Cheering for the Australia’s National Rugby League
Cheerleaders ‘Living the Dream’
The Sydney Morning Herald
October 6, 2011
Cheerleading may evoke an image of bimbos and football groupies, but often beneath the cleavages and fake tans are smart, talented girls who just want to have fun.
Kymberley Roebuck
She knows people see her as a busty, blonde beauty, but Roebuck rankles at the stereotype.
“That’s what someone would think if they looked at me,” says Roebuck, 23, who is now coaching the Wests Tigers C91.3 cheerleader squad. “But they don’t know I go to uni, I have a full-time job and I run a business.” (And she donated her $2000 prize money to a terminally-ill six-year-old boy, Lleyton Giles.)
Elizabeth Commons, 27, Australia’s silver medallist at this year’s world cheerleading competition, sympathises.
“People expect a certain type of person, but I’m a chemistry teacher and I’m on a team with doctors, lawyers and bankers – but we’re also cheerleaders,” Commons says.
As Roebuck says: “Basically, at the end of the day, we have a job to do.”
And both girls have worked hard to get there.
Squad members have mostly trained as dancers or have a competitive gymnastics or acrobatics background.
Other than being selected for their appearance and skills, it’s ultimately their personality that helps them stand out from the hundred or so who try out at the exhaustive annual auditions held by each football club.
A squad, usually made up of about 24 girls ranging from 16 to 27 years old, is required to do at least one rehearsal session per week during the football season. There are sponsorship appearances and on match day, cheerleaders arrive three hours before the game to hand out flyers to fans.
Although the clubs are reluctant to divulge what they pay their dancers, it’s understood to be up to about $150 for the day.
“You’re definitely not doing it for the money. You have to have a love for the game,” says Roebuck, who admits she is a huge fan of the Wests Tigers.
Shaking pom-poms and doing dance routines throughout the game, cheerleader squads add an element of excitment to the game, especially when the players first run onto the field.
And it’s a sport that’s growing in Australia.
Under the guidance of Roebuck, the Tigers have introduced two new squads of girls aged between four and 17, the Tiny Tigers Club and Pre-Squad, which performed during games this season.
“I’m trying to come in and change the stereotype by building up from a young age a group of girls that want to do this when they’re older,” she says.
Two other Aussie girls who have helped the image of cheerleaders are former Newcastle Knights cheerleader Jennifer Hawkins, who went on to become Miss Universe, and more recently, former Manly cheerleader Angela Nicotera, who was this year picked for the prestigious Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad.
Inspired by Hawkins’ business success, Roebuck has opened a dance school specialising in cheerleading in Blacktown with two more planned for Campbelltown and Leichhardt.
As Commons explains, competitive cheerleading is different from the NRL club squads. The focus is more on acrobatic tumbling, such as backflips and stunting.
“I don’t really follow football,” says Commons, international competitor and coach of four cheerleading teams.
“It’s just a different take on it … we’re cheering as a sport, rather than for another sporting team.”
After competing at state and national level championships for more than five years, Commons was selected for an all-girl 24-member Australian team to compete at the ICU (International Cheerleading Union) World Championships last April in Orlando, Florida.
Winning Australia’s first-ever medals, Commons’ team won silver and an Australian co-ed team won bronze.
“The crowd was amazing, like nothing I’d ever experienced before,” Commons says.
Whether it’s a sport or a spectacle, cheerleading is athletic and requires training and discipline – but there’s an element of glamour too.
As Roebuck says, when the Wests Tigers cheerleaders perform at the Sydney Football Stadium with flashing lights, flames and fireworks in front of 50,000 screaming fans, pumped to Guns ‘N Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle, “you think this is surreal”.
“It’s something I can tell my daughter about when I’m a mum. I’m living the dream.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/cheerleaders-living-the-dream-20111006-1lawh.html#ixzz1a0zBYzEV
