A story of cheers – and tears

Ben-Gal Laura Vikmanis’ book is out this week and a movie is in the works
Lauren Bishop
Cincinnati Inquirer
Mar. 15, 2012

Ever wondered what it’s like to be a Cincinnati Ben-Gal?

Or what it’s like to be the NFL’s oldest cheerleader, dancing for three hours alongside women young enough to be your daughters in front of 64,000 fans, in weather ranging from blistering heat to driving snow?

The answers are in a new memoir by Cincinnati Ben-Gal Laura Vikmanis of Springboro, who still holds the title of the NFL’s oldest cheerleader at age 43.

“It’s Not About the Pom-Poms: How a 40-Year-Old Mom Became the NFL’s Oldest Cheerleader – and Found Hope, Joy, and Inspiration Along the Way” (Ballantine, $25) hits stores Tuesday.

Vikmanis also is beginning a publicity blitz that includes the “Today” show Tuesday, Joseph-Beth Booksellers Saturday, and is expected to include more national TV appearances. And there’s more to come: Screenwriters are now working full-time on a script for a movie based on her life story.

The book is the first time she’s told her whole story to the world: Details about her abusive 16-year marriage and how she escaped it; how she found herself again through the Ben-Gals; and what it’s like behind the scenes at Paul Brown Stadium.

Vikmanis doesn’t know quite what her cheerleading teammates, her family or her ex-husband, who still lives in this area, will think of the book. But she has no regrets about her decision to share her life story.

“It’s just the truth and you can’t change it,” Vikmanis said in a recent interview. She wore much less makeup and hairspray than she does on game days and an aqua shirt that made her eyes look even bluer. “If you want to know who I am, that’s me.”

The world first started to find out who Vikmanis was through a two-minute video that was posted on Yahoo.com in January 2011. Things haven’t slowed down much since. By the end of March of last year, she had sold the rights to her life story to New Line, which hired screenwriters Emily Cook and Kathy Greenberg (Gnomeo & Juliet,” “Ratatouille”). The movie has not yet been cast and likely won’t hit theaters for two or three years.)

Then Vikmanis’s agent connected her with the co-author of her memoir, Amy Sohn, whose books include a companion guide to HBO’s “Sex and the City” and the novels “Run Catch Kiss” and “Prospect Park West.” After an initial four-hour telephone conversation last March, they met in person in New York City in April to shop the book to publishers.

Ballantine, a division of Random House, jumped on it. Vikmanis and Sohn spent the next five months working on the book over the phone and in personal meetings, when Sohn would fly from Brooklyn to Springboro.

“Laura just has this very genuine, bubbly energy that you really don’t fake. She’s just a very positive person,” Sohn said. “When you hear a story like hers, how she went to the darkest side of the universe and came back from it with full force and better than she was before, it makes you realize how lucky most of us are not to have to deal with the kinds of challenges she went through in her marriage. It also inspires you to be more forgiving and more loving of the people around you.”

Partly as an escape from uncertainty about how to support herself on a dietitian’s salary, Vikmanis married at 22, despite having dated the man who would become her husband four only four months and experiencing warning signs of violence. She writes in the book that she endured years of verbal abuse and insults, and she finally told him she didn’t want to be with him anymore, only to be served with divorce papers. A custody battle for their two daughters ensued, and Vikmanis eventually won custody, although the fight cost her $50,000 in legal fees.

After years of taking care of her husband and daughters and feeling emotionally and physically insecure, Vikmanis decided she needed to do something for herself – something that didn’t involve a man. A 2006 Bengals-Browns game at Paul Brown Stadium showed her what that could be. Enthralled by the Ben-Gals’ dance routines, Vikmanis – who danced and cheered from ages 3 to 17 – told her date that she wanted to be one of them. She was 38.

“Honey,” her date told her with a smile and shake of his head, “you’re too old.”

