Eagles cheerleaders not just for football

By Amy Brisson
September 20, 2009
Del Co Times

The minute Krystle Campbell stepped off a military plane in Kuwait, she was hit with an intense blast of hot, dry air and nearly 125-degree heat.

“It was like a blow dryer blowing on you, it was so hot,” she said.

In Campbell’s five years as a cheerleader for the Philadelphia Eagles, the 23-year-old Glen Mills resident has traveled the world performing and modeling.

But going on a goodwill mission to Kuwait and Iraq this July was a completely different experience, she said.

It wasn’t glamorous, like the calendar shoot they did in Aruba this May. Or quite as upbeat as performing in a parade in Hong Kong.

In fact, Campbell said the six cheerleaders on the trip got a taste of real life on a military base, from wearing combat gear to sleeping in “The Can.”

“We were treated really well, they took really good care of us, but we were right in there in the mix,” she said. “Whenever there was a pretty severe sandstorm we were grounded and couldn’t move to the next place. And that’s when we really got to know the soldiers.”

Campbell described it as one of the most amazing experiences she has ever had, especially getting to see the day-to-day life of a soldier on the ground.

“They’re so brave for being over there. Some of them said they had been there for eight months and we were the first entertainment group to come over there,” she said.

An opportunity to go to Iraq was certainly not what Campbell expected when she first signed up for Eagles cheerleaders auditions.

A second-grade teacher at Nottingham Elementary in the Oxford School District, Campbell grew up dancing.

She was a member of the Parkside Academy of Music and Dance throughout high school, but stopped dancing when she began college.

But she remembered her dance teacher talking about trying out for a spot on the Eagles cheerleading squad, and after graduation the memory inspired her to get back into it.

“Dancing my whole life, it was just a next step for me,” she said. “It’s been a whole string of opportunities I would have never experienced without the Eagles. I’ve traveled all over the world.”

Campbell is not the only alum of Parkside Academy to join the squad.

A few years after she was picked, she convinced her friend, Kim Mellon, to give it a shot as well.

A Media resident, Mellon is a graduate of Sun Valley High School and currently works as a landscape architect at a company in Berwyn.

Mellon also stopped dancing when she began attending Penn State, but after hearing about Campbell’s experience, she decided to begin practicing again.

She attended tryouts on the sly, leading her college friends to think she was driving home for job interviews. Then she surprised them with news she had been accepted to the team.

“I surprised myself trying out for this. I knew it was a very busy schedule, and it would require a lot of time and effort,” she said.

But the biggest shock, she said, was when she realized just how famous she had suddenly become.

“I didn’t know that it had such a celebrity status with it,” said Mellon. She still keeps her cheerleader identity quiet when she goes out, so she can enjoy a “low-key” evening without requests for impromptu performances.

And even on the field, she was surprised that the cheerleaders get almost as much attention as the team.

“You can’t be too shy or timid, because there are definitely a lot of people out there watching from every angle,” she said.

But she said the scrutiny, and some very grueling workouts, are worth it to for the chance to perform at that level.

“Every game before we go out you get the butterflies in your stomach, but once you get out there it’s better,” she said. “Game days, there’s just so much excitement, I love going out there and performing for everybody.”