciting that would have been. My thoughts now are that most people pay to see a football game — not ogle a bunch of girls. I don’t think they really add anything to the game, except maybe provide something to watch when your team is losing badly.” That said, she’s part of a sorority, and she has warm feelings about her sisters from then and now. “By the time the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were born [in 1972], times had changed and their uniforms were no longer considered shocking,” she notes. “We had to beg, cry and cajole to get the front office to allow our skirts to be above our knees. Two totally different eras. I am very proud to have been a Steelerette, and we all agree it’s kind of nice to belong to this exclusive club. We are all there was and all there will ever be.” Rossini thinks as long as the Rooney family has the reins, the Steelers will stay cheerleaderless. She paraphrased Art Rooney’s son Dan: “The Steelers have the best and most football-savvy fans in the world, and they don’t need anyone telling them when to cheer.” Sure, you could argue that cheerleaders enhance a franchise and boost a city’s commerce — and you’d be right. But at this moment in American history, when life is still rocky for so many, it’s a tribute to the scrappy places like Pittsburgh and Green Bay when a tough-minded, no-frills approach can produce a real winner. Another silver lining in this cheerleaderless Super Bowl: It led me to discover a dusty but lovely piece in the patchwork of my hometown heritage. And though I haven’t been an ardent football fan for decades, Dianne Rossini’s tale stirred my latent Steeler pride. Are yinz ready for some football? Sidebar: On the one hand, they did get to wear some of the old uniforms. On the other hand, they didn’t get to wear all of them, and they didn’t get to wear them for the game. I know for sure they’ve got a shiny gold two-piece somewhere in the old costume closet. (Sigh) If there is a person in the world more disappointed about this than I am, I’d like to know who it is. ~ sasha MVC: 50th Anniversary Event Seven lucky MVC had the honor of being a part of the Vikings 50th Since the last game of the season was supposed to be all about
We all felt so Bill Lubinger CLEVELAND, Ohio — Pat Otto was on a business call a few years back when she noticed the bubble-wrapped frame on the floor of her client’s Lakewood office. “I said, ‘Oh, my God, is that…?’” It was — in all it’s sexless glory — an old Browns cheerleader outfit. Otto, an account manager for an employee-benefits firm, hadn’t seen one since she turned hers in after the 1971 season. She was Patti Adamson then, a 17-year-old Rocky River senior and a Cleveland Browns cheerleader. She was one of 19, or 20, or 32. It’s been so long, no one seems to remember exactly. The Browns? They had cheerleaders? Yes, believe it or not, but they’re a mere footnote in the team’s storied past because they vanished faster than a fourth-quarter lead. And because the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, they were not. “We had them one year. They looked crazy. It was ridiculous,” Pat Modell, wife of the former Browns owner, said recently. “It was so cold in Cleveland that it almost looked like they were wearing wooly pajamas.”  Art Modell said in a recent phone interview he didn’t even remember the team having cheerleaders. Although some of the former cheerleaders recall being told at the time that it was her creation, Pat Modell said it was hatched by someone on Art’s staff. “Whose idea was that?” she called out to Art in another room. “It was the biggest flop.” Maybe, but a nugget of Cleveland football history nonetheless. And still meaningful — maybe more meaningful to some — with the passage of time. “It was a blast,” said Robin Byall Paisley, a ’73 Rocky River grad and now a nurse in Portland, Ore. “To be out there in front of that crowd. At that age. Oh, wow, a Cleveland Browns cheerleader.”
