Changing His Story
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Four coaches for the University of Kentucky cheerleading squad have been fired after hazing incidents and other problems came to light.
WDRB (Louisville) Sports Reporter Rick Bozich wrote a commentary about the firings and why there really is no need for cheerleading squads to begin with.
In his story, he wrote about the cheerleaders, saying, “They’re overexposed — and underdressed. They exist to entertain — and to titillate. They sell sports — and sex appeal.”
In fact, he wrote a lot more about why cheerleaders, dance teams should be no more.
Needless to say, many Cheerleaders and their families took issue with his story.
After reading Bozich’s first take, Drew Franklin of Kentucky Sports Radio said, “Bozich pulled a seat up to the table and brought with him an unbelievably bad opinion of it all, so bad that you could put it on the Onion and it could pass as satire. I read it an hour ago and I’m still in disbelief.”
It wasn’t long before the story by Bozich on the WDRB’s website was heavily edited and reposted.
This is how the first draft of the story read below. As for how the story reads now, you can click here.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- They kept referring to the number of national championships the University of Kentucky cheerleading squad has won, as if that would temper the Animal House behavior that led to four stone-faced UK university administrators, including president Eli Capilouto, being forced to explain the undressing required for a “basket toss.”
Apparently a basket toss requires the removal of your top (female) or bottom (male) before a cheerleader is tossed off a deck into the water semi-nude. But not the top and the bottom. And, also apparently, the removal of the top or the bottom (but not both) is not always voluntary.
Thankfully, the basket toss has not been worked into a routine at Rupp Arena or Kroger Field. But even basket tosses at Lake Cumberland have consequences. All four coaches of the UK cheerleading program were dismissed Monday morning.
Their termination followed an interesting “retirement” by a deputy university general counsel, a four-decade advisor to the cheerleading program whose oversight was determined to be “lax” and riddled with “poor judgment.”
Translation: The advisor either didn’t know or didn’t care about the smutty behavior.
Just when you thought that Todd Sharp, the dismissed leader of the University of Louisville’s Lady Birds dance team, would dominate all the TMZ-worthy news out of the commonwealth, the Kentucky cheerleading squad answered with a resounding, “Not so fast, my friends.”
Hazing? Check.
Alcohol abuse? Check.
Public nudity? Check.
Lax oversight of per-diem cards? Check.
Conflicts of interest between the cheerleaders, their coaches and the coaches’ business interests? Check.
Actually, make that checkmate because four people lost their jobs Monday without any post-termination payments. On a Zoom teleconference, Capilouto and three UK administrators looked embarrassed and perturbed. Except for all those national championship the cheerleaders won.
“This is not who we are, and this is not what we do,” Capilouto said.
It was, however, who they were for a period of time that remains in question. You can find the names of the dismissed administrators in other stories or in the investigative report UK has posted. I didn’t know their names before Monday morning, and I’ll forget their names by Tuesday morning. I’m not interested in embarrassing them. I’m more interested in asking if cheerleaders and dance teams really need to be so prominent. I’m also interested in asking why UK needed not one, not two, not three but four cheerleading coaches.
I’ll take a guess: Cheerleaders and dance teams have become over-publicized props in the big-time sports college entertainment complex.
They believe fans show up to watch them, not quarterbacks, point guards, halfbacks or power forwards. They’re overexposed — and underdressed.
They exist to entertain — and to titillate.
They sell sports — and sex appeal.
Maybe that will change. The four UK administrators said the cheerleading program has been moved under the leadership of athletic director Mitch Barnhart. A search for a director of the cheerleading program will begin soon, with the goal of hiring a replacement in the next month. Here are other goals worth pursuing for UK, U of L and other programs that keep trotting out cheerleaders and dance teams every time there is a break in play, as if administrators are terrified that five seconds of silence will turn spectators away from their products forever:
Cheerleaders and dance teams are sideshows, not the main event. They're along for the ride, not supplying the horsepower. They’re a prop, not essential.
The most-compelling athletic competition on the calendar unfolds every other year with the Summer and Winter Olympics. With no cheerleaders and no dance teams.
The Masters, the Kentucky Derby, Daytona 500, Wimbledon and World Series attract major attention without trotting more young women wearing less every spring, summer, fall and winter.
Football and basketball do not agree, of that I am well aware. Maybe it accounts for their ascendant popularity in American sports culture.
The NFL and NBA drive the bus on this stuff. See the sideline shots of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders or the Los Angeles’ Laker Girls dance team for details.
Colleges eventually fell in line — with more athleticism but increasingly tighter outfits.
A timeout is never a timeout. It’s a cue for a dance, vault, flip, flop, twist or grind. Somewhere along the journey, the cheering part of the assignment got de-emphasized.
It stopped being about cheering to help beat the other team and started becoming a “Look at Me” contest. Complete with choreographers, bloated coaching staffs and retreats to Lake Cumberland.
Now the cheerleading squad has embarrassed UK. It’s a perfect time to reassess their roles.
