Friday, November 20, 1998 'THEY LOOK LIKE MEN IN SKIRTS,' SAYS ONE VMI CADET FEMALE 'RAT' CHEERLEADERS TREATED LIKE VERMIN Problems cited include: the "improper leadership role" of the rats and the increasing "sexual tension" in the ranks from seeing "brother rats" in skirts. By MATT CHITTUM THE ROANOKE TIMES In the long list of firsts that came with the advent of coeducation at Virginia Military Institute - first woman to enroll, first woman to quit, first woman to smash an upperclassman in the mouth - it's the inaugural no one seemed to consider. The men of the slow-to-bend military school were prepared for women living in the barracks, women on the obstacle course, in the classrooms, on the track team. But they apparently weren't prepared for women with nearly shaved heads prancing the sidelines at football games in short skirts, oozing with pep. For the first time in 159 years, VMI has its own female cheerleaders. They've been heckled, made to do cheers in barracks instead of pushups, and pelted with peanuts by their fellow cadets during football games. Almost from the first "rah," they've been up to their pompoms in controversy, mainly because the squad is made up mostly by freshmen "rats." Rats are supposed to be miserable in their gray wool slacks, not peppy in little skirts. The cheerleaders have been mocked in the student newspaper, and someone circulated a petition in the barracks to have the rats removed from the squad. The petition cited, among other reasons, the "improper leadership role" of the rats, who aren't supposed to lead anyone at anything, and the mounting "sexual tension" in the ranks from seeing their "brother rats" in skirts. This is all an unlikely problem. Who would have thought that a young woman could have simultaneous urges to attend a stronghold of masculinity like VMI and to bounce in a tight sweater and wiggle some pompoms? "Just because we go here doesn't mean we're not feminine, that we're not women," said sophomore Gussie Lord, one of two upperclass women on the squad. But the somewhat masculine appearance of the female rats is part of what many cadets are booing about. "They shouldn't be down there," said junior cadet Jason Clough of Melbourne, Fla. "They don't look like cheerleaders. They look like men in skirts." Femininity aside, these women don't limit themselves to the usual "Block that kick!" kind of cheers. During Saturday's game against archrival The Citadel, the VMI squad smiled gleefully and shook their pompoms in time with cadets who bellowed, "We want blood!" Across the field, The Citadel cheerleading squad, made up of women from the College of Charleston, high-kicked in off-the-shoulder uniforms that bared their midriffs, their long hair up in big bows. The Citadel has only one female cadet, a sophomore, on its squad, and she didn't make the trip to Lexington. Before this second year of coeducation at VMI, the squad was filled out by women from nearby women's colleges, like the former Southern Seminary in Buena Vista and, more recently, Mary Baldwin College in Staunton. Men have been on the squad for years, usually to shout through megaphones and hold the women aloft. As the school prepared for the arrival of its first women in August 1997, a group of committees considered every aspect of having women in the ranks it could think of, including having its own cheerleaders. But that seemingly minor issue got lost in all the talk of haircuts and bathrooms. The plan was to phase out the Mary Baldwin women as VMI women showed interest, said Col. Mike Bissell, who directed the assimilation of women at the college. But cheerleading faculty adviser Ned Riester, a 1978 VMI grad, decided to go with a cadet squad, because of concerns over liability and the hassle of getting the Baldwin women to and from practice. Squad captain Randy Eads began recruiting VMI women to cheer, including freshmen. One rat, Tracy Schultz, chose cheerleading over rugby, according to her father, Frank Schultz, who drove to Lexington from Newark, N.J., to watch his daughter cheer Saturday. By the time he was done, Eads had filled out the squad with two male rats, seven female rats and two sophomore women. "I'm not sure that 100 percent of the corps knew what was going to happen," Eads said. "If we had had five [sophomores] out there, nothing would have happened," Riester said. But cadets began objecting right away. The student newspaper, The Cadet, asked 50 cadets if they were in favor of the "female / rat" cheerleaders. Eighty percent said no. Cadets began stopping the women in barracks and forcing them to show their spirit right there on the stoop, solo. It's the upperclass way of teaching rats not to separate themselves from their brethren, especially in public. "They don't stop a female cross country runner and make her show her running kick or whatever," Riester said, " but they'll stop a cheerleader and make her cheer." The petition began circulating on Oct. 8, and cadets complained that the cheerleaders were escaping tougher training activities in favor of cheerleading practice. Two days later, things got ugly at the football game during parents weekend. The cadets, armed with free peanuts they'd been issued in honor of the weekend, unloaded on the cheerleaders, shouting "You suck!" "It was embarrassing," Riester said. "I was not embarrassed about the girls with the haircuts. The embarrassing thing was that we would have people in the corps that would do this." Sophomore cheerleader Megan Smith called that treatment "kind of depressing, because we've come a long way from the beginning of the year." Last week, the squad was invited to the national cheerleading competition in Orlando, Fla. Much of the controversy has died down now. In true, "never say die" VMI fashion, the women have persevered. None have quit. They have their supporters. Last year's senior class president, Kevin Trujillo, supports the squad. Bissell also complimented the squad. Cadets come up and say "Good job" from time to time, Smith said. Riester said he probably won't have rats on the squad next year. They have a hard enough life without the extra grief, he said. But then, choosing the more arduous course and enduring anyway may make the cheerleaders some of the toughest cadets of all. Eads thinks so. "They're showing a lot of determination and will power to come out here," he said. "I have more respect for these cheerleaders than just about anyone else in the corps."