Male Cheerleaders to Perform in Super Bowl for First Time Ever

Los Angeles Rams cheerleader Quinton Peron, seen here at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and his fellow Rams cheerleader Napoleon Jinnies will be the first ever male cheerleaders to perform at a Super Bowl. Harry How/Getty Images

Three men have already broken barriers in the National Football League's 2018-2019 season as the first male cheerleaders in the game's nearly century of existence. But two of those will be breaking another at this weekend's Super Bowl in Atlanta as they become the first ever male cheerleaders to take part in a Super Bowl. Los Angeles Rams cheerleaders Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies will be on the sidelines cheering on their team as they take on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.

But it should be made clear that the league has had males on the sidelines with cheerleaders before. The Baltimore Ravens, for instance, boast that it has "the only co-ed stunt team in the National Football League." But the men on the sidelines with the Ravens are, in effect, stuntmen: muscle-bound dudes who hold the female cheerleaders high above their heads and chuck them into the air only to deftly catch them as they tumble toward the ground.

The three men that joined the NFL's season this year were not that. These men stepped through all the dance choreography, breaking out those ultra-blinding cheerleader smiles and doing all the regular "rah-rah" that has been associated with women on football sidelines since someone first inflated a pigskin. And two of them are going to the Super Bowl.

And now the NFL will never be the same. And that, very possibly, is the point of it all.

The Backstory

No mention of the NFL breaking down long-standing walls can be complete without first mentioning the NFL's urgent need for a good public relations score. The most popular sport in America has been a PR mess for some time now.

A national firestorm over players protesting racial injustice during the national anthem, exacerbated by President Donald Trump's tweets, shows no signs of slowing down. Continued concerns about player health and the effect of concussions is also a very real problem, and one affecting the game from peewee ball to the big league. Changing media distribution models are affecting NFL ratings, at least giving the impression that interest in the league is waning.

Even cheerleaders have created some decidedly uncheerful news for the league. In June 2018, five of them sued the Houston Texans because of meager wages and a hostile work environment. The New York Times reported that cheerleaders for the Washington Redskins— that name is another NFL sore point — were required to go topless at a team function at an adults-only resort in Costa Rica. In March, a Saints cheerleader filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the team fired her for fraternizing with players and posting a risqué photo to her private Instagram account.

With that backdrop, the NFL needs a little good news. Enter Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies, who stepped up as welcome additions to the Rams cheerleaders and will again break barriers. (And in New Orleans, the Saintsations opened their arms to Jesse Hernandez.)

The decision of those two teams to smash this particular barrier this season was seen as opportunistic by some, groundbreaking by others and about time to still more, depending on views. For their part, the two clubs seemed intent on not making too big a deal of it.

Perhaps, some suggest, that was to avoid pointing out that the other squads that field cheerleading units — six of the 32 franchises, according to NFL.com, don't have official cheerleading squads at all — are all still all-female. (The Ravens, who have the co-ed stunt team, are all-women when it comes to the dance team.) Very possibly, true to the team dynamic, the teams simply could be trying to keep the newcomers from publicly outshining the rest of the squad.

"We are proud that one of our new members Jesse Hernandez, like all of the other candidates, went through a very rigorous and thorough audition process ...," Ashley Deaton, the senior director of the Saintsations, said in a tamp-it-down statement via email. "Jesse was evaluated by a panel of judges that deemed his talents warranted a position on the team."

These guys are, the teams want you to know, just part of the team. Even if they are the first of their kind.

The Pioneers

The first two men to make a splash were Peron and Jinnies, both professional dancers from California who landed their jobs with the Rams — these are low-wage, part-time gigs with huge off-the-clock time commitments around the community — earlier this year.

Peron, from Rancho Cucamonga, California, was watching another iconic dance team from Southern Cal — the National Basketball Association's Laker Girls— when the thought struck him: "Why can't I be down there?" he told Good Morning America in March. He tried out a few days later.

Jinnies, from Santa Barbara, California, was there, too. He recounted the audition process in talking to GMA.

"They were unlike anything I've ever been to. I'm used to getting a call [shortly] after, or an email, or not getting a call or an email," Jinnies said. "This one was about three weeks long and we had a bunch of rehearsals in between and an extensive interview process ... It was really humbling and amazing ... But it was worth it."

Not long after, Hernandez, a 25-year-old from Maurice, Louisiana, got a message from his dance-instructor mom pointing out the news about the Rams' male cheerleaders. By April, Hernandez was trying out in New Orleans, competing against 50 women for 34 slots and trying to become the first man in the history of the Saintsations.

Things have changed in the NFL. At least in small ways. On the sidelines. And that's good.

"It's setting a new path. It's changing the world. And that's exactly what I want to do," Hernandez said. "And, hopefully, I can open that venue and that path for other male dancers."

Now That's Interesting

The most famous cheerleaders in the NFL are the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, the brainchild of former owner Tex Schramm. In their iconic blue-and-white outfits, complete with cowboy boots, vests and barely-there short shorts, the DCC officially sprang to life in 1972 when, according the Cowboys, "[f]or the first time ever, anywhere, jazz dancing was blended with beauty and brought to a football field ... and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were born." They remain an all-female squad.