She believed him. But at another game nearly a year later, she decided to prove him wrong. She didn’t make the squad the first time she tried out, in 2008, but after a year of training and dieting, she made it.

What follows in the book is a revealing look at the world of NFL cheerleading. She criticizes policies such as twice-weekly weigh-ins and worries that they cause some women to use drastic measures to meet their personal weight goals. She points out that the $75-per-game pay amounts to just $2.50 an hour when you add up the time spent practicing and cheering at games. “We are like a one-ring traveling circus within a nine-billion-dollar corporation,” she writes.

But NFL cheerleaders are unlikely to fight for better working conditions because they’re a transient workforce. And for most cheerleaders, the perks outweigh the drawbacks. “Poor pay and hard work aside,” she writes, “there is nothing like the thrill of being on an NFL field when your team wins.”

Longtime Ben-Gals director Charlotte Jacobs, who has read the book, said it fairly portrayed the world of NFL cheerleading. But ultimately, that’s not what the story is about, said Jacobs. Clearly she had a keen interest in the topic, but she said she couldn’t put the book down.

“At first I thought, OK, this is about a girl becoming a cheerleader. Are there going to be that many people interested in how someone becomes an NFL cheerleader?” Jacobs said. “But to me, it was so much about a journey. And it’s a common journey that lot of women, a lot of people, go through.”

Sharing her story with Sohn was like a year of intense therapy, Vikmanis said.

“What’s so great about it is I can let it all go,” she said. It’s gone. It’s just over and done with. It’s very freeing.”

She said she didn’t know who she was when she got married at 22, and that she’s still evolving. Her views on relationships, for example, are radically different now. She believes it’s critically important for each partner to have their own separate interests, as well as ones they share. And although she’s in a committed relationship, she has no desire to walk down the aisle again.

“I fully support a committed relationship that is treated like a marriage,” she said. “But I will not go into a legal agreement that will cost me money on the front end or on the back end ever again. If you want to give me a ring or have a ceremony or have a party, let’s do it. But I will not sign a legal agreement with the state of Ohio or any other state.”

Will she try out for the Ben-Gals again this year? Yes, she said. But after that, she doesn’t know. She’ll see where life takes her.

“I’ve learned that who you think you are constantly changes,” she said, “and I’m OK with that.”

So you want to be a Ben-Gal?
Here are some things you might not know about Cincinnati Ben-Gals cheerleaders, as revealed by Laura Vikmanis is her new memoir:

• Ben-Gals must be at least 21 and either work full-time or be enrolled in school. There is no maximum age.
• Practices are held two to three times weekly. They include not only cheers, but also conditioning such as Zumba, yoga, Pilates, plyometrics and drills – all while wearing full makeup and fully styled hair.
• Ben-Gals who don’t make weight have to stay after practice for “fat camp” – an extra half-hour of high-intensity conditioning. Your personal goal weight is set over the first month of practice. Once it’s set, you must weigh in at every practice. If you are more than 3 pounds above your goal weight, you’ll be benched for the next game.
• The only acceptable absence from practice is for your wedding, when you can miss a week’s worth of practice without penalty.
• Ben-Gals are paid $75 per game.
• Even though Ben-Gal uniforms show the midriff, T-shirts that show the belly are strictly prohibited away from the stadium – as are body piercings and glitter.
• Fraternization between Ben-Gals and Bengals is strictly prohibited.
• Ben-Gals call their husbands and boyfriends “Ben-Guys.”
• Until recently, Ben-Gals were required to wear Revlon lipstick in a much-hated shade called Orange Flip. Now it’s a warm red called Cherry Pop.
• Not all of the Ben-Gals get along. “The most prominent division on the Ben-Gals is not between the young girls and the older girls but between the Real Boobs and the Fake Boobs,” Vikmanis writes. “This is despite the fact that at any given time, a third of the Real Boobs are considering implants.”

Still want to try out? For information about this year’s auditions, visit www.bengals.com/cheerleaders/auditions.html.