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12:00 PM CDT on Monday, April 3, 2006
Matt Mosley
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IRVING - My first reaction when my editor asked me to cover the first day of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader tryouts was, "You've got to be kidding."
When it became evident that he wasn't, I asked my wife, a former cheerleader, for advice on the best way to approach this assignment.
And that's how I became the first reporter to ever bring his spouse along to Cowboys Cheerleader tryouts.
In case some of you need a brief refresher, the Cowboys Cheerleaders were formed many years ago when former general manager Tex Schramm had the bright idea that women in white hot pants might attract attention.
RON BASELICE / DMN
Cerissa Hulme of Dallas is reflected in a mirror as she fixes her hair. She was one of hundreds of women who attended the preliminary auditions.
As a 22-year-old blonde named Elizabeth explained early Saturday morning, "This is the Mecca of pro cheerleading."
Women from such exotic locations as Osaka, Japan, and Killeen, Texas, began pouring into the Texas Stadium parking lot as early as 6:15 a.m. Five hours later, these women had already gone through 9,047 cans of hairspray.
After registration, Kelli Finglass, the director of the Cowboys Cheerleaders, led hundreds of young women into the stands before telling them to have fun and not to be nervous.
This speech may have fallen on deaf ears because the 87 percent humidity had caused several women to panic.
"We just wanted to go back inside because it was destroying our hair," explained a 19-year-old Burleson woman.
Back inside the Stadium Club, an estimated 400 women in hot pants and bikini tops began stretching, which is something that never seemed to happen when I was single.
I can't speak for the three others guys in the room, but I felt somewhat awkward walking around interviewing 19-year-old women while they were doing crunches.
Moments before the tryouts began, I met a 27-year-old woman from Cali, Colombia, named Ana Cafferty, who once had Olympic aspirations as a javelin thrower and short-distance runner.
Cafferty said her short-distance running once included "200-mile runs," leading me to believe something may have been lost in translation.
And just so you know, for reasons that were not fully explained to me, I'm forbidden to let you know if any of the women mentioned in this column actually advanced to the second day of tryouts, which were held Sunday.
RON BASELICE / DMN
Julia Styrsky of Fort Worth warms up in her chair while waiting for the preliminary auditions.
Anyway, at 11:30 a.m., we were introduced to our panel of judges, some of whom appeared more confused by the scene than I. A local radio show host who goes by the name Billy the Kid and wears his hair in a Mohawk began introducing the judges, who were each greeted by wild applause.
And just when it seemed we might finally see some dancing, one of the 127 producers for Country Music Television, which is filming the tryouts for an upcoming reality series, made everyone stop acting natural for long enough to film another introduction.
This delay allowed the contestants to become even more terrified than they already were.
They were called to the dance floor in groups of five and asked to say their names, hometowns and occupations, which provided for some classic moments, such as an Alabama woman with an over-the-top accent telling judges that she still had her original set of teeth.
Finally, it was time for some dancing. But this was not something anyone could have prepared me for.
When longtime Cowboys Cheerleaders DJ Kirk Kallin began playing a song by someone named Petey Pablo, the five women began performing five different routines.
This is called the "freestyle" portion of the tryouts. It's when judges separate the dancers from the women who appear to be experiencing horrible allergic reactions.
At least one woman performed the splits while doing a hand-stand, which is not something I've ever seen on Sundays.
One of my anonymous sources from the panel of judges named Kristi Scales explained that they check either "yes," "no" or "maybe" by the numbers of each contestant.
According to my sources, there's no category for "complete freak show."
A 45-minute lunch break gave me a chance to conduct several more interviews, which normally began with hard-hitting questions like, "How are things going?"
It was during this time I met a delightful 29-year-old woman from Kobe, Japan, named Yoshiko "Yoshi" Danjo, who's been a cheerleader for an American football team in Kobe for several years and is engaged to a linebacker on the team named Akira Hayashi.
Danjo, an accountant back home, has dreamed for years of trying out, and that's what led her to fly to Dallas in February and take up residence in a Super 8 Motel.
