Texas hasn’t gotten its due as a major piece in the complex puzzle of American art. We’re here to rectify that. Every three weeks, H. Drew Blackburn will conduct a thoroughly scientific analysis of the 254 integral (one for every county) books, movies, tv shows, albums, podcasts, songs, and magazine articles — you name it — that best exemplify the Texas spirit. These texts, products of immense talent, dig into the marrow of our being. When it’s all said and done and we’ve built The Texas Voyager collection, we’ll (figuratively) head to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and shoot it beyond the atmosphere, into the cosmos. A wise person once posed the question: “What if the aliens are hot?” Hold onto that hope — this is our chance to impress ‘em.
Ten years ago, when I was the Dallas Observer’s clubs editor, I took an assignment to interview — and dance with — veteran Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and rookie hopefuls on camera. The video’s disappeared from the blog post, and my memory of the night is a bit foggy, but some details stick.
It was the eve of preliminary auditions, and I wore skinny camo pants from ASOS and Doc Martens — hardly the outfit for mastering “sexy hips.” Contrary to what Lauren Smart, the alt-weekly’s then arts and culture editor, wrote, I did need my arm twisted. For one, I don’t want to be an on-camera journalist — I’ve ducked filming TikToks to accompany this column from the start. Second, it was a Friday night; I was far keener on spending time in a dark bar than under fluorescent studio lights. And when one of the cheerleaders explained the audition process, I said that it sounded tougher than getting into Yale. I meant it.
To don that star-spangled uniform, a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader has to be athletic, gorgeous, sharp on the dance floor — then pass a 100-question written test and be charming through panel interviews. As evidenced on Netflix’s reality show “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,” which just premiered its second season, they most likely juggle a day job, too.
Many are nurses, software engineers, elementary school teachers, or students on their way to becoming speech-language pathologists and lawyers. The bar to becoming a Cowboys cheerleader is sky-high, and the women who clear it are nothing short of remarkable, superheroes even.
Sarah Hepola, host and creator of a Texas Monthly podcast about the cultural impact of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders called “America’s Girls,” moved to Dallas from Philly in the late ’70s, when DCC’s place in pop-culture began to take root. “They were everywhere,” Hepola, a bestselling author and staff writer at The Dallas Morning News, told The Barbed Wire. “To me, they were the pretty princesses who ruled my new hometown.”
But that ubiquity didn’t happen by accident. It traces back to a makeover in 1972 that turned a local sideline squad into a national icon.
Before then, in the 1960s, the Cowboys’ spirit squad was called the CowBelles and Beaux, local high schoolers who yelled “charge!” — nothing out of the ordinary. But Dee Brock, founder and the first director of DCC, was a visionary. That decade, she dropped the boys and integrated the squad, with the presence of mind to make the crew’s racial makeup more reflective of the city. As detailed in a story Hepola wrote, in 1972, Brock tore up the playbook, raised to the minimum age to 18, recruited Broadway alum Texie Waterman as a choreographer, and tapped local designer Paula Van Wagoner for a new look: cobalt bolero, star-spangled halter, white shorts, and knee-high boots. When she was done, seven dancers — later dubbed “the Original Seven” — charged out of Texas Stadium in that uniform and created a seismic rippling effect that revolutionized cheerleading in pro sports.
A Sports Illustrated article from 1978 noted that Dallas cheerleader applicants jumped from 250 in 1976 to more than 1,000 two years later. That surge — and the squad’s “older, sexier” vibe — inspired the NBA’s own glam icons, the Laker Girls. Because of the combined powers of Brock and Waterman, the American public wanted older and sexier on the sidelines.
Through her reporting, Hepola has talked to many women from different eras and notes that they’re all different and remarked that the ’70s dancers are nothing like the ’80s, who are nothing like the aughts. “The parts that reverberate with me are when some of the women opened up about their struggles with weight, because [in the past], they were extremely draconian about weight by the number, by the scale,” Hepola told The Barbed Wire. “If you have a female body, you might be aware that bodies fluctuate with hormones—what you ate for dinner—but the degrees were so small.”
As Hepola noted, things are more egalitarian today, but if you watch the Netflix program , you’ll notice leadership like the director and choreographer tip-toeing around weight, speaking in ellipses and innuendo.
Beyond the glitz also lies a long list of injuries. “They’re very known for doing jump-splits,” Hepola said. “There’s so many injuries associated with that:the knees, the hips, the legs.”
And for all their fame and permanent damage to the body, there has been much discussion about how the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders don’t make much money.
In 2019, veteran Erica Wilkins settled a wage lawsuit after her pay stubs showed she took home barely $16,000 in her third season while Rowdy, the mascot, made about $60,000.
After that case, game-day pay rose to roughly $400, which still doesn’t seem fair when you’re a marquee part of the most valued brand in sports ($10 billion!), but it’s not that simple.
“One of the things that happens in this instance is that everyone is so eager to defend the cheerleaders that they start putting words in their mouths,” Hepola said. “I have very rarely interviewed a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader — and I interviewed dozens, hundreds — who has said they wouldn’t do it, or felt that they were cheated in some way. They’ve all said I would do it again in a heartbeat — and for free.”
If you’re planning on watching the second season of “America’s Sweethearts” and haven’t gotten around to it, I won’t spoil much of it.
It’s a fun watch. I did have to binge it in order to write this piece, but like that night I spent 10 years ago, sliding around a wood floor in tight pants trying to do “sexy hips,” it was pretty fun. A recurring theme over the course of the season is the poor wages the dancers receive.
At one point, the young women nearly organize a strike, but get cold feet. Still, their lobbying leads to a 400% pay increase. Like Hepola said, each generation of these women is different, and this one looks like fighters. Superheroes even.