The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/all/20060310212846/http://www.stanford.edu/group/yell/mission.html
Our Mission
The Stanford Yell Leaders
are committed to representing and leading the students of Stanford University
in support of its athletic teams. Founded in 1997, this group exists to
provide onlookers with an incarnate example of what excitement about Stanford
and Stanford athletics can look like.
More like the fans themselves
than traditional cheerleaders, this group ignores many of the rituals thought
to be universal in collegiate cheerleading. No throwing miniature women
in the air. No quasi-athletic uniforms. No staccato cheers that abrade
the ears and sensibilities of most sports fans. In practice, the yell leaders
are committed to one principle: authenticity. Recognizing that conventional
cheerleaders are a strange circus sideshow to athletic events, these fanatics
are bent on being more like exuberant Stanford fans clad in attire indicative
of the Stanford spirit than on imitating their talented yet misguided counterparts:
the sweater-clad-I-don't-really-like-sports-gender-essentialistic ninnies
that lament their alienation from the spirit of the game and the content
of the crowd. Where most acrobatic cheerleading groups make the impossible look easy,
the Stanford Yell Leaders make the easy look downright impossible.
The yell leaders are committed
to looking a bit foolish, a lot energetic, and more than a little chemically
imbalanced in order to best capture the spirit of what it means to be a
Stanford student. Just as our Band, our Dollies, and our Tree show that
school spirit can have a lot more soul, the Stanford Yell Leaders go into
every game hoping only to add to the experience of the event. Our motto:
To focus, rather than divide, the love and attention and pride the fans pour onto the field.
To get so excited that it makes them worry for our physical well-beings.
To demonstrate the way the students of Stanford University get excited
about the talented athletes that don their colors on the athletic field.
To forget our inhibitions and have more fun at a sporting event than we
ever thought possible.