The group was mostly juniors and seniors from local high school drill teams and cheerleading squads. They practiced on Saturday mornings at Edgewater Park, learning basic dance routines to the songs of director Frank Strasek’s Cleveland Browns pep band. Perks were few. With no access to a dressing room, they had to arrive on game day in uniform. And, oh, those uniforms. Strictly Pittsburgh Steeler-chic: white satin knickers with brown stripes down the side, brown knee socks, orange turtleneck sweaters, orange and white pom-poms and saddle shoes. “It was really unflattering,” Paisley said. “We kind of looked like referees.” The cheerleaders performed only at home games. They weren’t paid, but were allowed to bring a chaperone, which their dads, brothers and boyfriends lapped up. They went largely unnoticed, except by Steeler fans, who, as one former cheerleader recalled, tossed garbage and beer cans at them. Paisley and her older sister, Lynne, Otto and a few friends were all recruited by their Rocky River pom-pom coach, who they believe had a connection to the Browns. So the teens didn’t have to try out. But they did have a page-and-a-half of rules. Among them: No gum-chewing or consuming alcohol while in uniform. No excessive jewelry. No grooming on the field. No fraternizing with or dating the players. And, apparently, no cheering. “One thing we could not do, we could not incite the crowd beyond, ‘Go Browns!’” said Lynne Byall Benson, now a college professor in Boston. It’s not like they didn’t have something to cheer about that year. The Browns, under new head coach Nick Skorich, finished 9-5 before losing to the Baltimore Colts, 20-3, in the playoffs. The cheerleaders were gone after 1971. Some actually quit before the season ended because it was so cold. They weren’t allowed to wear coats unless they all matched, but were told the Browns wouldn’t buy them. They were to turn in their uniforms at season’s end, but Benson was so upset when the Browns reneged on a promise to invite them to the team’s year-end banquet that she kept hers. It’s still in a trunk at home.
The Browns have no record of the 1971 cheerleaders. No photographs. No mention in the media guide or game programs. They haven’t had cheerleaders since — one of the few NFL teams without them. The others: the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, New York Giants and the Steelers. The Browns actually fielded cheerleaders before 1971, but that fact has been misreported. Former Plain Dealer Sports Editor Hal Lebovitz, answering a reader question in 1979, wrote that the Browns had majorettes with a team band starting in 1946, but only the one season with cheerleaders. The Plain Dealer’s Emerson Batdorff reported in 1960 that the team debuted “a talented crop” of six cheerleaders that season, in white sweaters, brown corduroy shorts and white earmuffs. The Browns have a 1962 photo of four women who fit that description. One was Elaine Hybil, now Elaine Arndt of Wisconsin. They were all Brush High School majorettes who got to be Browns cheerleaders because the school band director played in the Browns’ pep band. There were six cheerleaders in 1961 and four in ’62, including Sheila Lefkowitz, now Sheila Myers of Beachwood, who said her sister was also a Browns cheerleader in the late ’50s. “They probably were there so the women had something to watch while their husbands were intent on the game,” Batdorff wrote back then. “Coach Paul Brown thinks of everything.” The experience in 1971 was definitely a mixed bag, said Rocky River grad Rita Salah, now Rita Allen, a retired consultant living in Belgium. “Part of me doesn’t want to admit that I did this,” she said. “And part of me is pleased to say that I did.” What have they wrought? The Super Bowl ring is a prize – a piece of jewelry given to the men who achieve the ultimate goal in the NFL. Anna Carpenter Lee also has a ring, though, hers is different. Royal blue enamel with two silver stars next to her name, and DCC 72 etched in gold and flanked by diamonds on each side. It was designed by a local Dallas jeweler for the seven women who were chosen to be members of the inaugural squad of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Almost four decades after being selected, Lee wears this ring fondly and is frequently asked to explain its significance.  Dixie Smith Luque is also a member of that original cheerleader squad. On Easter Sunday, her neighborhood held its annual parade to celebrate the holiday. Now that her children are grown, Luque doesn’t participate in the parade, but she loves to watch the children get dressed up and pass by on their decorated bikes. She was standing on the curb of her circular driveway, waving to everyone, when she heard the president of the homeowners association say, “Get out here, we need DCC representation, you get over here.” Every single day something comes up to remind Luque that being a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader has been one of the most special parts of her life. Last month Carrie O’Brien Sibley opened her mailbox to find a very familiar magazine cover – the Sports Illustrated July 2-9, 2001 issue featuring a picture of five women dressed in the iconic long-sleeve low-cut blue blouse tied in the front, white vest with fringe and five-point blue stars, white short-shorts, and cowboy boots, asking, “Where are they now?” Sibley was one of those women. This time the request was coming from a woman in Wisconsin who wanted her to sign the magazine as a birthday gift for her husband. Sibley