Cheers through the years
By Jane Kwiatkowski
Buffalo News
October 16, 2010
Since first appearing on the sidelines at Buffalo Bills games 43 years ago, former Jills have seen styles come and go, formed an alumni association and became lifelong friends
In the beginning, there were 20 cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills. They carried megaphones, wore turtlenecks, and between them there was not a sequin in sight. “We were cheerleaders, not dancers,” said Jo Ann Gaulin, 74, who helped found the Buffalo Jills in 1967. “We cheered with megaphones and placards, and when we said, ‘Go, Bills, Go,’ you could hear us at home on the radio. You could hear us on TV.”
On one recent night, scrapbooks were being passed like a football in the Lake View home of Chris Sullivan Polito, 63, who cheered for the Buffalo Bills from 1971 to 1979. Polito – like her fellow cheerleading alumni – met to swap stories, share time and reflect on the changing phases of their sport.
“Cheerleading was my performance sport and I did it right through high school, every minute of the day,” said Polito, a grandmother of 10 who also directed in 1978-85. “It’s all I ever did. It’s not like you’re on Broadway, but there’s a certain element of fun. I was very shy one-on-one, but cheering in front of 80,000 people was totally different, especially when they cheered back.”
Friends for life
Times have changed for cheerleaders at collegiate and professional stadiums across the country, where kick lines have supplanted chants of “Block That Kick,” choreographers work alongside cheerleading coaches and corporate sponsors back many squads. Today’s Buffalo Jills, for example, are primarily sponsored by Citadel Broadcasting.
In 2009, more than 100 former Buffalo Bills cheerleaders formed the Buffalo Professional Cheerleaders Association, an alumni group dedicated to preserving friendships and memories while performing charitable work throughout the community.
They joined scores of other cheerleading alumni groups around the country. The Washington Redskin Alumni Association was the first to form in 1984. The Jacksonville Jaguars Professional Cheerleaders Alumni, meanwhile, offer audition prep classes for cheerleader hopefuls. Other alumni groups — from the Miami Dolphins and Atlanta Falcons — are using Facebook and Yahoo to network.
“When I look at cheerleading, I look at it like a sport,” said Lori Marino Mammoliti, 47, president of the Buffalo Professional Cheerleaders Association, who cheered from 1981-1992 and 1997-2000. “Everyone considers football the sport, but it’s also cheerleading. It’s a serious, competitive sport. The women who are doing this are in amazing shape. They are spending five or six days in the gym to be able to do some of the stunts. You have to be dedicated. It’s not a joke.”
Professionally, the former cheerleaders do everything from investment advisers, psychologists and chemical engineers, to travel agents and figure skaters.
To prevent any confusion with the current Jills, alumni cheerleaders refrain from using the Buffalo Jills name.
Streamers, go-go boots
Lee Fitzgerald Hilliker, 70, who cheered from 1968-71, is a retired sergeant from the Erie County Sheriff’s Department. Ellen Paulette Peoples, 50, who cheered from 1978-82, is a Buffalo firefighter and award-winning body builder.
“They become your sisters,” said Francine Phillips Cangialosi, 33, who cheered from 1999 to 2005. “They become an extension of your family. They become your friends for life, the ones you cheered with. It never stops — six months could go by and you pick up the phone, and it’s like yesterday.”
The first of two male cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills — Jerry Spiller, 55, who cheered from 1982-86 — performs acupuncture and teaches tai chi in southern Florida.
Gaulin, who now lives in Palm Coast, Fla., remembers 1967 as the year Daryl Lamonica was traded to the Oakland Raiders, but it was also the year the Bills launched two cheering squads. The 16 regular cheerleaders and four substitutes were required to be at least 22 years of age and married, partly to ensure they would have escorts to the games.
“[The Bills] did not have a very successful year,” Gaulin recalled, “and I had traveled to see a Detroit game, and there were a few girls cheering on the field. One was dressed up like a lion.”
At the time, the Buffalo State College cheerleaders cheered for the Bills in the old War Memorial Stadium, located at Jefferson Avenue and Best Street on the city’s East Side.
“I thought we needed something like that in Buffalo,” Gaulin said. “Our team wasn’t doing real well. We had an antiquated stadium. Don’t forget, in the days of the Rockpile, there was no dedicated parking. People going to the game had to park in driveways. The fans did need a boost. We needed something to get the crowd into it.”
So she contacted the front office of the Buffalo Bills, and proposed a cheerleading squad. “I had no idea if I would ever hear from them again, and about a week later I got a phone call that Mr. Ralph Wilson would like to meet in his office.”
Soon, Gaulin — a wife and mother of four — would begin to hunt for pompoms.
“Mr. Wilson didn’t want them shedding on the field,” she said. “I had to think of something, and I did, bicycle streamers. The company sent me blue and the white bicycle streamers. They were heavy, but we made pompoms out of them. They never shedded and they were washable. Ralph Wilson gave us the money for whatever we needed.”
The shiny white go-go boots were purchased at Sears. Their style — zip up the side with a two-inch stocky heel — gave little support to the ankle. In fact, some of the women developed cartilage problems in their knees after years of cheering in go-go boots.
“They were showy and wonderful,” recalled Polito, “but it was dangerous to flip in boots.”
A new era
In 1972, the white go-go boots were replaced for one year with blue suede boots. “And in ’77 they went to saddle shoes so they could do lifts,” recalled Polito. “One whole year with saddle shoes, and nobody liked them.”
“We weren’t sexy, like today,” said Hilliker, about the white turtlenecks, vests and sweaters that were uniform staples in the late ’60s.
Many pointed to the “Battle of the NFL Cheerleaders,” as the spark that led to the extreme makeover of the Bills cheerleaders in 1978. The five-installment TV show portrayed cheerleaders swimming, running, jet skiing, roller skating. The motivation was to show them as regular people involved in healthy activities. A common theme was skin.
The new uniforms for Buffalo’s cheerleaders — red hot pants with a matching vest — featured lots of skin, a contrast to the red, white and blue horizontal- striped sweaters that marked 1977 uniforms.
“The Dallas Cowgirls came out, and they were going to have a two-piece uniform and all the squads in the NFL tried to conform — or compete,” recalled Mammoliti. “The Buffalo Bills and Ralph Wilson had a very conservative approach, and he didn’t want to have this real sexy image.”
Breaking the mold
Jerry Ziffer was 27 when he decided to try out for the Bills cheerleading squad. A gymnastics instructor in Williamsville, Ziffer had been working with the Jills as acrobatic coordinator. He figured that if he made the squad, it would help promote sport acrobatics.
“ ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not one of the girls,’ ” Ziffer recalled saying at his tryout. “I made up a routine with tumbling moves and jumps, and I got picked.”
During a phone interview from Lakeland, Fla., where he has lived for 20 years, Ziffer remembered fan reaction to a male cheerleader as positive — with a few exceptions.
“Endzone animals would make a lot of comments,” he said. “One group of guys I had a hard time with every week, but I would start doing the stunts tossing a girl and catching her. I was not out there with a skirt and megaphone. I did gymnastic stunts.”
Divorced and remarried, Ziffer believes today’s cheerleading has lost its flair.
“It’s entertainment,” he said. “It’s not about getting the crowd going. “Now it’s a performance, which is nice to watch, but I don’t know how much it stimulates the crowd.”
[Photos “borrowed” from BuffalJillsAlumni.com. Check out their site. Awesome stuff! ~sasha]
