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The Carolina Panthers are making a splash with their cheerleading squad. While male cheerleaders are a common sight on the sidelines in college football stadiums, it is rare for men to be in the ranks of NFL cheerleaders. For the Panthers, Chris Crawford will be one of the first men to join an NFL team’s cheerleading squad.
The TopCats, the name of the Panthers’ cheerleading squad, will welcome 23-year-old Crawford to the sidelines next season. Crawford is a classically trained concert dancer who studied ballet at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Crawford knows his entrance into the world of NFL cheerleaders represents a shift in what typical NFL cheerleaders look like, but he also hopes to bring a different perspective:
“I typically lean more into my feminine side just because growing up it was something I was always told had to be put in a box. It was something that had to be locked up: guys don’t do this, guys don’t do that. Now I’m in a space where I’m surrounded by people that love the fact that this is who I genuinely am.”
For his part, Crawford hopes to represent the Panthers football team while also having the space to express his individuality.
Carolina Panthers are part of the shift the NFL is seeing with male cheerleaders in recent years
The NFL is amidst a change where most fans and viewers expect a progression toward equal representation. For the long-standing tradition of exclusive female cheerleaders, the NFL is seeing more and more male cheerleaders.
The Los Angeles Rams made history when Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies became the first male cheerleaders rostered on an NFL cheerleading squad. In addition to the Panthers’ Chris Crawford, Peron and Jinnies hope to bring their voices on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ community to the NFL world.
In a league with a long, stereotypical tradition of heterosexual men playing football on the field while attractive women in color-coded uniforms cheer them on from the sidelines, men on cheerleading squads represent a departure from a long-standing convention.
Although the Panthers and the Rams are making waves with their cheerleading squads, the sight of coed cheerleaders on NFL sidelines will one day cease to be a novel concept as fans get accustomed to the inclusion of men and women.
