Cheerleading in NFL is No Peyton’s Place

By Bill Flick
Pantagraph.com

On a typical game-day Sunday, Cassandra Isaacs is up by 5:45 a.m., on her way to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis by 6:30 and on the field at 7 sharp Indiana time to begin practicing for the game.

Just like Peyton Manning.

A member of the Indianapolis Colts Cheerleading squad, she works out endlessly, watches her diet continually and even has her body-fat measured randomly, to make sure she’s keeping up a personalized training schedule.

Just like Peyton Manning.

Required to make a specific number of public appearances in a season, she also has 20 different uniforms in her closet and a blue “Colts” on her practice duffle.

Just like Peyton Manning.

Yup, an athletic, striking 25-year-old from Normal, Cassandra Isaacs is a lot like star QB Peyton Manning … well, except for this:

He makes $14 million a year.

She makes about $75 a week.

“If I make enough money just to pay for all the gas to get from Bloomington-Normal to Indy two or three times a week,” Cassandra laughs, “I’m happy.”

Thanks no doubt to movies or Playboy magazine spreads, a common perception these days is that NFL Cheerleaders have glamorous lifestyles, drive BMW coupes and indulge in frolicsome trysts with the players. Apparently the fact is, these are all women practically working for free where, as one NFL Cheerleading Web site puts it, “the locker-room janitress has a better chance of dating a player.”

So why, one might ask, do they do it?

“The minute you put on that rhinestone belt and rhinestone horseshoe and get on the field,” says Cassandra, “there’s an excitement … a ‘wow’ you just can’t quite describe.”

A Normal West High graduate, this is Cassandra’s first year at the helm of a set of blue-and-silver pompoms, boots and the glint of national TV.

If you catch her on Monday, you’ll see a full time employee at State Farm in Bloomington where she works in agency recruiting. If you catch her at night, you might find her at Illinois State University where she is working on her master’s degree.

If you catch her down on the Lucas Oil Stadium sidelines on a day like today, when the Colts battle the New York Jets for the right to play in the Super Bowl, you’ll see one busy person.

On her 32-member dance squad is an account manager and a sales supervisor. There’s a grade school teacher, a dental hygienist and a hospital’s director of patient care.

Twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday, they all travel to Indy (Cassandra is the lone non-Hoosier on the squad) to practice from 6:30 to 9.

As a rule, there are no mothers. Few moms want to put down a baby on Sundays to wave pompoms and do Rockette leg kicks.

Because of the time consumed and the weekend workload, having a serious romantic relationship is difficult, too.

Then there is age. While Brett Favre plays at 40 and Peyton Manning is 33, the average NFL cheerleader is 25.

“Unless I can find a really good plastic surgeon,” says Cassandra, “I doubt I’ll be doing this at 40.”

Yes, for all the glamour and glitz to an NFL Cheerleader, there is the much more unheralded rigor. “You don’t get much sleep. You are constantly busy,” says Cassandra. “I do this because, if not for needing money, I’d dance all day. I love it that much. But it’s not all that you think.”

Yes, on Monday, Peyton Manning will awaken and, if successful today, prepare to head to Miami for the lights, the glamor, the glitter of Super Bowl XLIV. And Cassandra will go back to recruiting insurance agents in Bloomington.

Sis boom … ahhh, real life.