Perspective: P-E-N-N! Let's go Penn!

OK, ready. Lift to waist level, hold, grab the feet, extend the arms, hold steady hold steady, hold steady... Drop. He grimaces a little and takes a deep breath. OK, ready... It's Election Night and David Rittenhouse Laboratory is bustling with activity -- last-minute campaigning and last-minute voters. A hundred meters south, Franklin Field is bustling with its own activity -- sprint football practice and the usual corps of evening runners, joggers and walkers. Between the two, nestled in the less-than-cozy gymnastics room in the southeastern corner of Hutchinson Gymnasium, the pace is just as quick, but the setting is a little more reclusive. Lift to waist level, hold, grab the feet, extend, wait wait... Drop. Another grimace. OK, ready... This is Penn Cheerleading practice, and co-captain Jonathon Frerichs -- one of four men on the 14-person squad -- is trying to master a basic lifting stunt. Two years ago, the College sophomore would have laughed if you told him that he would be at a cheerleading practice on a Tuesday night in November. He'd have been in stitches and tears if you informed him of his future cheerleading technical knowledge -- that he'd appreciate the two-high stunts with a double base that colleges, but not high schools, utilize. Two years ago, Frerichs was about as far removed from cheerleading as one could be. He was a football player and a track athlete. He was on the field. He was the one for whom the cheerleaders were cheering. His high school didn't have male cheerleaders, but if it did, Frerichs knows how he would have acted. "I definitely would have made fun of them," Frerichs says with little hesitation. Yet here he is two years later, not only a cheerleader but a co-captain, leading the Penn Cheerleading team's Election Night practice alone. * Frerichs usually has help, but Penn's other co-captain, bubbly Nursing junior Melissa Roman, is at an *NSYNC concert with her boyfriend's little sister. Roman will miss this practice, but this is the only one she's missed all year. Cheerleading is more than a sport or activity to her -- it's a passion, and has been since she was 10, spurred to pom-poms by a cheerleader babysitter. "I thought she was like the coolest person in the world," Roman remembers. So Roman emulated. And then she realized she had found a passion. So out into the world of cheerleading Roman ventured. She cheered at youth football games; she cheered at high school football games; she cheered at competitions; she cheered at camps. Roman gave up cheerleading cold turkey her freshman year at Penn, but all it took was a little encouragement from a friend and she was back to stunts and pom-poms. She tried out for Penn's team last year and made it. And this year, she's a co-captain. * Men and women on Penn's cheerleading squad are vastly different breeds. Most of the women cheered throughout high school. All of the men donned their first cheerleading uniform at Penn. For most of the female cheerleaders at Penn, cheering collegiately feeds the addiction to the sport they developed in high school. They're drawn back to cheering; less a habit, it's a passion they don't want to quit. College junior Liz Uhlhorn, a dancer turned cheerleader, was on her high school team for four years. She's cheered each of her three years here. Nursing sophomore Patti Paik cheered throughout her high school years, often in big competitions. This is her second year cheering at Penn. The women want to cheer. Roman estimates that six or seven tried out last year. And this year, 25 women gave cheerleading a shot. Out of those 30-plus females, only three made the varsity squad. * There's not that competition for spots among men. Not at all. If you're a guy and you want to cheer at Penn -- if you seriously want to cheer -- you're all but on the squad. "We always need more guys," Roman says in an almost pleading tone. Ideally, a squad would have an equal number of males and females for stunting purposes. But Penn currently has 10 women and four men. As you can imagine, recruiting guys isn't easy. Boys tend to fantasize about being the star quarterback or sharp-shooting two-guard -- not about being a base in a pyramid stunt. And then there's the stereotypes: Effeminate. Unmanly. Those kinds of things make it hard to find male cheerleaders. "People are kind of weird about being a guy cheerleader because of the stigma," Roman says. But once they become cheerleaders, that stigma starts to dissipate. Those stereotypes start to melt. It's really not so bad. "I think it takes a lot for a guy to get out there, wear the uniform and anything," Paik says. "I think it takes balls." "Guys aren't out there dancing around," Uhlhorn echoes. Even Frerichs, an Army ROTC member with a shaved head and the build of a tight end, agrees that being a male cheerleader isn't such a scarlet letter anymore. "I've gotten more criticism for being in my ROTC uniform than for being in my cheerleading uniform," Frerichs says. Frerichs was introduced quite warmly to the world of cheerleading a little over a year ago. Three woman cheerleaders approached him at the freshman picnic at Hill Field and asked him to try out. Frerichs tried out. He made the team. And now cheerleading's about stunt technique and practice to him -- not about "cheerleading chicks." "Initially there was the appeal of female cheerleaders as a young freshman boy, but it grew into respect and enthusiasm for the sport," Frerichs says. College senior Jeremy Lawson wasn't exactly rapping at Penn Cheerleading's front door either. But he missed the camaraderie of team sports, and his friend convinced him to go out for the cheerleading squad. So Lawson tried out and made the squad. But his dad didn't initially embrace the idea. "He said, 'What did you do that for for?'" the Psi Upsilon brother remembers. "He thought I'd come out in a skirt and pom-poms." Of course, that wasn't the case. In his first game, Lawson came out with T-shirts. He tossed them at the screaming fans and became hooked on cheerleading after becoming immersed in the empowering situation in and around the Palestra stands. "I had in my hand the only thing people wanted and I was the only one who had it," Lawson recalls. * The Penn cheerleading squad is plenty diverse. There's experience among the females. There's experience among the males. There's a guy cheerleader from Uzbekistan. There's a female cheerleader from Palm Beach County, Fla. But it's no matter; the Penn cheerleaders are successful at what they do -- cheering at Penn football and basketball games. And although the Quakers won't be entering any competitions, they are in a different sort of competition. Penn applied over the Internet to be in a Bring It On-like cheerleading movie, The New Guy. And although only two teams will actually be in the movie, the Quakers have a chance -- they made it to the 30-team finals. But the movie is a future priority. The team hasn't even worked on its film routine yet. What's important on this Election Night is immediacy. For those at DRL, it's the election results. For the runners on Franklin Field, it's the mileage. For Melissa Roman, on this night, it's the concert. And for Frerichs, the former football player, it's getting this stunt right. Unlike in his high school days, however, this stunt won't have anything to do with pass-rushing. It's all about cheerleading. OK, ready. Try again. Lift, hold, grab the feet, extend, hold steady, hold steady... Down. Good.

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