V--I--C--T--O--R--Y

Close your eyes and slip back in time. It's the high school homecoming game. You are 16, the band is grinding out an off-key school fight song, the cheerleaders' pom-poms flutter in the breeze.

Open your eyes; it's the first Harvard home game of the season against UMass. You are 20, the band is still leading a fight song of sorts:

Tear his arm off,

Tear his leg off,

We love football.

Beat him, beat him,

Buck him, buck him,

C'mon Harvard,

Knock 'em down and really kick the shit out of 'em.

Suddenly, fluttering streamers catch your eye. Pom-poms. Outfitted in coordinated crimson and white pleated skirts and sweaters, cheerleaders, honest -to-god cheerleaders, are moving in from the sidelines:

Crimson, ready, fight,

Go Crimson, fight. we've got spirit, we've got might,

Go Crimson, fight.

But the startled band has no intention of sharing the field with these unexpected rivals, nor does it thrill to the tame lyrics. The band conveys its sentiments with predictable tact:

Two, four, six, eight,

Cheerleaders, roll over and die.

But it didn't, and two weeks later the first ever Harvard football cheerleading squad is still alive and kicking with a $500 budget, a set of megaphones and a year's supply of bobby socks to its name. And they intend to hold their own, Teresa Coutu '81 announces, proud that she is part of the "start of a tradition, a Harvard tradition."

Why do they do it? Tricia G. Butler '80 does it because "it's one good way of keeping my shape." Toni M. Hoover '81 says she "always wanted to in high school" but couldn't because she marched in the band. Coutu says she's been doing it for "years and years," but thought "it might be even better here, since, you know, this is Harvard." Besides, she throws in, "you travel."

They won't travel much farther than Yale this year, but that's fine with the 18 cheerleaders. Even though the athletic department will only pay for one away game jaunt, they did find the funds to costume the squad in "Harvard major letter sweaters" (black sweaters with crimson and white official H's) and white skirts and crimson pleats. "It's a real traditional outfit," Coutu says enthusiastically, although she regrets that the athletic department could not find money to provide the squad with two outfits: one cool, one "wintry."

"The sweaters were really hot the first two games," she laments. "Almost unbearabble." But the athletic department came through where it counted: the pom-poms are waterproof. "I was really impressed," Coutu says. "They bought the best kind, with plastic shakes. They don't wilt in the rain."

The new squad was born last spring when the undergraduate athletic committee at 60 Bolyston Street decided that women armed with indestructible shakers would do wonders for the sometimes-reserved football crowds. Niki Janus, associate athletic director, says the committee members agreed to underwrite a cheerleading squad after they got sick of hearing alumni complain that Harvard was the only Ivy League college without cheerleaders. "People would ask me, 'What is this? How can the (athletic) department let this go on?'" Janus remembers. Varsity crew members traditionally lead cheers at the game, but alumni wanted something "more structured," Janus explains. The crew team, like the band, believed they were too cool for structure. They "just plowed around, throwing candy at the crowd,' Janus says.

So Janus sought organizers from the unofficial basketball cheering squad, which a group of students formed on their own a few years ago. Janus offered the squad University sponsorship and uniforms. Butler, who is a member of the basketball squad, willingly accepted the captaincy; Janet Crenshaw '82 agreed to be manager. They held try-outs in September and signed up everyone: 14 women and four men; and a third of the women were on the original basketball squad.

Janus says she wants the squad to represent all "sexes and races." The squad now has a few white and Asian-American members, but most are black. Cheerleader Ellen D. Powell '82, says the original basketball cheerleading squad was all black. The squad did mostly "stomp cheers," which involved more clapping, dancing and singing, and Powell says most predominantly white high schools--like the one she went to--do "precision cheers," requiring stricter arm movements and less dancing. Powell "found it hard" to adjust to the stomp brand of cheerleading; others could not adjust at all and dropped out after a few weeks. "The white girls could not get into doing the stomp cheers. It wasn't the way they were brought up," she says.

The football cheering squad wants a more representative membership, Powell said. Before try-outs, the squad's organizers "really advertised," Powell says, but nevertheless "only five non-blacks showed up at try outs."

The squad is working on its male-female ratio, too. It managed to recruit four men with gymnastic abilities. David J. T. Vanderburgh '80-3, a cheerleader, says he joined because cheering is "an outlet for gymnastics," and it appealed to his "sense of whimsey." Anyway, he adds, "I get a good view of the football team."

Male cheerleaders sport black pants and white shirts. With the money left in the budget, Hoover says she hopes they will buy crimson sweaters so everything will match.

The male cheerleaders don't get to dance. While the "girls" do the dance routines, the "men stand behind the girls and scream the cheers" through megaphones, Coutu says. At the end of a routine, the men get down on all fours to form the bottom of "the mount."

