Vikmanis Laura - Its not about the pom-poms: how a 40-year-old mom became the nfls oldest cheerleader--and found hope, joy

Copyright 2012 by Laura Vikmanis

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53291-6

www.ballantinebooks.com

Jacket design: Marietta Anastassatos
Front-jacket photograph: Kelly Campbell
Back-jacket photographs: courtesy of
Steve and Jeff Nagel (left),
courtesy of Linda Vikmanis (right)

v3.1_r1

And with every passing hour

Im so glad I left my tower

Like all you lovely folks

Ive got a dream.

Rapunzel in Tangled, lyrics by Glenn Slater

Were like movie stars without movies.

Washington Redskinette Syndi
Stewart, Cosmopolitan, 1982

This is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed, and I have altered certain details of chronology. Its Not About the Pom-Poms is otherwise an account of my expericences as I remember them.

WE BURST OUT OF THE LOCKER ROOM AND HEAD DOWN THE narrow white hallway in pairs, talking and giggling. I am so nervous, my palms are wet and I have to blot them against my thighs so I wont stain my miniskirt. Were going over moves and checking one anothers faces. Dont let me forget that head flip! Remind me to move out of the way on our second formation change. Which arm goes up first on the intro dance? Do I have lipstick on my teeth? Does my bra show? Does my second bra show? Is my eyelash falling off?

The narrow hallway leads to the wide underbelly of Paul Brown Stadium. This part of a football stadium is not glamorousits gray and dingy, with exposed pipes and cinder block wallsbut on Game Day its kinetic, so packed with people that its like the backstage of a Broadway musical. Our black, orange, and gold pom-poms swaying as we walk, we pass the security guys, the referees, coaches, reporters, cameramen, and the pyrotechnicians who are readying the fireworks equipment. I look at the other girls in their halter tops and low-slung skirts and realize, Im one of them. I look like that, too.

The girls and I have known one another just a few months but it feels like weve been through combat training. In some ways we have. We have made it through three rounds of competitive tryouts, a summer of exhausting practices, constant dieting, twice-a-week weigh-ins, and brutal athletic conditioning. Now its all about to pay off, as we cheer the first home game of the preseason. Its August 27, 2009, and the Cincinnati Bengals are playing the St. Louis Rams. But if you had asked me right then, in the passage of the stadium, who our opponents were, I would have had to think twice before answering. For us the games are not about the opponents or the score, though cheering is always more fun when were winning. They are about performance. The games are our shows and the field is our stage.

Like all modern cheerleading teams, we are a physically diverse group of women. Some of us are lithe, others petite and muscular. Some are curvy, some thin as a rail, some have legs that go on forever. Some are brunette, some blonde, some redheaded. Most are white, but our group includes an Asian American girl, two African American girls, and a pretty blonde who is part Cherokee.

I am different from all of these girls in one significant way: I am forty years old.

As we near the tunnel, people grin or ogle or give us the thumbs-up. Everyone smiles around cheerleaders, its Pavlovian. Were iconic, beautiful, and fit, but were also over the top. We know it, we dont mind, its why were here.

A group of fans is taking a tour of the stadium, led by an official. They cant stop staring. We dont stop to chat; we dont have time. Im going over my moves in my head. Each one of us is nervous about something different. I think Im going to throw up. Why didnt I pee before we left? What do I do on the second eight-count of Welcome to the Jungle?

Thirty-two of us have shown up to the stadium today but only twenty-four of us are on our way to the field. The others are upstairs working the private suites. I have been selected to cheer because Im a good dancer, Im consistently on time, and I always make my weight limit, one hundred twenty-three pounds for my five-foot-four-inch frame.

Our Game Day uniform, which we take home after every game and must return when we retire from the team, is a micro miniskirt in orange and black, and a white-and-orange halter top with a rhinestone B between the breasts. We wear calf-high, low-heeled white leather boots, shipped to us from a small shop in Los Angeles. (They are the only thing I will get to keep at the end of the season.) Beneath our skirts, which have a built-in panty, our legs are encased in suntan color Leggs Sheer Energy panty hose with the waistband removed so we dont have muffin tops, and the toes cut off so we have circulation.

We are all wearing tan, heavy foundation, fake eyelashes, and French-manicured or clear-polished nails, as required by our rulebook. Some of us have foundation or powder on our stomachs to give us great abs, whether we really have them or not. If you took all the silicone bra inserts, which we call chicken cutlets, that girls have stuffed inside their halters and put them in a pile, it would be about the size of a linebacker. I myself need no chicken cutlets; I got breast implants almost a year before, as part of the same midlife crisis that led me to believe I could get on the Ben-Gals in peri-menopause. Real or fake, each set of boobs is pressed together and up.

On our mouths we wear a hideous bright orange lipstickOrange Flip by Revlon. It makes you look like someones pushy grandmother who leaves kiss marks on your cheeks after she greets you. The Ben-Gals have been wearing it for decades.

We pass the players locker room, which always feels forbidden. Cheerleaders are not allowed to enter the room at any point. I have memorized the white sign on the door: NOTICE! NO PERSON EXCEPT AUTHORIZED CLUB AND LEAGUE PERSONNEL AND ACCREDITED MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA SHALL BE PERMITTED TO ENTER THE LOCKER ROOM OF ANY PARTICIPATING CLUB ON THE DAY OF THE GAME . The locker-room door is connected to the tunnel by a yellow brick road. Its not really yellow but a gray, black, and orange pattern that leads the boys to the field before a game and from the field after a nail-biting victory or humiliating loss. We are not allowed to step on the road lest we get in their way.

The boys are streaming in on their way back to the locker room after their warm-up exercises. Chad Ochocinco (who changed his last name from Johnson to Ochocinco to match his jersey number, eighty-five) and Dhani Jones are coming toward us. We avert our eyes, not wanting to distract them, but we peek at their faces to gauge their pregame state of mind. Its almost seven-thirty at night but we have been at the stadium over four hourspracticing, eating an early dinner, and getting ready. We have been here longer than some of the players.