Victoria Advocate | "Football's other athletes" by CIglehart

Football's other athletes

By CIglehart in For The Record
October 16, 2009

I was on the sidelines for the Memorial/Highlands game during the first half, during which I thoroughly enjoyed watching them beat up on the visiting Owls.

The MHS varsity cheerleaders have a ritual that requires them to do one push-up for each point the football team scores. After Travis Edwards' short scamper into the end zone, Memorial was up 26-0 and that was when I noticed the cheerleaders doing their thing.

Now I was the furthest thing from a math major in college, but even I realized that by this time these guys and girls had done a LOT of push-ups and the second quarter was barely underway.

The way it works is after every score, the squad rips off the same number of push-ups reflected by their team's points on the scoreboard. That means after the first TD, they did 7. After the Vipers' second TD, they did 14 more. And so on, and so on, and so on.

After Roderick Warren waltzed into the end zone from 27 yards out with 9 minutes left in the half, Memorial was leading Highlands 33-0. As the crowd counted the push-ups done by the laboring cheerleaders, I began to realize that these students were going to be in for a long night.

Since it looked like the Vipers were well on their way to posting 80 points, I began to wonder about the welfare of the cheerleaders. Their faculty advisor Denise Neel set my mind at ease a bit when she told me about their preparatory regiment.

The squad practices about two and a half hours, three times a week - not exceeding eight hours per week. Their routine includes working out once a week at a local gymnastics center, so obviously their goal is to stay in peak condition.

I imagine all of their training came in handy Friday night since the final score was Memorial 47, Highlands 6. That brought the grand total of push-ups done to a whopping 187.

Since I had to leave the game at halftime I can't verify if any of those young people collapsed due to exhaustion, but Coach Neel did say before I left that one of her guys had asked her if she had any Icy Hot.

So the next time you go to a football game, just keep in mind that the players on the field aren't the only athletes in the stadium representing their school.