Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991 TAG: 9103090364
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"You here to watch all the girls?"
The young man smiled freshly, not lewdly.
Certainly, there are women in a cheerleading and dance contest - like the one held as part of the Metro Conference Tournament - but there seems to be a lot more to it than that.
For one thing, there are men, too, and for another, college students seem to be getting younger all the time.
This is a good thing because these dedicated people think nothing of punishing their bodies even further while waiting for the judges to say who won.
The bodies of young women, hair streaming gracefully, flew through the air - out of the splash of color the youngsters made on the stage of the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium - and it all made a pretty good show.
Sure, some older people might have thought these young ladies were going to crash to the floor, but the young men who catch them are very good at that.
When you put all of these cheerleaders and dancers together, they paint the stage of the auditorium with school colors.
To be fair to the woman who questioned the young man, there is a certain amount of innocent, hard-muscle allure in a cheerleading and dance contest - this being especially true in the case of dance contests.
At least, it is enough for young men in the audience to say, "Yeahhhhh" very loudly when they approve of a certain twist of the hips and so forth.
Clearly, much older people go to these contests, scream a lot and seem to take no offense at these movements or comments.
Some of them, if they are fans of the Louisville Cardinals, wear red from the bottom down, and whatever age they have accrued hasn't affected their ability to holler very loud.
There are also ladies no longer young who bedeck themselves with buttons of all kinds and appear to feel good about doing so.
There are younger women with babies, one of whom discussed a possible contest winner and asked, "I wonder if it'll be the ladies in the sparkly outfits."
The fact that this contest, brief, colorful and lively, was free probably does not explain a full house in the 2,400-seat auditorium at 1 in the afternoon.
These people were basketball fans and they backed their cheerleaders regardless of hour.
The contest was sponsored by L'eggs, an outfit that makes panty hose, but if there is any snickering-type humor about that, it escaped the 2,400 people in the auditorium.
Memphis State University won the cheerleading contest and $1,500 in scholarship money; Louisville took home $1,000 for finishing second and Virginia Tech $500 for its third-place showing.
The Cardinals won the dance contest. The University of Cincinnati was second and Florida State was third, with the scholarship awards the same as for the cheerleading event.
You've got to have losers, but everybody should have gotten at least some money for risking their bodies that way.
by CNB