“We look so awesome.”
“Oh my God, we do!”
Perhaps, fittingly, there is a big storm coming, right now a cold front dumping rain and snow on Chicago, moving swiftly east, headed exactly for Cincinnati, promising to turn a balmy 68-degree evening into instant winter in a way that no one anywhere near Paul Brown Stadium is prepared to believe. Maybe the storm will be late? Maybe it will get . . . delayed? Charlotte, the mother superior of the Ben-Gals, the one responsible for all the rules—all the line formations, all the dances, all the praise, all the punishments, all the outfits—has to make a difficult decision: teeny-weeny skirts with white go-go boots and halter tops, or catsuits that hardly provide any better winter cover. The gals vote: catsuits. “Please! Please! Please!” They love the catsuits. There is nothing sexier than the catsuits.
“Is Adrienne okay?”
“Did you hear she is throwing up?”
“Oh my God!”
Now, the men outside. The men are just super. Oh, the men think this whole thing is about them. That is so cute. That is enough to make any Ben-Gal roll her head to one side and get teary with admiration. That is so sweet!
Hello, men. Meet the cheerleaders. There are a lot of them. At first they are hard to tell apart in the same way kittens playing with a ball of yarn in a basket are hard to tell apart. Every single one of them you want to pick up and stroke and pinch and poke and take home. How can you choose? And what if you did take one home? Think it through. Where would you put the cheerleader? What would you feed it? Would you have time to play with it? Play with it in the way it longs to be played with? Yeah, that is one luscious volume of girl flesh.
The cheerleader is a fantasy. Let it go.
It. The cheerleader is an it. Are you aware that you have been thinking of this person as an it? Does that make you a pig? Nah. Or no more so than the next person, but that’s not even the point. This is about the cheerleader. She is not trying to get your attention so much as she knows she has it. God, you’re easy. You are not the reason she has been up since five working on her hair, spraying on her tan, squishing her breasts together and forcing them upward into a double-mushroom formation with the assistance of all manner of wired undergarments. Of course, you play a role in it. Of course. When you catch a glimpse. For barely a second on the TV. There on the sideline. Right after some blitz resulting in a crushing sack. She’s there for you. Sharing your moment of glee. Bouncing up and down for you with her pom-poms, beckoning you to, yeah, pump-fake your way into her itty-bitty shorts.
Right. She knows you think this way, but there is more to the story: you are sorta beside the point. Oh, your weakness is precious.
This is good old-fashioned sex appeal. This is straight-up Marilyn Monroe pinup-girl shtick. Sexy-happy, happy-sexy. It’s family-values sex appeal. Other than that, it has nothing to do with you.
This is America’s entertainment, homegrown, full-on, nobody else has it. Football. Beefy men at war on the gridiron, pretty gals fretting on the sidelines. “De-fense!” Eighteen million people watch every NFL game, and well over 110 million tune in to the Super Bowl—our most watched television show every year. The NFL churns out $9 billion in annual revenue, and its thirty-two teams are valued at over $1 billion each. Taxpayers pour their own dollars into making sure football happens—ten of the nation’s new $1 billion NFL stadiums are 100 percent government-financed, while another nineteen are at least 75 percent government-financed.
Within this gargantuan money machine stands the cheerleader. The one whose job it is to say, “Yay!” With all the cash floating around, people assume NFL cheerleaders are within some vague sniffing distance of the good life, but a Ben-Gal is paid seventy-five bucks per game. That is correct: seventy-five bucks for each of ten home games. The grand cash total per season does not keep most of them flush in hair spray, let alone gas money to and from practice.
The cheerleader is pure. The one actor in our most celebrated entertainment empire who gets nothing tangible in return. She is nationalism at the most basic level, every Sunday embodying the American contradiction. She parades around on our biggest national stage wearing the characteristics America loves about itself—loyal, devoted, confident, optimistic—and loathes: shallow, egocentric, materialistic, loud. She does not question her role and she does not stop smiling.