put the request in a scrapbook along with all the other precious letters she has received expressing admiration and questioning what it was like to be an original Cowboys cheerleader. “We were the first, and the rest of the NFL teams followed suit with jazzy dancers. Our squad took cheerleading to a whole new level and it is incredible to have started it,” Luque, 56, of Plano, Texas, said in a phone interview (all interviews in this story were conducted over the phone). After their first national championship, in Super Bowl VI, Tex Schramm, the Cowboys president and general manager, wanted to keep the fans interest and boost attendance. No one knew what to expect when Schramm decided to bring a new kind of sports entertainment to the field in the form of an all-female, professional dance squad. “Tex was the mastermind behind putting entertainment on the sidelines in NFL football games,” said Sibley, a photographer who still resides in Dallas. Schramm knew beautiful women dancing in tiny shorts and go-go boots would appeal to the NFL’s core audience. He didn’t know the innovation would redefine cheerleading history and, over the years ignite a sociological debate about Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders actually demeaning women while entertaining literally millions of mostly male fans. “Even though we were called Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, we were a dance team and that’s what the organization wanted people to think of us as. Traditional cheerleaders did something different,” said Laurie Murdoch, 51, of Grapevine, Texas, who cheered during the 1978 season.  Luque had studied jazz, tap, and ballet since she was 3 years old and she was fortunate enough to dance under Texie Waterman, a famous choreographer originally from New York. Luque recalls Waterman coming to her one day after class and saying, “I don’t know what this is going to be exactly, but the Cowboys have asked me to choreograph routines for a new professional dance team, and I think you would be a good fit.” The first tryout seemed simple enough. One hundred women performed a two-minute routine in front of a panel of five judges. The judges interviewed them about football and the team, cut the pool to 20 finalists, and a week later, seven received a congratulatory letter stating the date of their first rehearsal. “It wasn’t just about your dance skills. They wanted an all-American look and a girl who could speak well and carry herself with confidence – the whole package,” Luque said. There were preconditions governing who could audition for the squad. A candidate had to be 18 and either have a full-time job, be enrolled as a full-time student, or be a stay-at-home mom. “They didn’t want you just to be a loafer,” Murdoch said. Once the women made the squad, they were given a list of strict rules – no chewing gum, no drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes while wearing the uniform, and no fraternizing. Marty Wynne, a principal at Corporate Finance Specialists in Dallas, remembers a lecture from Waterman, “You do not date or go out with anyone on the Cowboys staff or the players, and if I find out, you are off the squad.” She was tough on the women because of their age and she expected them to project a girl-scout image. “Texie had strong morals and she didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to criticize our integrity,” Murdoch said. Waterman died in 1996, but she was like a second mother who sought to protect the cheerleaders. The 1960s were a turbulent time in American history with ardent feminists such as Gloria Steinem founding Ms. Magazine, which increased awareness about feminism and women’s issues in the U.S. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were criticized often in the media and by some women. “Back then it was more of an objectification of women because there weren’t a lot of opportunities for women in sports,” said Thais Austin, 49, a consultant from Washington, D.C. Her younger sister was a Cowboy’s cheerleader during the 1983 season. Austin’s father was a professor at the University of North Texas in Denton, and having grown up in an intellectual family that emphasized academic achievement, Thais didn’t understand her sister’s decision to be on the squad. “We had the Billie Jean King match (against Bobby Riggs) and Evert and Navratilova were ground-breaking, but there weren’t a lot of female role models pursuing athletic endeavors,” she added, “And lets face it, the cheerleaders were decoration, which is why they were on the field for the Cowboys. Those were skimpy outfits they put on; it was little, it bared her whole body.” Click to open enlarged version Marty Wynne doesn’t remember her parents attending one game during the 1975 season. “They didn’t think it was something a young lady should be doing,” Wynne said, “They weren’t ashamed. They didn’t move out of town, but they didn’t want their daughter getting up in front of 85,000 people wearing such little clothing. They just wanted to wait the season out.” Kitty Chapman Carter, 55, who was a Cowboys cheerleader from 1974-1976, said, “My dad was not real happy with the uniform. He almost died when he found out that I had made it because I was showing too much skin. He told me I wasn’t going to the Super Bowl without a cover-up so he had jackets made for the whole team to take to Miami.” When the Cowboys cheerleaders began, no one knew they would become a sensation. “Clint Murchison owned the Cowboys then and I think he wanted something pretty and saucy on the