The Longwood High School junior varsity cheerleading squad earned first place in the Universal Cheerleading Association Northeastern United States Regional Championships in Boston. As regional grand champions, the squad was invited to compete in the National Championships at Sea World in Florida in February. The nationals are televised on ESPN.
The squad defended its title at the Brentwood Open Nov. 19, breaking a 16-year record for scoring with the highest points of any team in any division. The squad now has a streak of six first-place wins. The coach is Donna Beary. –Newsday, Combined editions; Long Island, N.Y. [Long Island, N.Y]. 20 Dec 1989:
THIS ISLAND Rooting For The Cheerleaders: [NASSAU AND SUFFOLK Edition]
Raver, Anne. Newsday, Combined editions; Long Island, N.Y. [Long Island, N.Y]. 30 Jan 1990.
THEY HAVE the bodies of women and the hearts of girls. They’re curvaceous and cute. They wear little white skirts that barely cover their fannies. But pom-poms are out. Muscles are in. These cheerleaders can toss one another into the air like human basketballs.
“Go! Fight! Win!” The Longwood High Junior Varsity Cheerleaders were bolstering their boys, the Longwood Lions, who were losing, 3211. But to be honest, a lot of the crowd had come to see the cheerleaders. This is no stamp and clap stuff.
“Like when you and I went to school and all the cheerleaders were little and blonde and had boyfriends named Chip,” said Diane Higgins, whose daughter Krissy Taliercio can lift a 105-pound teammate over her head.
These little puffballs lift weights. They jump on and off benches, repeatedly – plyometrics in gym-talk – to strengthen their thigh muscles. Some are 5-foot-7 or -8, and 140 pounds or more. That’s a lot of cheerleader. Occasionally the boys joke about fat legs, but these thighs aren’t fat, they’re solid muscle.
And tell the truth, guys, aren’t the cheerleaders still the best-looking, most popular girls in school?
“Yeah . . . half of them are,” says left tackle John Dabbraccio, sprawled on a satiny smooth bleacher. Football stars come to the basketball games to watch their girlfriends build human pyramids and do splits high in the sky. John keeps his eye on Aimee Dziomba, who’s 5-foot-1 and blonde and can balance another whole girl on her shoulders.
Fullback Dennis Volpe watches his pal, Lisa Pitka, tumble across the mats doing handsprings and back tucks, like some big, beautiful, airborne dolphin. With a knee brace. Her mother worries about permanent damage, “but I can’t stop her,” says Joanne Pitka. She’s been tumbling since the age of 5.
“I like them because they win,” says Dennis, one of those gorgeous hunks who looks sensitive. “You go to a cheerleading competition, and you see all the football players there. And since they win so much, they give us the motivation to win.”
Yeah, like you can’t have a pansy football team when your cheerleaders are the national champs.
“The what?” said school superintendent Nick Muto when coach Donna Beary called on New Year’s Eve from Nashville, where the International Cheerleading Foundation held its finals (and every self-respecting boy in Nashville was standing up his steady).
“The nation!” said Beary, a little louder.
“Wait a minute. You mean the whole country?”
“YES!!!!” Beary screamed. (Longwood’s varsity team, by the way, placed fifth in their separate competition.)
“I was overwhelmed, I couldn’t believe it,” said Muto, as the squad launched into their jaunty Roger Rabbit dance, which, according to Beary, is impossible to learn if you’re over 18. “When I first came, eight years ago, you didn’t pay a lot of attention to the cheerleaders. Now people go out of their way just to see the squad.”
OM FEB. 10, the squad goes to Seaworld, in Orlando, for another national competition sponsored by the Universal Cheerleading Association. And members are quick to set the record straight about what cheerleading really is.
“This is a sport, we’re not just pretty girls on the sidelines,” said Capt. Gina DiJennero.
“We’re not just dizzy blondes,” says Krissy Taliercio, who’s a brunette, and whose arms are so black and blue from catching people, her mother had to get her a new dress with sleeves to go to a family wedding.
“I was a cheerleader years ago, and in my day, girls didn’t want to be thought of as athletes,” says Beary. “They thought that was unfeminine. But now, it’s feminine for anybody to work out.”
And if the collective hair spray and foundation used before the games is any indicator of femininity, these Amazons are it.
“Okay girls, put the blush down, put the lipstick down,” Ma Beary commands. Ma’s her nickname, and these are her 18 daughters. “If you go out without listening to what we’ve decided on the routine, I’m afraid somebody’s going to fall.”
Marissa Delena is on the floor, stretching out her legs and checking her mascara in a hand mirror. Krissy is taping the ankle of a foot decorated with hot pink toenails. Somebody switches on “Hippy, hippy, shake,” and the whole room springs into dance, 18 teenage body builders tossing their big hair around like Cher at Jack LaLanne.
But what’s made them first in the nation isn’t the sexpot stuff, which they’re plenty good at. It’s the stunts like the basket toss, where three cheerleaders, moving their muscles in perfect harmony, toss another way, way up into the air.
“She has to ride it, like a bullet, going straight up,” explains Marissa. “And as soon as she feels she’s at the highest point, she hits a Russian [a split!, and they catch her in a cradle [of their crossed arms!.”
“I was scared at first, but you learn to trust that they’ll catch you,” says Kristy Palazzo, a thin, dark-haired girl with legs, and nerves, of steel.
Watching these incredibly strong, coordinated, snazzy women, as enchanting as some acrobatic team from Russia, the question kind of begs to be asked: How come you’re still standing on the sidelines, cheering the boys on? And hey, do you ever cheer for the girls’ teams?
“Well, that’s one tradition we stick to,” says Krissy. “We cheer for the boys.”
And working the crowd is a wonderful thing, says Marissa, who’s a ham with a Harpo smile.
“When you get the crowd psyched up, you get psyched, too,” she says. “Instead of you winning, you’re pulling all these people together, and it’s a really good feeling.”
Which is just like a woman, isn’t it? Seeing a basketball game as a great big stew of relationships, that she’s responsible for.
And hey, these girls like being sex objects; it’s ingrained. “One girl was crying the other night because her boyfriend couldn’t see her, because of where I’d placed her,” says Beary. “I don’t think the football coach has to worry about stuff like that.”
So fellas, anybody going out for cheerleading next year? After all, Princton’s had male cheerleaders since 1834. And about 10 percent of U.S. high school cheerleaders are male.
“Nah, we stick to the real sports,” says John Dabbraccio. “But don’t put that in.” His voice is kind of sheepish. Maybe Aimee’s been raising his caveman consciousness.
Longwood High School’s varsity cheerleaders won the championship at the Busch Gardens National Meet in Williamsburg, Virginia March 24, defeating 46 other teams from 25 states. The team included Camielle Darienzo, Claudine Mauri, Tania Rodriguez, Nancy Malesko, Nikki Beekman, Christy Tambasco, Heather Londrigan, Jennifer Vilarde, Christina Casserly, Noel Camerlingo, Danielle Graf, Heather Neiss, Nicole Chalson, Nikki Maraldo, Sue Jackson, Christine Lenhart, Jessica Hawkins and Jen Bliley. Dali Rastello is the coach. April 8