People assume a lot. People assume cheering in the NFL is also about a girl trying to snag herself a big hunk of a stinkin’-rich football player. That is not the case. The Ben-Gals are not even permitted to socialize with players, except at officially sanctioned appearances. This rule is strictly enforced. Zero tolerance. As for football itself, the game, the players, the stats, the formations—that stuff rarely rises to the level of actual conversation, because that is just background noise.
“We have a rule book that’s, like, this thick,” Charlotte will explain to any woman interested in becoming a Ben-Gal, stacking her hands four inches apart. “If you can demonstrate commitment and dedication and following-the-rules, you’re good to go.” It is not as easy as it sounds. Practices are Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:00 p.m.—sharp—at which time a Ben-Gal must be in full uniform, full hair, full makeup, a state of readiness that can take two hours to achieve. She must then step on the scale. If she is more than three pounds over the target poundage assigned to her by Charlotte, she will have to attend the after-practice “fat camp,” doing crunches and running laps for a half hour after everyone else is gone, and she may not be able to cheer in that week’s game. There are many other reasons a cheerleader can get benched: If she misses a single mandatory practice, she will not cheer at that week’s game. If she misses four practices, she’s off the squad. She is permitted just two tardies per season. Within fifteen minutes, it’s a tardy, but sixteen is a miss. Two tardies equal a miss. No excuse is greater than another. Death won’t get you a free pass, unless it’s your own.
Given all the rules and the lack of distinct perks, it is difficult to understand why so many beautiful young women would eagerly and longingly choose any of this.
Charlotte sees it as a gift. Charlotte sees herself as a fairy godmother with a magic wand under which only a few select gals earn the privilege of the wave. “My most precious thing I can do is take a person and give them the tools that the program offers and watch them grasp it and watch them mature,” she says. “Now, not everyone does that. But you take a girl like Adrienne. I mean, she was . . . whew! She was kind of . . . alternate for a while. You know what I mean? And now, to watch her mature and develop into the program—she’s a real special girl. She’s had a hard life. She’s the only single mom we have on the squad. Oh, I don’t know why I’m talking about Adrienne. I mean she’s not Pro Bowl yet. But still . . .”
Contrary to popular mythology, not all NFL cheerleaders are bimbos or strippers or bored pretty girls looking to get rich. The Ben-Gals offer proof. Neither a bimbo nor a stripper nor a bored pretty girl would survive the rigorous life of a Ben-Gal. The Ben-Gals all have jobs or school or both. Kat and Sarah are sales reps. Sunshine is a database administrator. Shannon works at a law firm. Tara is a cancer researcher working toward her Ph.D. Adrienne works construction, pouring cement.
MEET THE CHEERLEADER: RHONÉE
“This is my second year as a Ben-Gal. The first year, I commuted three hours from Liberty, Kentucky. That’s how bad I wanted to cheer. I had never even heard of a switch leap before—where you do a leap and do splits and then switch legs? The first time I tried that, I felt like Peter Pan.
“I have a bachelor’s in chemistry and a bachelor’s in biology. I just finished my master’s in public health with an emphasis in environmental health science. For two years, I worked on a project dealing with air quality within chemical-fume hoods. We came up with something called the smoke-particle-challenge method. I did monoclonal antibody research for BD Transduction Laboratories. I worked for the U.S. gov
ernment at the Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine. We did soil sampling, water sampling, at military bases throughout Europe. That was the best job I ever had.
“When I first took my new job at PPD’s global central labs, I didn’t tell anybody I was a Ben-Gal.
“I met my boyfriend when I was fourteen. He was sixteen and I was fourteen. We took our time. We got engaged in 1998. He asked me to marry him in Paris, at the Eiffel Tower. I was, like, ‘I’m melting!’ That’s been a long time ago. He’s going to have to, you know, renew that. His job takes him to Chicago a lot, so I don’t see him a whole lot.
“I don’t feel thirty-two. I keep telling everybody you’re only as old as you feel, and I don’t feel thirty-two at all.
