It all starts at the Beginning
A Brief History
The history of cheerleading originated in the late 1880's with your average crowd yelling. Would it surprise you that it was started by a group of male college students? Many individuals are unaware as to what cheerleading is, where and how it originated, and how it has evolved over the last one hundred years.
In 1884, Princeton Unviersity grad Tom Peebles brought cheerleading to the University of Minnesota and in 1898, University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell directed the first cheer ever. The story is told that Minnesota was having such a terrible football season that people felt the need to come up with positive chants. It was then that cheerleading was born. Minnesota went on to organize a male cheer squad in 1903 and organized the first cheerleading fraternity in the history of cheerleading, Gamma Sigma. Ironically enough cheerleading started out as an all male sport, it was felt there deep loud voices were more projecting than a woman's voice. It wasn't until the 1920's that women became much more involved in cheerleading and began to incorporate gymnastics, pyramids and tossess. Today, youth cheerleading is predominantly made up of female cheerleaders however college cheerleading is still about fifty percent male.
In the 1930's, the sport developed into much more of a display of showmanship as the athletes became more entertaining to watch. The next big additions to cheerleading were the megaphone and the pom poms. Introduced by Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer is seen as the grandfather of cheerleading. 
He has done so much for the history of cheerleading by founding the National Cheerleading Association at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and holding cheerleading schools way back in 1946 and '47. Herkimer's camps have now grown to over twenty thousand attendees.
Today the sport has evolved into a highly athletic and competitive field displaying males and females of incredible talent. Herkimer and University of Minnesota have carved out a unique history of cheerleading.