Cheerleading is predominately associated with women, but it actually started in the mid-19 th century as a masculine sport.

Women were actively excluded at first, but they started taking the field during World War II when many college-aged men were fighting abroad, and eventually took over the sport in 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 became the head cheerleader at Harvard. Eisenhower wanted to play baseball and football at West Point in the 1910s, but after a career-ending knee injury during a football game, 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.

Did you know that YOU have a grandstand of cheerleaders?
Check this out:

“Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1 LB)

It's encouraging to know that the saints of heaven are cheering us
on! Picture them on the bleachers waving banners and shouting
for your victory!

Thank God for these cheerleaders whom you’ll meet someday in heaven.

And ask Him to bring to your mind someone you can cheer on this
week!

You are loved.
Susie