Surfing for the Perfect Cheer

Whether you're watching high school basketball or NFL football, invariably the cheerleaders, dance teams and drill teams are moving to the same techno beat, often with identical routines. The Internet is making this a small, cheery world after all. By Diana Michele Yap.

Gimme an "N"! Gimme an "E"! Gimme a "T"!

In yet another example of the Internet's reach, the stereotypically non-geeky world of cheerleaders, dance teams and drill teams has been inundated with a cottage industry of attendant websites.

There are sites where digital-music companies custom-mix cheer routine music. Sites by cheerleading organizations offering such vital information as stunts-of-the-month and sample chants. There are cheer chat boards, forums, classified ads, webzines and e-newsletters.

Some university websites offer pages with cheer routines available via streaming video. Some sites even post weight requirements so that prospective freshmen can decide if they're interested in those colleges' programs.

Apparently, cheerleading -- with its ever-changing routines and music mixes -- is a topic made for the Internet.

Cheer, dance and drill teams frequently appear to have the same routines, uniforms and music styles, because people are keen to find and follow trends, just as in any subculture. Cheerleaders can know what's considered cool nationally, without resorting to once-a-year camps and out-of-date books.

"The Web is my only way of getting up-to-date, current stuff. There aren't really books on cheerleading except from the '80s," said Courtney Sims, a 17-year-old senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. Sims is co-captain of the varsity cheer squad.

"I look at sites for different types of stunting, and for people's cheer motions, like arm motions," Sims said. "I print out stuff for my team to show them the basic stuff. Sometimes you can e-mail other cheerleaders so they become contacts, especially cheerleaders in the South, where it's really hardcore."

The Web also helps coaches hire professional digital music mixers to cut and paste the songs that squads need for routine music, and track down the songs themselves. Cheer-routine music usually lasts for two-and-a-half minutes and consists of a mix of three different songs with an added pop, hip-hop, funk or techno beat and special-effects sound clips.

"It's easier to search for music using a normal search engine, instead of going from record store to record store," said Mike Reynolds, co-owner of the Pace All-Stars, a competition-oriented cheer and dance gym for kids in Huntington Beach, California.

"The Web puts choices in front of coaches," most of whom are teachers by day and don't get home until late at night, said Sheila Noone, editor of American Cheerleader magazine in New York. "Magazines can only mention so many songs, but can't mention specifics -- don't do this move to this song -- because of space considerations."

In Britain, squads are generally moving toward digital mixing and mini-CDs -- especially in pro sports where "the sound quality needs to be good," said Bob Kiralfy, president of the British Cheerleading Association in Berkshire, England.

One noteworthy aspect of the Net's effect on the cheer and dance industries has been the relative financial success of some small companies that custom-mix cheer routine music.

Despite the spectacular failures of many well-publicized sites dealing in some way with music, girls or beauty -- among them and -- some of the more highly specialized sites that involve digital music, teen girls and beauty have been making money quietly and unglamorously.

Generally speaking, these cheerleading-related Web businesses have things in common. They play to an extremely specific audience; they could exist without the Web; and they use the Web merely as a new medium for advertising and for providing extra features -- such as free downloadable sound samples, and the ability to make purchases around the clock.

"These guys are doing great because it's a service-oriented model --providing little bits" of music, said Adam Powell, CEO of Angry Coffee in San Francisco.

Saad Qubain founded Q It Up -- a music remix company in Chesapeake, Virginia -- nine years ago. The website, which was launched three years ago, averages 2,700 hits a month. He says having a site improved his income by at least 20 percent, even though he spends his advertising dollars on print.

"Some people need music right now, and they can have it with MP3. The Web is more convenient," Qubain said. "People call me and want to hear a demo, a sample. And then on the sample, not only can they hear the entire sample for free, it's 24 hours a day and holidays -- so I'm not here in the office tied up."

Digital-music technology has changed cheerleading all the way up the pyramid to the pro level.

In the early '90s, "it used to take me 16 hours for a fully produced minute" of cheer routine music, said Qubain, whose firm does work for the NFL's Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "I used to literally cut and paste the tape on a reel-to-reel. With computers, it takes me one hour."