So far no one has harassed the men for cheering. "The guys aren't given a hard time," Coutu says, adding, "Besides, they are very male-looking males." They agreed the men should not participate in the routine because "the arm movements look too feminine," Hoover thinks. But she promises more action for the men in the games ahead when the squad plans to have the men "picking us up and throwing us around." Hoover adds, "It will be more exciting for them."

Unlike the crew team which merely moonlighted as a pep team, the new squad takes its cheerleading responsibilities seriously: practices two times a week, behind the stadium and in the IAB special exercise room. But so far its conscientiousness has gone unappreciated by many. Its first time out, the band let forth with a jeering blast, then rolled up their pants legs, wrapped their ties around their heads and minced their way through a burlesque routine. The cheerleaders were not amused.

Neither were the football players. When the football players caught wind of the band's charades, "they got very upset," Hoover says. Several of them exchanged harsh words with the band members. John J. Pendergast '82, a football player, suspects the band is jealous. "I think they may feel the cheerleaders are encroaching on their territory," Pendergast speculates.

Hoover says the band and the squad have since made peace. She asked the band for a record of their songs, so they can do a routine to 10,000 Men of Harvard at the Dartmouth game. And at the last game, the band cheered the cheerleaders' performance.

The spectators are not exactly supportive, however, although the cheerleaders attribute their reluctance to follow along with the cheers to lack of practice, not hostility. Janus says, "The first home game crowd didn't know quite what to make of it. You know, the pom-poms and all."

The alumni need to loosen up, Janus says, and she's counting on the cheerleaders to get them going. Janus is a shouter at games. One Saturday afternoon she let out a particularly lusty bellow and a distinguished crusty alumni next to her glared. "Madam," he corrected, "It's not appropriate to shout."

Not all the alumni find rooting so reprehensible. Some of the middle-aged graduates always greet Coutu after a game with a pat on the back. "They tell us how sweet we look," she says. She expects once they accept the cheerleaders' presence, the spectators will start cheering with them. Football player Pendergast hopes so too, for the cheerleaders sake. Right now, "the people in the stands do more laughing at them than cheering. Or at least that's what I hear on the bench." Pendergast believes the crowd's attitude bodes ill for the squad's future. "If they don't get support, I don't know how long they will last, he adds with regret.

And the football players will regret it if the squad breaks up. Pendergast says he "really appreciates having them down there." Jim Cesare, a retired football player, says, "I like it." Why? Because it shows "the schools finally understands that football is an important part of the school."

Hoover recalls the first cheerleader squad-football team encounter. "We were practicing before the UMass game down at the field, and they didn't know who we were. They asked us what we were doing and we told them we were going to be their cheerleaders. They got all excited. They said, 'yeah, all right.'"

At games though, the team is less demonstrative. Hoover says they smile and clap, but don't usually say anything to the cheerleaders. Coutu suspects it is because "they are all wrapped up in the game." But their oblivion doesn't distress her. She knows that the team is inwardly grateful. "the general reaction is like, 'wow, they really care about us.'"

The cheerleaders get few opportunities to "mingle with the football crowd," as one cheerleader put it. Coutu doubts this will change even on an away game weekend. "I'm sure when we go away, we'll be pretty much segregated. They want the guys to keep their minds on the game." She doesn't feel deprived. "I'm not there to meet the football team, I could go to guts to do that." Even after the games, the men remain elusive. "After the game they just rush into the locker room and change," Butler says.

Some Harvard students, band members in particular, have asked Powell if she feels "high-schoolish." Powell vigorously defends the squad against charges of immaturity: "Look at all the other big-name colleges. They all have cheerleaders." Similarly, they scoff at accusations that they are perpetuating the sexist stereotype of a submissive, giggly teenager. Butler insists cheerleading is a sport, like football. "We aren't just jumping up and down; your feet have to be pointing exactly one way, your hands have to be in a special position." If it looks childishly simple, Butler says, that is just "part of our job; to make it look easy. And smile."

Pendergast backs her up. "I know it's not in the typical Cliffie tradition," he says, "But I don't think it degrades Harvard women."

Others are less convinced. Susan H. Goldstein '80, president of the Radcliffe Union of Students, thinks the creation of a Harvard cheerleading squad is "almost embarrassing." When Goldstein went to Harvard football games freshman year, she remembers, "people would always make fun of the other team's cheerleaders. We felt elite, because we didn't stoop to that."

Nancy J. Krieger '80, founder of the Women's Clearinghouse, is "surprised and also not surprised" by the squad's appearance. She suspects the cheerleaders are reacting against the expanding presence of feminism at Harvard. Women's issues are no longer the sole concern of a "feminist clique," she believes and some people, threatened by more widespread acceptance of feminism, "are in retreat." She adds, "Having women go back to cheerleading will not bring back the good old days."

But close your eyes at the Dartmouth game this weekend, listen for the cheers, and you'll swear you're back at good ol' Central High, U.S.A. Now, if only the band would march in straight lines...