What came first, cheerleaders or megaphones?

Cheerleader lore has it that on Nov. 2, 1898, a University of Minnesota football fan was so upset to see his beloved Golden Gophers heading toward yet another defeat that he jumped from the stands, faced the crowd and led them chanting:

“Rah Rah!

Sku-u-mah hoo-rah

Hoo-rah!

Varsity! Varsity!

Minn-e-so-tah!”

Minnesota lost that football game. But that Minnesota student, Jack Campbell, became the nation’s first cheerleader.

Megaphones appeared on campuses shortly thereafter.

From the beginning, encouraging fans to yell and make noise in unison was considered man’s work. That changed after 1941 when most able-bodied males were involved in World War II.

Virginia Merrill and Anna Francis Stucker arrived at Kansas University in 1943. Both were KU cheerleaders for three years and Gamma Phi Beta sorority sisters.

Today they are 78.

“Those were the days when you bought your own sweater, pleated white skirt and saddle shoes,” Stucker said from her home in Fort Worth, Texas. “You were chosen more for your personality and good looks than your athletic ability.”

Merrill agreed, saying, “We didn’t do that tossing or the acrobatic things that cheerleaders do today.”

She lives in Overland Park.

Cheerleader tryouts were in the student union building and one of the judges was basketball legend Forrest “Phog” Allen. A friend of Stucker’s who was watching the proceedings said she heard “The Phogger,” as the cheerleaders called him, say, “pick her.”

“It was flattering,” she said.

Stucker recalled there was no gasoline for travel to out-of-town games during the war.

“We had a total of two cars in our entire sorority with just enough gasoline to drive to the Lawrence railroad stations during rush week to pick up pledges,” she said.

Both agreed that rivalries between schools were taken more seriously in the 1940s. Bonfire rallies were held on campus before University of Missouri and Kansas State University football games and Merrill remembers when it was tough for a KU fan to get a hamburger in Manhattan on game day.

“We went into a restaurant in Aggieville wearing our KU cheerleading outfits and they refused to serve us,” she said, laughing. “It was all good-natured, but we still didn’t get to eat.”

She said she occasionally repeated the story in front of her husband, Fred, a K-State graduate.

Lawrence resident Pete Anderson cheered for KU in 1957 and 1958.

“Cheering at KU was a lot of fun and was more like a social event than what our cheerleaders are doing today,” he said.

But they did hold the female cheerleaders in the air “for a few seconds,” he said.

“I couldn’t have done a cartwheel if my life had depended on it,” the retired tour operator said. “But, one summer I did repaint 10 of our megaphones.”

He said he could recall when Homer Floyd ran 97 yards in Columbia, Mo., and scored KU’s winning touchdown.

“I can still remember running across that football field with the other KU fans.”

Anderson said the cheerleaders found their own rides to out-of-town football and basketball games. They practiced at the student union.

“In the fall we were given nice KU letter jackets, you know the dark red ones with tan leather sleeves,” he said. “Well, in the spring we had to give them back.”

In 1965 the plastic pompom was invented and University of California-Los Angeles cheerleaders began using them in the “Bruin High Step” routine. The International Cheerleading Foundation began in 1967 along with the first ranking of the “Top Ten College Cheer Squads.”

Cheering developed into team gymnastics and “rah-rah-rahs,” and saddle shoes became history.

Flippin’ over March Madness After more than100 years, KU cheerleading has grown, changed The KU CheerleadersChoose from our 2 galleries, the first featuring photos from this year’s cheerleading team and the second featuring photos starting all the way back in 1899.Gallery 1: lo-res | hi-resGallery 2: lo-res | hi-resVideo 1(Combined routine with the KU dance team):Play | DownloadVideo 2(Interviews with current Cheerleaders):Play | Download