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Watch: Male Cheerleaders Headed to Super Bowl for First Time

by Kilian Melloy

EDGE Staff Reporter

Friday January 25, 2019

No matter what else happens at the Super Bowl this year, the game will make history due to two male cheerleaders who will be part of the spirit squad exhorting the Los Angeles Rams to prevail over the New England Patriots, multiple media outlets note.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the two male performers, Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies, are dancers with classical training who will be right there with the squad's female members, doing all the same choreography.

Both men took to Twitter to express their delight.

"It's been a crazy 10 months," Jinnies told ABC News. "Dancing hard and really engaging with our community and our team and supporting our players."

The team and its followers support them right back, according to the cheerleaders' coach, Emily Leibert. "To see the way that they've been embraced by their fans is pretty unbelievable," Leibert told ABC News. "They're extraordinary in that they're trailblazers but they're also totally normal teammates and they fit right in, and I think that the fans have embraced them as such."

The Rams' cheerleading director, Keely Fimbres, liked both men's auditions so much she immediately wanted them for the squad - though she also felt the need to clear it with the owner of the team, she told NBC News.

"I said, 'We have two gentlemen auditioning for us, and they're doing very well. How do you feel about that?' " Fimbres recollected. The answer: If the fellows had what it takes, let them do their thing.

NBC News noted that the addition of Jinnies and Peron to the Rams' spirit squad was enough to encourage other teams to follow suit. Now the New Orleans Saints has a male cheerleader, too, a man by the name of Jesse Hernandez. Who knows? Maybe the Saints will also be headed to the Super Bowl before too many more seasons.

Peron shared how his and Jinnies' groundbreaking roles in the cheerleading squad were already knocking down walls for other men who might want to show their sporting spirit in ways other than charging around on the field.

"I think we can both say that we've been reached out to by so many men that are so excited to try out, not just men our age but young men trying out for the junior high school cheer team, and it's exciting to see this change," he told ABC News.

Watch the ABC News report below.

Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.