November the 2nd is the birthday of organised cheerleading. You have all seen girls in short skirts dancing and cheering on the field during in-tervals at sports games. In fact, the first cheerlead-er was male. Of course he was not wearing a skirt when he was cheerleading, but do you know what he did and when? Or where he was from?The first cheerleader’s name was Johnny Campbel and he was a student at the University of Minnesota. On November 2, 1898 during a football match he directed a crowd in cheering “Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-u-mah, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Var-sity, Minn-e-So-Tah!”. And all the i rst cheerleaders were male. Very soon the University of Minnesota organised a team of “yell leader” which consisted of 6 males. The first female cheerleading teams were organised in 1923. Nowadays it is estimated that in the USA 97% of cheerleading participants overall are female, but males still make up 50% of cheering squads at the collegiate level.