“For me the Ben-Gals is about fulfilling a dream. Not many people out there can say they’re an NFL cheerleader. I have never been so proud to wear such an ugly color of lipstick.
“In Kentucky, cheerleading is big. But when a small-town girl tries out for NFL cheerleading and makes it, that’s huge. I made the front page of our local newspaper. Last year I was Miss November in the Ben-Gals calendar. Everyone kept telling me they wanted a calendar. I didn’t tell a lot of people I had them. Word of mouth, people asked. I ended up bringing over 350 calendars back to my hometown. This year I’m not a month, but I’m still in the calendar. You feel like a superstar. I had trouble doing the sexy look. They teach you how to do that, to look like you’re mad at somebody. This year I don’t look mad. Just like I’m halfway smiling. I’m wearing a Rudi Johnson youth-size small jersey that they cut up and made into a bathing suit. A youth size small.
“The Reindog Parade is this Saturday. There will be five hundred dogs dressed like reindeer. I have to be there at one. Judging begins no later than one thirty. The parade starts at two. I’ll be walking in the parade with a reindog.”
—
ADRIENNE COMES FLYING out of the stall. She is not done throwing up but refuses to continue. She will not give in to a day of senseless, stupid puking. She is Cheerleader of the Week! Okay, that news came days ago. So it’s not news news, but tonight is the night, and so you could say reality is settling in. This is almost certainly at the center of the nausea Adrienne must conquer.
There are so many things that may or may not happen tonight. The storm may or may not come. The Bengals could score very many touchdowns. The Ravens could be called for holding or do an onsides-whatever kick. All kinds of . . . football things could or could not happen on this electrifying NFL Thursday night. But one thing is certain: Adrienne is going to be Cheerleader of the Week. She’ll get her face on the JumboTron during the second quarter. Just her, dancing live, beside a sign listing her name and her hometown and her hobbies—in front of sixty thousand people in Paul Brown Stadium—for perhaps five or six or seven seconds.
Okay, listen. Adrienne poured the cement in Paul Brown Stadium. Way before she became a Ben-Gal. When she was just a regular person working under a hard hat in the freezing-cold wind blowing off the Ohio River. She poured the forms.
She does not feel worthy to be Cheerleader of the Week, and yet, at the same time, she does. (When in this life does she get a turn?) She is looking into the mirror, trying to get color into her cheeks. She is trying to get ahold of herself. She is a Ben-Gal! A good Ben-Gal. An obedient Ben-Gal. She stays in her target-weight zone, 144 to 147 pounds, higher than most because of her muscle, her height. She does not smoke. She does not chew gum. She has no visible tattoos or naughty piercings. She curls her hair when Charlotte or Mary tells her to curl it, sprays it when they say it needs to stand taller or wider, slaps on more makeup when they demand bigger glamour. She works as hard as any other Ben-Gal at becoming what the coaches call “the total package.”
But Cheerleader of the Week? It is overwhelming.
“Come here,” Rhonée tells her. “Look in this mirror. Isn’t this a great mirror? It makes you look so skinny. It’s an awesome esteem booster!”
“All right,” says Adrienne.
“Oh, you look awesome,” Shannon tells Adrienne.
“You always look awesome,” Sarah tells her. “I wish I had your abs.”
“I wish I had your boobs,” Adrienne tells her.
“I wish I had your hair,” Rhonée tells Shannon.
“Everyone wishes they had Shannon’s hair,” Sarah says.
“I wish I had your brains!” Shannon tells Rhonée.
“Oh, you girls are so awesome,” Adrienne says.
Cheerleader of the Week. It is not something most people in the world ever get even close to being. For that matter, most people don’t get close to being a regular Ben-Gal—just thirty per year, out of a field of a couple of hundred who try out. Chief among the characteristics required to make the squad—beyond raw dance talent, a degree of physical beauty, a soldier-like level of self-discipline—is a specific consciousness. It is so obvious to those who have it, and yet so fleeting, if at all attainable, to others. Ask a person who does not have it why she wants to be a Ben-Gal and she will say things like “Because I love to cheer” or “I have cheered my whole life” or “For the camaraderie” or blah blah blah.
