We've Got Spirit: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Cheerleading Team - Softcover

McElroy, James T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425173569 ISBN 13: 9780425173565

Publisher: Berkley Trade, 2000

Synopsis

A portrait of competitive cheerleading explores how this combination of graceful gymnastics, dance, and beauty became a sport in its own right and how the Kentucky Greenup County Musketeers have dominated the national championships

About this title

Review:

It is a measure of how encompassing the definition of sports is today that high-school cheerleading, once considered little more than a female ancillary to the boys in the spotlight, is now appreciated for the athleticism and teamwork it demands. Of course, there's cheerleading, and then there's Cheerleading with a capital C, and it's the latter, with its own intense competitions and championships, that McElroy lays bare for scrutiny as he lends an ear to its particular rhythms. "We're the no-name sport," he hears Candy Berry, coach of the cheerleading squad at Greenup County High School in rural Kentucky, complain. "We're kind of the forgotten stepchildren. But we're not. We're like Cinderella! We're coming out!"

It's that feistiness that makes We've Got Spirit so entertaining; what makes it engrossing is the way McElroy uses this small window to view a much larger vista. In the tradition of such marvelous and socially astute antecedents as In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, Where the Game Matters Most, and Friday Night Lights, McElroy follows a team's quest--Greenup's pursuit of a ninth national cheering title--to muck around in the larger issues of individual character, the concepts of teamwork, the ethos of a community, and the impact of success and failure. It's an amazing story, really, of the upsides and downsides of teenage girls, their supportiveness, jealousies, obsessions, and ambitions. Cheerleading may not be, as McElroy makes clear, politically correct, but it sure can be remarkably political and filled with intrigue. Spirit is certainly spirited--and rah-rah, sis-boom-bah for that. --Jeff Silverman

About the Author:

James T. McElroy discovered the story of the Greenup team as a reporter for The Charlotte Leader, where he won the 1997 North Carolina Press Association Award. He lives in New York City with his wife, a former cheerleader and cheerleading coach.

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley Trade
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0425173569
• ISBN 13: 9780425173565
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 368