Oddly enough, Princeton’s pioneering cheerleaders didn’t perform at athletic events. That makes it tough to picture how cheerleading was incorporated into college life. Did these nascent boosters break into hisses and booms (meant to mimic exploding rockets) as the spirit moved them, say, after a particularly adept lecture on mammalian taxonomy?

Following the first intercollegiate football game in 1869, cheerleading became de rigueur at football and baseball games, as well as at practices. It seems as if college cheers haven’t come all that far, considering this sample:

“Rah! Rah! Rah! S-s-s-t! Boom! A-h-h-h!
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Tiger! S-s-s-t! Boom! A-h-h-h!
Hooray, hooray, hooray! Tiger siss-boom-ah, Princeton!”

Like all good stories, this one involves a bit of skullduggery: Thomas Peebles, class of 1882, who was familiar with these cheers, moved to Minnesota in 1884 and transplanted the idea of organized cheering at football games to the University of Minnesota. That’s why it’s credited with having started “organized cheerleading” on Nov. 2, 1898.

However, the term “cheer-leader” was used at Princeton as early as Oct. 26, 1897, with cheerleaders Thomas (class of 1898), Easton (1898) and Guerin (1899) cheering at games and football practices. (Note: These cheerleaders were all of the male persuasion. The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders were unfathomably far in the future.)

Ultimately, cheering sections were designated in the stands for both home and visiting teams. Editors of the Daily Princetonian excoriated those “freshmen sitting in the grand stand and utterly refusing to aid their team by cheering, or any other way to gain a victory.”

NJ Spotlight News might benefit from having its own cheerleading squad. I’d be happy to wave pompoms and shout through a megaphone. On second thought, let’s not go there.