Casual Investigation: Male Cheerleader Speaks on Louisville Travesty!

Big East conference play winds up this weekend, and the determination of Georgetown's seed in the Big East Tournament seems to be rather simple: If Georgetown beats Cincinnati and Louisville beats West Virginia, Georgetown will get the #6 seed. The #6 seed means the awesome 9pm games and fun for everyone involved.  But Louisville might not be in the position it is in if it hadn't beaten Pitt last week, and as you likely have heard by now that game's result may have changed due to the actions of a Louisville male cheerleader!  This hard-hitting Casual Investigation will bring you into the world of male cheerleading and reveal what a former Georgetown male cheerleader thinks about the incident!  Amazing!

To refresh your recollection, please see the below, and focus on the actions of the male cheerleader with very little time left on the clock.

Casual Investigation after The Jump:

Convinced that Kyle Kuric's apparent game-sealing dunk in the final second of overtime marked the end of the game, the cheerleader walked onto the court and hurled the ball high in the air in celebration. The only problem was five-tenths of a second remained on the clock, causing the referees to assess a technical foul for delay of game on the unsuspecting cheerleader.

Amazing!

To uncover what a former Georgetown male cheerleader's perspective on this incident is...we asked him!  And this is what he said!

CH:  Hey, what are your thoughts on this?

On the record:
 
Mistakes happen, and this male cheerleader should be grateful for whatever mercy the fans and athletic department officials are willing to give him.  He’ll think twice before taking the court outside again outside the confines of a scheduled TV timeout.
 
Off the record:
 
This male cheerleader is an embarrassment to all those proud to dawn the polyester cloaks of school spirit.  He is the disdain of the male cheerleader brotherhood and as someone, who I believe many would say pushed the envelope on the role of the male cheerleader in college athletics, he personally gives men like myself a bad name.  If there were a male cheerleader hall of fame, this incident would preclude him from consideration. 

That's right, we are both on the record AND off the record.  Records are made to be broken!  WINNING! 

We continue! 

Have you ever been in a situation like that?

The most comparable situation I have ever been in was when I allegedly hit Villanova's Mike Nardi with the flag.  I swear to this day there was no actual contact, but I did apologize for the incident after the game, which we also regrettably lost but in the interest of good sportsmanship right…  That’s really the closest thing to this laughable incident, I have ever experienced, although it was not uncommon to receive a warning from the referee for excessive yelling during free throws or getting a little too close during an inbounds pass.  I don’t think I ever really came close to getting a technical but the concern was definitely always there. 

As a cheerleader, what game situtations are you told to avoid?

The most obvious way to get a technical called on you as a cheerleader is something as blatant and foolish acts of this cheerleader; however, the easiest way is to leave a sign or other prop on the court.  It’s somewhere in the rule book, that leaving a sign, megaphone, flag, etc. on the court during the course of the game will result in unnecessary delay of the game and thus a technical.  Fortunately, we were all very conscious of what went onto and fortunately always came off of the court during my tenure.

How do you keep calm in situation like that?

Unfortunately, I didn’t see the game, but if I had to guess I would say the verbal barrage that came down upon this cheerleader wasn’t pretty.  I really only see two options: 1. Get off the court and head to the locker room or 2.  Stand there and take it like a man.  Personally if it were me I’d do my best to take it, as it seems running to the locker room is only going to make things worse in the long run.  You just have to admit your mistake and do your best to take it in stride.

 If you were that male cheerleader what would you have done after the game?  Apologized?  If so, to who? 

The only thing you can do is apologize.  Clearly he was in the wrong and very much could have cost them the game.  I haven’t followed up on the story to see if he’s been suspended, released, etc., but I would like to think he’s apologized and done his best to tough out the public backlash.  From what I recall, Louisville has/had a solid cheerleading program and I also believe there program gets tremendous financial backing including scholarship support; it would be a shame to see all that go to waste over something as foolish and seemingly uncalculated, unintentional as this. 

And that's that!  There is your perspective from a former Georgetown male cheerleader!  And in case you were living under a rock and missed THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON's Nobel and Pulitzer prize bi-winning 4-Part Interview with the Male Cheerleader before the season started, check it out here!

The bigger question, raised here, is why the hell does the Big East schedule have Georgetown playing only one game per week in the last two weeks?  Do they know what that kind of thing does to a Georgetown basketball blog?

Saturday can't come soon enough.