Radcliffe Women Will Lead Cheers During Harvard Basketball Games

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

We hate to beat you, but we must, we must."

As cheers like this one resound from the Indoor Athletic Building tonight while Harvard's basketball team plays Penn, another male stronghold at Harvard will crumble.

The Faculty Committee on Athletic Sports (FCAS) supported a proposal last Monday to allow the basketball team to have female cheerleaders at its contests.

The ten girls, all of them freshmen and sophomores at Radcliffe, will not only be the first females to lead cheers at Harvard athletic contests, but also the first cheerleaders the basketball team has ever had.

"Having watched some members of the football team try unsuccessfully for three years to get girl cheerleaders, the basketball squad decided to ask some girls at the 'Cliffe if they wanted to cheer," said Silas F. Davis, manager of the basketball team. "And they said they'd do it," he added.

The girls made theirs own crimson-tunic outfits, and, according to an FCAS spokesman, funds to reimburse the girls for the gym shoes and black leotards they bought will be forthcoming.

"We thought it would be fun to cheer," said Vivian Lewis '73 one of the cheerleaders, "and so we decided to do it. The first time we tried-sort of unofficially-at Dartmouth, the man at the gate wanted to know how we decided we were cheerleaders. Now we're official."

The Undergraduate Athletic Council, which supervises all cheerleaders, will probably pass a resolution at its next meeting to give each sport the power to select and finance its own cheerleaders, according to Keith Colburn '70, a member of the Council.

At the basketball game last Saturday at Brown, the girls formed the nucleus of the Harvard cheering section. "One of the things that is important in our program is enthusiasm," said basketball coach Bob Harrison, "and these girls are real peppy."

The Cliffies are: Kathy Bowser '72, Donna Brown '73, Nancy Irving '73, Linda Jackson '73, Miss Lewis, Nancy Nabrit '72, Louise Reid '73, Sandrs Shelton '73, Wanda Williams '72, and Brenda Williamson '73.