Now try this same question on a person who has within her the consciousness, the essence, of what it is to become a Ben-Gal.
“So, why do you want to be a Ben-Gal?”
She will look at you. She will look at you blankly, keeping her smile in place while her eyes tell the story: What, are you from Transylvania or something?
“Because it’s a Ben-Gal,” she will say, wondering politely and in her own generous way if you have perhaps suffered some brain injury at some point in your tragic life and if there is anything she can do to help make your world just a tiny bit brighter. Everyone, she thinks, wants to be a Ben-Gal. Pity the president of the United States, the queen of England, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, for not having the attributes necessary to become a Ben-Gal. It is difficult to accept that not everyone in this world has what it takes to become a Ben-Gal, and for those people, all she can do is pray.
That’s what it takes to become a Ben-Gal. If a woman has any lesser sense of the glory, she will not make it.
Charlotte and her assistants, Mary and Traci, and the captain, Deanna, maintain and constantly feed the glorification. Each Tuesday at practice, they decide who will cheer that week and who will not. Six people per corner, four corners, twenty-four cheerleaders. Six get cut. It depends on weight, glamour-readiness, dance-preparedness, all the factors of the total package. Each Tuesday, as nonchalantly as possible, Charlotte reveals her choices for those who will cheer and those who will not, for those who have earned a coveted spot in the front of the formation and those who must go to the rear. “Sarah, you are in the back,” Deanna will say, or “Shannon, I want you up front.” Nonchalantly. Because it’s stressful enough. It’s devastating enough to be left out or put in the back, even though most girls sort of know, can sense, can see the signs in Charlotte’s eyes or see the way Mary is whispering to Charlotte and nodding and pointing and wondering, Who told Sunshine she could dye her hair that dark?!?!
The choosing goes on all season. Everything is about the choosing. Whose picture will make the Ben-Gals calendar? Who will be Miss January? Who will make the front cover and who will make the back? These choices are revealed Academy Award–style at a special ceremony in September, with slide shows, at a restaurant, with families invited, and lots of hugs and lots of tears, celebration, consolation, grieving.
There is more choosing. There is the biggest honor of all: the Pro Bowl. One cheerleader per season per NFL squad is chosen to attend the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. All season long, the cheerleaders speculate about who will be chosen. Charlotte will tell no one until it is time; she is the decider. No one understands the total package better than she, herself a Ben-Gal from 1978 to 1989, a Pro Bowler, and a coach for thirteen years.
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The choosing is the bait that keeps any Ben worth her Gal reaching toward her total-package goal. And each week there comes this choice: Cheerleader of the Week.
Who among the living would not vomit?
—
NOW, THE MEN. The men are super-adorable. The game has not yet started, and some of the cheerleaders are glamour-ready, so they have left the locker room to sign calendars by the stadium gift shops. “Who-dey!” some of the men chant, soldiers coming to battle, stomping up stadium steps toward nachos, hot dogs, beer. “Who-dey!” The idiosyncratic growl is a Bengal original and all the more popular now that the team is actually semicompetitive. Marvin Lewis came as head coach in 2003, turned the team around, gave football back to a woefully depressed Cincinnati. From a cheerleader point of view, it’s been super.
Who-dey!
The men are dressed in orange and black, some with striped faces, crazy wigs, naked bellies pouring over Bengals pajamas, furry tails hanging from their asses. Soon this platoon rounds a corner, comes upon a table behind which four cheerleaders sit. Daphne, Sunshine, Kat, Tiffany. Glimmery and shimmery kitty-cat babes signing calendars, $10 a pop. The men say OH MY GOD with their eyes, stop dead in their tracks.
“Who-dey!” the cheerleaders say, all sex and sweetness and growl.
The men suck in air, seem to have trouble releasing it. These gals are, well, whoa. These gals are—fuckin’ A.
The cheerleaders give a thumbs-up. “Awesome outfits, guys!”
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