"I cry, cry, cry every night when I had to stay in the Super 8," said Danjo, who pretty much spoke for anyone who has ever spent the night at a Super 8 Motel.
Though I'm not able to tell you whether Danjo advanced to Sunday, I can report that she was unbelievably happy at the end of the day.
The lunch break also gave me an opportunity to meet 40-year-old Lisa Reza, believed to be the only grandmother in the competition. Reza said she was lying in the ICU of a local hospital suffering from double pneumonia when she decided to try out for cheerleader.
"It was just something I'd always meant to do," said Reza. "I decided if I ever got out of there, I had to do it."
Another woman, 35-year-old Inga Van Wagoner, is trying out more than a decade after she cheered during Super Bowl XXX. Van Wagoner now has five children.
When she told her 16-year-old son about the tryout, he responded with, "That's pretty cool, mom."
By 2:30 p.m., my wife decided she’d had enough. She went home, but I decided to gut out the rest of the day.
After what seemed like 17 more hours of dancing, the girls were told to exit the Stadium Club and wait outside for the results. The more than 400 scantily clad women gathered at the foot of the Tom Landry statue, which is a sentence I've always dreamed of writing.
What seemed like several hours later, a couple of security guards carried out a huge dry erase board that appeared to have been around since the 1972 tryouts.
Someone from CMT asked everyone with numbers from 1 to 150 to come to the front. By this time, contestants were actually saying things like, "Nice to meet you, I'm No. 147."
RON BASELICE / DMN
Lisa Reza of Fort Worth (center) applauds a group of dancers during the preliminary auditions.
As the numbers were revealed, some of the women began to scream as if someone had just set their hair on fire, which would've caused a huge explosion because of all the hairspray.
Some of the contestants began crying when their numbers didn't appear on the board. Shockingly, the folks from CMT seemed particularly interested in these women.
After a few awkward exchanges with some of the contestants during which I said helpful things like, "You'll get 'em next year," I decided it was time to call it a day.
This was truly the most unforgettable day I never want to have again.
E-mail mmosley@***BANNED-URL***
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When it became evident that he wasn't, I asked my wife, a former cheerleader, for advice on the best way to approach this assignment.
And that's how I became the first reporter to ever bring his spouse along to Cowboys Cheerleader tryouts.
In case some of you need a brief refresher, the Cowboys Cheerleaders were formed many years ago when former general manager Tex Schramm had the bright idea that women in white hot pants might attract attention.
RON BASELICE / DMN
Cerissa Hulme of Dallas is reflected in a mirror as she fixes her hair. She was one of hundreds of women who attended the preliminary auditions.
As a 22-year-old blonde named Elizabeth explained early Saturday morning, "This is the Mecca of pro cheerleading."
Women from such exotic locations as Osaka, Japan, and Killeen, Texas, began pouring into the Texas Stadium parking lot as early as 6:15 a.m. Five hours later, these women had already gone through 9,047 cans of hairspray.
After registration, Kelli Finglass, the director of the Cowboys Cheerleaders, led hundreds of young women into the stands before telling them to have fun and not to be nervous.
This speech may have fallen on deaf ears because the 87 percent humidity had caused several women to panic.
"We just wanted to go back inside because it was destroying our hair," explained a 19-year-old Burleson woman.
Back inside the Stadium Club, an estimated 400 women in hot pants and bikini tops began stretching, which is something that never seemed to happen when I was single.
I can't speak for the three others guys in the room, but I felt somewhat awkward walking around interviewing 19-year-old women while they were doing crunches.
Moments before the tryouts began, I met a 27-year-old woman from Cali, Colombia, named Ana Cafferty, who once had Olympic aspirations as a javelin thrower and short-distance runner.
Cafferty said her short-distance running once included "200-mile runs," leading me to believe something may have been lost in translation.
And just so you know, for reasons that were not fully explained to me, I'm forbidden to let you know if any of the women mentioned in this column actually advanced to the second day of tryouts, which were held Sunday.
