We've Got Spirit : The Life and Times of America's Greatest Cheerleading Team [Hardcover]

James T. Mcelroy (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up

"Let's Hear It for the Cheerleaders," The New York Times recently proclaimed, and in We've Got Spirit, James T. McElroy answers the call, revealing the thrilling drama of ambition, heartbreak, and triumph that is a year in the life of America's greatest cheerleading team. Today's competitive cheerleading is intense, athletic, and even dangerous -- a sport in its own right that combines the acrobatic grace of gymnastics, the energized dance of ice skating, and the all-American good looks of a beauty pageant.

"Cheerleading is hotter than ever," reports The Wall Street Journal on what is far and away the most popular girls' sport in America, with over three-and-a-half million participants. Thousands of high school teams across the nation practice year-round with hopes of becoming national champions, but only Kentucky's Greenup County Musketeers have won eight titles and are perennial contenders to take the top honors. Team members in the green and gold are adored throughout the country for being pretty, polite, sweet, and sexy -- but what Greenup's rivals strive to emulate is the fierce athleticism and competitive spirit that make Greenup the team to beat.

We've Got Spirit opens with the 1997 National High School Cheerleading Championship in Orlando, Florida, where Greenup County brilliantly reclaims its title. The crowd roars as all nineteen girls simultaneously perform their trademark standing back tuck, and the team is crowned champion once again.

Coach Candy Berry is the amazing motivator behind the Greenup cheerleading dynasty, a female incarnation of Vince Lombardi who can mold almost any group of girls into champions. With veteran team leader Shawnda Bates graduated and cheering for the University of Louisville, Berry has high hopes for the young talent on the 1998 squad. Linda Goble has top-notch gymnastics skills and valuable competition experience, but distractions mount when she gets caught up in a bitter custody battle. Vivacious and spirited Rachel Brown has dreamed of cheering for Greenup County since preschool, but confidence problems keep her a heartbeat away from achieving the perfection she strives for. Self-taught tumbler Rachel Wills seems like a natural to follow in Shawnda's footsteps, but as the 1998 nationals approach, Greenup County's remarkable reign at the top is threatened by obstacles even the most gifted leader never could have anticipated -- season-ending injuries, infighting, an unplanned pregnancy, and even a show-stopping blizzard.

Revealing the backstage conflicts competitive cheerleaders face, and the ambition that drives these "sports heroes with ponytails," McElroy tells stories of astonishing achievement and wasted talent, teamwork and courage, and what it means to be an American girl.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It is a measure of how encompassing the definition of sports is today that high-school cheerleading, once considered little more than a female ancillary to the boys in the spotlight, is now appreciated for the athleticism and teamwork it demands. Of course, there's cheerleading, and then there's Cheerleading with a capital C, and it's the latter, with its own intense competitions and championships, that McElroy lays bare for scrutiny as he lends an ear to its particular rhythms. "We're the no-name sport," he hears Candy Berry, coach of the cheerleading squad at Greenup County High School in rural Kentucky, complain. "We're kind of the forgotten stepchildren. But we're not. We're like Cinderella! We're coming out!"

It's that feistiness that makes We've Got Spirit so entertaining; what makes it engrossing is the way McElroy uses this small window to view a much larger vista. In the tradition of such marvelous and socially astute antecedents as In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, Where the Game Matters Most, and Friday Night Lights, McElroy follows a team's quest--Greenup's pursuit of a ninth national cheering title--to muck around in the larger issues of individual character, the concepts of teamwork, the ethos of a community, and the impact of success and failure. It's an amazing story, really, of the upsides and downsides of teenage girls, their supportiveness, jealousies, obsessions, and ambitions. Cheerleading may not be, as McElroy makes clear, politically correct, but it sure can be remarkably political and filled with intrigue. Spirit is certainly spirited--and rah-rah, sis-boom-bah for that. --Jeff Silverman

From Publishers Weekly

Greenup County is a sparsely populated eastern Kentucky honeycomb of rural roads where the number of churches rivals that of fast-food restaurants. The county's name is the stuff of myth to teenage girls across the country for one reason?the Greenup County High School cheerleaders. McElroy starts with the performance that earned the team its seventh United Cheerleading Association national championship, a harrowing three-minute blitz of flips and vaults before the cameras of ESPN and beneath the shadow of Disney World in Orlando, Fla. He then follows the team and its innovative coach on their annual quest to retain both the title and the form that has brought them unrivaled acclaim for nearly two decades. These are not the flirty sideline stereotypes urging the boys on to victory. These girls are more apt to break bones than hearts. They face criticism when a major cheering competition takes them away from a district football championship. Being a Greenup cheerleader is the most important accomplishment in many of these girls' lives, and McElroy chronicles their fights with everything from poverty to pregnancy and old-fashioned jealousy. Though such devotion to purpose is bound to draw the book comparisons with H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, a critical look at high school football in post-boom Texas, McElroy portrays cheering at Greenup as a largely positive experience that allows the girls to define themselves outside of potentially limited social roles, even if they have to bend over backwards to do so.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (February 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684849674
• ISBN-13: 978-0684849676
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,502,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please look far beyond the cover and the title, November 2, 2003

