Cheerleading squad battles for stunting status

Departing from his predecessor's policy, new Athletic Director Joe Alleva will allow the cheerleading squad to add men and gymnastic moves starting in the fall. But the squad is not exactly cheering.

Although the squad's members welcome the addition of men and gymnastics, they say stunts-which, unlike gymnastics, require another squad member-are an integral part of the sport.

Junior cheerleaders Molly McShane and Colette Alvis claim that Alleva misled them when they approached him about stunting. After a Tuesday meeting with Alleva, they believed that he was going to allow basic stunts. They subsequently informed their coach and a potential male cheerleader of what they assumed was a ground-breaking decision.

"We told him we'd keep it basic and keep it safe," McShane said. "Once he realized that we weren't trying to look like N.C. State [which has one of the nation's top cheerleading programs], we got the impression from him that we'd be able to do some stunts next year during football season."

When Alleva talked to cheerleading coach Teresa Ward later in the day, however, he stated firmly that the University's ban on stunting would continue, and he disputes that he ever indicated otherwise.

"That is not true," Alleva said. "We're not going to do stunts. We're going to do gymnastics. We're going to let some males become part of the program to inject some energy. We'll see how this works out. I am never going to allow stunts where guys are throwing girls up into the air. Never, ever, ever."

Alvis and McShane claim that Alleva had been open to allowing stunts during their meeting.

"There is no way that I ever would have walked out of his office thinking that [prohibiting stunting] was fair," Alvis said. "He absolutely did not say that we couldn't do stunts. I left the meeting feeling that stunting was very promising."

"With the new leadership in the athletic department, this is definitely the time for the issue to be readdressed," McShane said. "If it were any other new athletic director, we'd be asking for the same thing, and we probably would get it because at almost every other school, a co-ed stunting squad is a standard program."

The University hired Alleva in February after considering candidates from other schools.

Without the freedom that other school's cheerleaders have, Duke's squad is dissatisfied, Alvis explained.

"Honestly, right now I am at a point where I'm bored with the cheerleading program and the team is bored," she said. "Cheerleading is not just about dancing. It's about stunting. It's about gymnastics. At Duke, it's about not giving us respect by not allowing us to compete at the college level."

But the athletic department's prohibition has not kept several cheerleaders from practicing stunts with a dedicated group of men. All these sessions have taken place without Ward's knowledge, Weld said.

Alleva said he opposes stunting because it is too dangerous.

"I was at the NCAA Tournament in St. Petersburg, and I saw a Syracuse cheerleader fall and bleed for 15 minutes," he said. "She had a huge gash across her forehead, and she's lucky she didn't break her neck. It's too dangerous."

To some extent, ACC officials seem to agree with Alleva. Before the men's and women's basketball tournaments, they imposed a temporary ban on two-person tosses.

Alleva maintained that the rest of the ACC is moving away from stunting and toward safer cheerleading.

"The other schools in the ACC are trying to do what we're doing," he said. "When I sit in athletic director meetings, the other athletic directors are trying to get their cheerleaders to do what our cheerleaders do."

But for now, tournament competition is often embarrassing for Duke's cheerleaders, who are usually the only ones without men and stunts.

"I dread the ACC Tournament," McShane said. "It's awful because we have so much potential but we aren't allowed to show that we actually have skills."

Ward, who cheered at UNC from 1979 to 1983, is confident that most types of stunting are safe. During the summer, she teaches stunting at several cheerleading camps.

"I think that doing stunts properly with the right education and the right progression can be done very safely," she said. "There are some that are more dangerous and some that are less dangerous, but with the proper training you minimize the risk. You can't take away the risk, but you do minimize it."

Ward said she has no opinion on whether stunting should be a part of Duke cheerleading.

"I'm hired to do what the athletic department wants the program to do," she said. "It's whether they want stunts or not."

Much of the debate centers on the squad's proper role. Does cheerleading exist simply to involve the crowd in other sports or has it become a sport in its own right?

"I think our cheerleaders are terrific," Alleva said. "I think they're entertaining and I think they get the crowd going. I think that's what cheerleaders ought to do. I like our cheerleaders the way they are. It's not an official NCAA sport. But as far as we're concerned at Duke, we treat them all as athletes."

Alvis defended cheerleading as a legitimate sport.

"Alleva kept asking us what the point was of doing stunts," Alvis said. "What's the point of football? What's the point of tennis? If you really get down to it, no sport has a point.

"[Cheerleading] is a highly competitive sport," she continued. "That's obvious looking at other schools. It's great to please the crowd, but it's also about personal and athletic fulfillment."

Cheerleading's status as an "official" sport often enters into discussions of the potential for injuries. McShane and others asserted that cheerleaders are injured far less frequently than other athletes, particularly football players.

Because Alleva does not consider stunting a necessary part of cheerleading, however, he disagrees.

"I think that the nature of some games-actual games, you know, football or soccer or whatever-within the rules of that game there may be some high incidence of injury, but I don't see any actual need, and I don't have any desire to take the risk for cheerleading," he said. "I don't see any reason to take the risk of having a young lady go three stories high up in the air and fall on a hardwood floor when you don't have to do it.

"If a guy is running with a football then that's part of the nature of the game of football. He may have a knee injury, but unfortunately that's just part of the game. As far as my definition of cheerleading, that's not part of the game and there's no reason to take that risk."

The male cheerleaders, who will be selected in tryouts Sunday, will stay on only through football season, largely because of space limitations in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Ward said. Alleva said the men will perform gymnastics, shout through megaphones and perhaps wave flags.