Re: Harvard Crimson 2013-2014
A refreshing contrast to the band, with its hipster irony ("Harvard band members are to real bandsmen as Stewart and Colbert are to real newscasters") is the cheerleading squad. They are athletic, they are entertaining, and they are normal. Their website chronicles their recent anabases from JV status to full varsity status and their appearances at NCA nationals (yes, NCA, I surmise it stands for National Cheerleading Association). An excerpt from their website (note the references to "fundraising for this trip," "Kirsten Dunst," "blunt head trauma" and (rather pedantically) the correct spelling of "pon-poms"):
Harvard Cheerleading Goes to Nationals
By Alexandra J. Mihalek - April 11, 2011
When asked about my trip to Daytona Beach, Florida, where the Harvard Cheerleading team recently competed at the NCA Collegiate Cheerleading Championships, one question kept popping up—“So, that was just like Bring It On, right?”
Unfortunately, watching Kirsten Dunst and Gabriella Union do cheer battle is the only contact that many of my peers have had with the sport of cheerleading. And although I have seen that movie an absurd amount of times, as an eight-year competitive cheerleader, I can confidently say that many aspects of the blockbuster Bring It On are completely false.
Nationals was not one of those things.
Cheerleaders had truly invaded Daytona Beach, and the main boulevard was overrun with high ponytails and extreme stunting. This was what every collegiate team had worked an entire year for—the one chance to put everything out on that competition mat.
For our squad, Nationals had an extra layer of meaning. Although Harvard made it’s first appearance at NCA Nationals last year—the first Ivy League team to ever attend the competition—we were still bombarded with the classic, “Wait, Harvard has a cheerleading squad?” Nationals was a chance to show the world that Harvard had stepped onto the competitive collegiate cheerleading scene once and for all.
This goal was attained; however, it was not reached easily.
As a very young team — ten of the twenty squad members had never competed at Nationals before — stepping onto the mat amidst the flashing lights and thousands of spectators allowed nerves to get the best of our squad. While I wish this hadn’t been the case, our routine at preliminaries was far from our best performance. Between balks in tumbling to fallen stunts, we walked off of the mat disappointed. After countless hours logged in the gym and days devoted to fundraising for this trip, we hadn’t proved anything.
Somehow, in the course of a few hours, all of that changed.
After preliminaries, teams compete in the Challenge Cup to try to gain a spot in the next day’s finals. At this competition, our squad finally came out ready to wow.
The flashing lights, smoke and music acted as a prelude to Harvard cheerleading’s perfect routine. Every stunt hit and every tumbling pass was nailed—something we had not achieved in a competition yet that season. At that moment, everything was worth it. The time, the pain and the far-too-frequent blunt head traumas had all led to that feeling of success, and to the knowledge that we had helped to raise the bar for Ivy League cheerleading.
As a graduating senior who has finally retired her pon-poms (yes, that’s actually how it’s spelled), NCA Nationals was the icing on top of a very delicious cake. The Harvard cheerleading squad has cemented its role as a competitive team, and I can only imagine the great places that this new and burgeoning team will go."