By 

Martha K. Guthrie "constant reader" (Englewood, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: We've Got Spirit: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Cheerleading Team (Paperback)

As a journalist and a woman still smarting from trying out for cheerleading seven times without making it, I have read Mr. McElroy's book several times and keep going back to it. Many of the reviews you will read here are of the "Harper Valley PTA" variety, which may satisfy some primitive gossipy fascination with the individuals in the book, which is unfortunate.

This is not about any stereotypical cheerleaders - nearly all of the girls on the Greenup County Kentucky squad know poverty or are just above it. They are not Daddy's princesses. They don't drive sports cars.

Yes, we do want to know what happened to the stars of the Greenup County Cheerleading team. This was their chance to escape a section of the country where women's opportunities are still limited. And in Greenup County, cheerleading is and has been a ticket out - a place where being able to land a standing back tuck (a relatively difficult tumbling stunt) can be the ticket to a college scholarship and dreams of a bright future.

Another update, nearly five years after the original printing, would be welcome, except I sure hope that all the girls don't all have babies and are working at Wal-Mart, that they haven't lost their dreams. I want to know that they made it, but according to the reviewers here, only Rachel Brown made it to continue to cheer in college. Right now I am using the first edition of the book for reference as I lent out my newer edition with the update, so please forgive my lack of clarity with this part.

I hope that Mr. McElroy, for all the abuse he has taken, is proud of the in-depth masterpiece he produced. Yes, he has a few facts wrong but when you consider the amount of comphrehensive information that he consumed and put forth, especially for a first book, I think it can be forgiven. I only say this because of the huge amount of criticism reviewers have blasted him with - people took this book real personally!

Some of his critics believe that he took advantage of the confidences of the girls. I think he was doing his job. If he were to go and do an in-depth story in any place - a ghetto, a debutante ball, the same technique would be used. As a journalist, I understand. He was right. Anything less would have not been this great book. It was necessary and right.

This book is a study in sociology. Mr. McElroy is going in-depth on a group of young women in a place that that probably no one else would bother with and does it with great insight and compassion. I hope to hear more from him in the future.

I have read both the original hardback and the paperback with added foreword. If any additional editions are published, I would recommend a different cover because the cover makes the book look like fluff. It is far from that. Also the title, "We've Got Spirit" is somewhat misleading. This book is no Afterschool Special. Another minor annoyance is the captions for the pictures are in the back of the book rather than with the pictures, making me have to work a little bit too hard. : )

Unfortunately, I doubt that many cheerleaders will read and discuss this book. It would benefit them to do so. I think that many teenagers would benefit from reading this rather than "Antigone," but please don't tell the people at my kids' school that - they will probably run me up the flagpole.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheerleading is all over - not just in the south, October 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: We've Got Spirit : The Life and Times of America's Greatest Cheerleading Team (Hardcover)

As a mother of a competition cheerleader in New Jersey, I was interested in reading this book to find out about those amazing GC cheerleaders. I thought the book was realistic, not offensive and portrayed high school life and cheering like it is and not like most teenage trash movies portray it. My daughter's team has won the Garden State competition 4 years in a row and it's true -- it's much harder to stay on top than it is to try to get there. The jealousy from other towns and parents -- the scorching remarks about the girls -- it happens here in New Jersey as well.

This book is a very fast read - and one that is hard to put down. Definitely recommend it.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fabulous book! Why the controversy?, September 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: We've Got Spirit : The Life and Times of America's Greatest Cheerleading Team (Hardcover)

"We've Got Spirit" gives an honest and touching portrayal of cheerleading and life in rural America. I felt that the book, which was wonderfully written, was very objective and allowed the reader to come to their own conclusions. I don't understand why people (mostly those from Greenup)are complaining! Nothing in the book is licentious or overly personal. I don't think anything less of the GCHS cheerleaders, quite the opposite in fact. The personal details are what made the book so moving. The struggles and hardships those girls in Greenup had to overcome is what makes them so special. If it were easy, everybody would do it. Greenup County should be proud, and those girls have reason to hold their heads up high. This book dispels the myth that cheerleading isn't a sport. It's a must read for all!