sidelines between quarters, he wanted action, and this was just a real nice facet of the show,” Wynne said, “We were jazzing up the place and plugging dead time.” Carter added, “It wasn’t even really about us at that point. We were a pastime for the Cowboys.” Carter, who now owns a prominent dance studio in Dallas, made $15 per game as a Cowboys cheerleader. According to Carter, who still works with the cheerleaders as a technical coach, about 800 women have worked the sidelines for the cheerleaders over the past 38 years. The appeal has only grown. Last year more than 500 women tried out and only 35 qualified. The makeup of the squad is quite different today. “In the 1970s, the squads consisted of real down-home looking girls; all of us were from Dallas. Today, they hold auditions everywhere,” Wynne said. The caliber of women is exactly the same. “We had a teacher, a financial advisor, an executive recruiter, a special events coordinator, and a vice president of sales and marketing on the 2009 squad,” said Brooke Wicker Alexander, an event coordinator who handles alumni relations for the organization. “Regardless of what the football players and other people in the organization do or don’t do, the squad still abides by its strict guidelines and I’m so proud of that,” said Suzette Hash Freeman, 55, of Port Aransas, Texas. Freeman, a realtor who cheered from 1976-1978, credits the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders with instilling in her the confidence and positive attitude to achieve goals not just on the field, but in her life. “There was a little criticism in the beginning but I think that was because the organization was misunderstood. They might have pioneered NFL cheerleading but the legacy is much more,” said Freeman. In spite of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders popularity, not all dance instructors believe being on a dance team is a good resume builder. “I would encourage my girls to go to every possible audition they can, but I would explain to them that they will not make decent money dancing for a professional sports team, and they will basically be eye candy for men,” said Jamie Carr, 32, of Downingtown, Pa., who has danced since she was 3 years old and has taught all types of dance for nine years. While the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have maintained their popularity, Carter does have a concern about the future. “Times have changed and dancing is more seductive today,” she said. “Publicity, magazines, television, the bar has been lowered for everything in order to get the shock factor, and there will always be one choreographer who wants to take it to a nasty level.” Today, some of the hip-hop movements are too risqué for a family audience. Carter, who has a granddaughter, notices it in her own studio and takes issue with little girls who wear two-piece outfits and thrust their bodies around. However, the Cowboys cheerleaders maintain the class that Waterman originally demanded. “I wouldn’t work with them if I thought they were exploiting women,” Carter said. “Whether you are at a club, bar, or the theater, there will always be obnoxious men who objectify women, but the organization doesn’t promote that, nor do Texans look at their cheerleaders that way,” said Starr Spangler, 23, of San Francisco, Calif., who cheered from 2005-2008. “It never crossed my mind to audition for another team, they are the best of the best.” Are these cheerleaders more than just a side-dish to the main-course of football? Six NFL teams – the Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, New York Giants, and the Green Bay Packers do not adorn their sidelines with beautiful women swinging their hips. It certainly hasn’t kept fans from buying tickets to those games. David Karen, a professor of sociology at Bryn Mawr College said in an email, “The development of cheerleading as a sport postdates the Cowboy cheerleaders’ image and entry onto the scene, and therefore their legacy reinforces the idea that men play the game and women are on the sidelines.” The women are selected because they are attractive – they have the face, body, and appeal. “Whether they admit it or not, the teams are looking for a specific image,” said Brooke Adelberger, 49, of Aston, Pa., who cheered for the Philadelphia Eagles in the mid-1980s. “The people who criticize us don’t understand what we do. They don’t get the four hour practices, the dedication and the endurance it requires.” Whether it was doing an advertisement for Ford Motor Co. or seeing a crowd of people at the end of the tunnel waiting for autographs and ready to give out roses, it was an honor to be one of the original seven. The memories never fade for Lee and the others. “I remember going to the Pro Bowl luncheon in Dallas when we escorted the players to their seats,” Lee said, “I still have a napkin signed by Norm Evans and Walt Garrison. There were so many opportunities; it was the thrill of a lifetime.” Regardless of their reasons, the women who choose to be a part of this world know exactly what it is about. Hundreds of hopefuls were in Dallas on May 15, 2010 with dreams of becoming the next “America’s Sweetheart.” The legacy remains. Sibley said, “When we are 90 years old, gray haired, with walking canes, they will be hunting us down for a story.” Many thanks to Pats Cheerleader alum Paula McDonald for these photos from her trip to see the Patriots “Cheers Through the Years” exhibit. It looks like its a real hit with the fans!
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