The History of Cheerleading

By the 1880s, Princeton University’s American Football sporting game atmosphere led to Princeton’s students forming an all-male student “pep club” to lead “cheers” (unified chants and yells) in order to provide support to their team, as well as create a high energy sport environment.  Cheers such as “Rah, Rah, Ray! Tiger, Tiger, Sis, Sis, Sis! Boom, Boom, Boom!  Aaaaah! Princeton, Princeton, Princeton!” were commonly yelled from the seats of Princeton University’s American Football stadium as a method to motivate their team on to victory. 

In 1884, one of Princeton University’s graduated students, Thomas Peebles, moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA (North Central USA), and introduced the Princeton “pep club” and “cheer” concept to the students of the University of Minnesota with great success at their American football games.  

In the very same year, two University of Minnesota rugby players John W. Adams and Win Sargent created a “team yell” to also help inspire their rugby team.  Both rugby players decided to use the word “Ski”, a native America Sioux battle cry meaning victory, and they also added their own word “U-Mah” as a sound representing the University of Minnesota which also rhymes with “rah-rah-rah” to form a team cheer.  Their “yell” became popular throughout the University, and would soon be instrumental to a student named Johnny Campbell credited with inventing what is known today as cheerleading.

By 1889 stadium pep clubs, cheers, school yells, and even school “fight songs” continued to develop in many schools & universities around the USA to inspire their sport fans.  Consequently in late October 1898, the University of Minnesota’s American Football team had suffered 3 straight game losses, the university student body and student newspaper editorial made the following plea to their students, “Any plan that would stir up enthusiasm for athletics would be helpful” for their final game of the season versus rival school Northwestern University from the Chicago area.