Four U.S. presidents were cheerleaders.

Famous Figures

D espite its modern association with women, cheerleading started in the mid-19th century as what was considered a masculine sport — an ideal pastime for charismatic, athletic young men. Women were actively excluded at first, but started taking the field during World War II when many college-aged men were fighting abroad, and they didn't really overtake the sport until the 1960s; as women cheerleaders became more common, the sport was trivialized and viewed as not athletic enough for men. So even though the United States has not had a female president, it's not necessarily surprising that four former occupants of the White House — Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush — spent time hyping up a crowd as cheerleaders for their school sports teams.

Though FDR didn't play any other college sports himself, he was an avid football fan, devoting many column inches to the Harvard team while editor of the Harvard Crimson newspaper, and he eventually became head cheerleader. Eisenhower desperately wanted to play baseball and football at West Point in the 1910s, but after a career-ending knee injury during a football game (which he promptly reinjured horseback riding a few days later), he expressed his love for the game as head cheerleader.

Cheerleading at basketball games was just one of Reagan's laundry list of athletic extracurriculars at Eureka College in the 1930s, along with track, football, and serving as captain and coach of the swim team. And Bush, who attended boarding school at Phillips Academy Andover in the 1960s, where athletic participation was mandatory, became a cheerleader after warming the bench in basketball, baseball, and football. He eventually rose to the rank of head cheerleader his senior year. Bush took the megaphone amid a cultural shift: While cheerleading was still considered masculine at Andover, back in his home state of Texas it was largely viewed as a feminine activity.

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By the Numbers

Height (in feet) reached by the world's highest cheerleading basket toss

Presidential terms served by Franklin D. Roosevelt

Did you know?

Samuel L. Jackson was a cheerleader in college.

Actor Samuel L. Jackson became a cheerleader at the all-male Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1966 so that, according to him, he could travel with the basketball and football teams to meet women. Jackson eventually declared a major in drama, a department shared with the all-female Spelman College, where he met his wife LaTanya Richardson — so it turns out he didn't have to travel too far after all.