RON BASELICE / DMN
Julia Styrsky of Fort Worth warms up in her chair while waiting for the preliminary auditions.
Anyway, at 11:30 a.m., we were introduced to our panel of judges, some of whom appeared more confused by the scene than I. A local radio show host who goes by the name Billy the Kid and wears his hair in a Mohawk began introducing the judges, who were each greeted by wild applause.
And just when it seemed we might finally see some dancing, one of the 127 producers for Country Music Television, which is filming the tryouts for an upcoming reality series, made everyone stop acting natural for long enough to film another introduction.
This delay allowed the contestants to become even more terrified than they already were.
They were called to the dance floor in groups of five and asked to say their names, hometowns and occupations, which provided for some classic moments, such as an Alabama woman with an over-the-top accent telling judges that she still had her original set of teeth.
Finally, it was time for some dancing. But this was not something anyone could have prepared me for.
When longtime Cowboys Cheerleaders DJ Kirk Kallin began playing a song by someone named Petey Pablo, the five women began performing five different routines.
This is called the "freestyle" portion of the tryouts. It's when judges separate the dancers from the women who appear to be experiencing horrible allergic reactions.
At least one woman performed the splits while doing a hand-stand, which is not something I've ever seen on Sundays.
One of my anonymous sources from the panel of judges named Kristi Scales explained that they check either "yes," "no" or "maybe" by the numbers of each contestant.
According to my sources, there's no category for "complete freak show."
A 45-minute lunch break gave me a chance to conduct several more interviews, which normally began with hard-hitting questions like, "How are things going?"
It was during this time I met a delightful 29-year-old woman from Kobe, Japan, named Yoshiko "Yoshi" Danjo, who's been a cheerleader for an American football team in Kobe for several years and is engaged to a linebacker on the team named Akira Hayashi.
Danjo, an accountant back home, has dreamed for years of trying out, and that's what led her to fly to Dallas in February and take up residence in a Super 8 Motel.
"I cry, cry, cry every night when I had to stay in the Super 8," said Danjo, who pretty much spoke for anyone who has ever spent the night at a Super 8 Motel.
Though I'm not able to tell you whether Danjo advanced to Sunday, I can report that she was unbelievably happy at the end of the day.
The lunch break also gave me an opportunity to meet 40-year-old Lisa Reza, believed to be the only grandmother in the competition. Reza said she was lying in the ICU of a local hospital suffering from double pneumonia when she decided to try out for cheerleader.
"It was just something I'd always meant to do," said Reza. "I decided if I ever got out of there, I had to do it."
Another woman, 35-year-old Inga Van Wagoner, is trying out more than a decade after she cheered during Super Bowl XXX. Van Wagoner now has five children.
When she told her 16-year-old son about the tryout, he responded with, "That's pretty cool, mom."
By 2:30 p.m., my wife decided she’d had enough. She went home, but I decided to gut out the rest of the day.
After what seemed like 17 more hours of dancing, the girls were told to exit the Stadium Club and wait outside for the results. The more than 400 scantily clad women gathered at the foot of the Tom Landry statue, which is a sentence I've always dreamed of writing.
What seemed like several hours later, a couple of security guards carried out a huge dry erase board that appeared to have been around since the 1972 tryouts.
Someone from CMT asked everyone with numbers from 1 to 150 to come to the front. By this time, contestants were actually saying things like, "Nice to meet you, I'm No. 147."
RON BASELICE / DMN
Lisa Reza of Fort Worth (center) applauds a group of dancers during the preliminary auditions.
As the numbers were revealed, some of the women began to scream as if someone had just set their hair on fire, which would've caused a huge explosion because of all the hairspray.
Some of the contestants began crying when their numbers didn't appear on the board. Shockingly, the folks from CMT seemed particularly interested in these women.
After a few awkward exchanges with some of the contestants during which I said helpful things like, "You'll get 'em next year," I decided it was time to call it a day.
This was truly the most unforgettable day I never want to have again.
E-mail mmosley@***BANNED-URL***
LINK
