Football: Run-Through Signs Motivate Teams

Spirit Squads Hold On To Tradition

COURTESY PHOTO Shiloh Christian cheerleaders came up with a creative sign for the Oct. 31 home game vs. Gravette on Halloween night. Paper run-through signs are not as commonplace as they once were before inflatable mascots and vinyl banners. But some schools still cling to the tradition of painting signs each week to boost school and team spirit.
COURTESY PHOTO Shiloh Christian cheerleaders came up with a creative sign for the Oct. 31 home game vs. Gravette on Halloween night. Paper run-through signs are not as commonplace as they once were before inflatable mascots and vinyl banners. But some schools still cling to the tradition of painting signs each week to boost school and team spirit.

GREENLAND -- It's a tradition that dates back almost to the time of leather helmets and no face masks.

The team all bunched together, one mass of fist-pumping, shoulder pad pounding players getting psyched up to surge onto the football field.

A few yards away, cheerleaders slowly raise a paper sign affixed on each side to tall poles. Hours spent taping, drawing, and painting a catchy phrase or a motivational messages are all on display for the large crowd.

At once, the players surge ahead and burst through the paper sign as the band strikes up the school fight song.

It's game time.

For Lori Rogers-Douglas, a cheerleader in Texas in the 1970s, paper run-through signs brought team, fans and community together.

"I loved making those signs," Douglas said. "It connected us to our team and to each other as cheerleaders. It was such an honor to lead the guys onto the field as they burst through the sign. At that point it was a connection between all of us and the crowd."

On a recent cold fall afternoon in Greenland, the cheer squad began preparing the run-through sign for the Pirates' big playoff game at Mayflower. "Sink Mayflower" was the theme as Lauren Warren, Mattie Alaniz, Estefania Navarro and the other Greenland cheerleaders rolled out white paper and taped the pieces together to create a 6-foot-by-12-foot paper canvas.

Greenland cheer coach Kim Ridenhoure, who was a cheerleader in Prairie Grove in the late 1980s, said the Pirates' cheer squad paints a message on each side of the sign each week. The front side contains one message, while the side facing the players includes a motivational message that only the players can see.

"Sometimes we use a Biblical quote, or song lyrics," Alaniz said. "Sometimes we've painted our record, or maybe it's an inside joke."

Greenland and Shiloh Christian cheer groups say the message on the sign is usually about their own teams and rarely about the opposition.

"We always try to make it something positive about our team," said Shiloh Christian senior cheerleader captain Katelyn Halter. "We all discuss what we want it to say and we throw ideas out and take a vote."

Melanie Michaelis, the Shiloh Christian cheer coach for the past seven years, said her squad paints an entire season's worth of signs in August, doing all 10 at one time, which allows the group to focus on other things during the season, like signs for the stadium.

Michaelis was a cheerleader in Clearwater, Fla., in the mid-1980s. She said she became a cheer coach when her daughter was a student at Shiloh Christian.

"I love cheer," she said. "It was a really important part of my life. My daughter was in cheer and I wanted to be a part of it."

Ridenhoure, who is also the librarian at Greenland High, said she could not imagine a full-time teacher having the time to devote to being a cheer coach in addition to their teaching duties. She became the cheer coach two years ago after her daughter "had a poor experience as a cheerleader."

"I wanted the girls to have a good experience," she said.

The Greenland squad uses paper end rolls donated by Standard Register, a local business near the town. That helps reduce the cost of making the signs, Ridenhoure said. Michaelis said her squad spends about $250 per year on materials.

In the 1970s, cheerleaders often sold spirit ribbons to help raise funds for the squad, including making the signs.

"We had no money and the only way we could get our paint and tape was to sell the ribbons each week," said Jeanette Johnson-Holt, a former cheerleader in Texas. "Sometimes I think we had to wait until Wednesday before we had enough collected.

"I believe the school provided the paper, but we were always making tape and paint runs on our own at the last minute, usually on Thursday afternoons. Sometimes the sign colors were dictated by the paint we actually had on hand."

Paper signs have slowly given way to other pregame rituals, including large inflatable helmets, mascot heads and such. Players stand inside or under the inflatables, and often use dry ice or other smoke-making devices to create a fog-like entrance for the team.

Shiloh Christian also uses an inflatable helmet, but still holds true with the traditional sign as the players run from the helmet, and through the sign as the cheerleaders lead the way through a victory line.

Greenland's Lauren Warren, the head cheerleader for the Pirates, said occasionally seeing all their hard work torn to shreds is hard to watch.

"There have been times when we've put a lot of work into the signs and we were like, 'I wish we could keep that and not have them run through it,'" she said. "But it's something we want to do for the football team. They like it and we feel good about it."

Sports on 11/27/2014

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