Jennipod
It's ya girl Jennifer, ya know, from Fairfield.
Jennipod
Jennipod Episode 17: I cheered in the NFL for 3 Years
In this nostalgic reflection, I share my journey as an NFL cheerleader for the Tennessee Titans from 2014-2016, detailing the challenging path to making the squad at 32 years old.
• Starting with no professional dance training or college cheerleading experience
• Facing rejection twice before making the team on my third attempt
• Balancing a full-time job, CrossFit coaching, and nightly practices
• Dealing with weekly weigh-ins and extreme body expectations
• Being the oldest team member for three consecutive seasons
• Struggling through freezing game days and exhausting schedules
• Meeting Dolly Parton and appearing in mainstream media outlets
• Forming lifelong friendships that continue today
• Learning it's never too late to try something new and intimidating
Thank you for supporting Jennipod! Please rate us and follow the podcast on Apple and add to playlist on Spotify. On Instagram follow along @thejennipod. Email jennifermeadevo@gmail.com for any Voice Over inquiries.
What's up everyone. Welcome to episode 17 of JennaPod. Today is Saturday, april 26th. I forgot to add my intro and outro music last week and I blame that on the cold that is still going on in my head. Editing last weekend was rough. Also, can we just not snot go away? My voice is still on the struggle bus. I started White Lotus. I really enjoyed season one. It's deaf, not for everyone. In the first couple minutes you see some dick and balls and if you are someone who doesn't want to see dick and balls, then White Lotus isn't for you. Love all the actors and the acting. I've already watched episode one of season two. Love some Theo James and we started the Last of Us on HBO. Pedro Pascal is also on that show.
Speaker 1:I managed to make a steak in my air fryer, so summer body is full on, and by summer body I am the color of a polar bear and I wear jeans all year long. It's NFL draftraft Week, so I thought it was finally time to tell my I was an NFL cheerleader for three years story. If you were wondering how into the NFL I am right now, I had no idea the Tennessee Titans had the first pick in the draft Thursday night If you have ever heard the term how the sausage is made. Basically, that's how I feel about the NFL. At first I was razzle-dazzled and then it's like oh, oh, okay, and remember, this is my experience and all teams are different. Remember, this is my experience and all teams are different. It's really hard to condense three years of chaos into an informative story, but I'll try my best and give some highlights. Maybe after this episode I'll have more questions to answer. I don't know. Some of you don't care and have turned this episode off.
Speaker 1:I grew up in Fairfield, ohio, which I've mentioned many times, a northern suburb of Cincinnati. So I grew up a Cincinnati Bengals fan, and by fan I mean I watched it if it was on television, but never understood football or paid attention. I remember going to a game as a kid and an older woman giving me Werther's Originals the entire game. Was that a dream? I don't know, but I remember it clear as day. I do remember the January 22nd 1989 Super Bowl against the 49ers, because we had a party at our house. It emotionally ruined every Bengals fan for decades. The question I get asked often is did you grow up dancing or were you a college cheerleader? No, ma'am.
Speaker 1:I was in gymnastics from age 3 to 12, and at one point within my gymnastics I remember Saturday morning ballet classes at Dynamo Gymnastics which was out by Surf Cincinnati hashtag TBT. Even when I was a competitive gymnast my dancing was very robotic but I could hit every move. When I got to sixth grade I started doing show choir, which is singing and dancing kind of like a jazz Broadway style, up until I graduated high school. I did school cheerleading in eighth and ninth grade for football, even though I didn't understand the difference between offense and defense. I had quit gymnastics and I was one of only two girls in our school that could do advanced tumbling. So best friend Reby, who would cheer since she could walk, convinced me to try out. Learning the cheer motions was a disaster, but I made it again because my toe touch was insane and I could rock a back tuck on the track during football games. I didn't try out for high school cheerleading but I did do all-star cheerleading from 9th to 12th grade. All-star cheerleading is normally an outside club-style cheer where you do all the fancy stunting and tumbling and end up at some nationals in Orlando, florida. I didn't love all-star cheerleading but I loved all my friends. Oh, and it was free for me because my dad owned the gym Slay Nepo baby.
Speaker 1:I also get asked why I never tried out to be a Bengals cheerleader right out of college cheerleader right out of college. I was living with my parents about 22 miles north of the stadium and I worked about 37 miles north of the Bengals stadium. I had many acquaintances growing up that did cheer for the Bengals. But when I saw their swimsuit calendar growing up I was like no way I could ever do that. I also really didn't even know what the NFL cheerleaders did, but I knew I wasn't a sexy, sexy gal. But let's remind everyone up until five years ago it was embarrassing to be a Bengals fan. Yes, we had our Carson Palmer era, but 1989 and on until we got Joey B, the thought of becoming a Bengals cheerleader was kind of like no thanks. Now, looking back, I know that is silly, but I was working about 50 hours a week at my Assisted Living, making $24,000 a year and commuting a billion miles from my parents' home to save up and move out. And then I was partying on the weekends. So it was never, ever a thought in my head to try out. I did read the book titled it's Not About the Pom Poms written by Laura Vickamanis, who was the oldest cheerleader in NFL history, at 40 years of age when she made the team in 2009. It was a very cool, inspiring book and I don't use the word inspiring often, but in this case I will use it and she was. She cheered for six years until she was 46.
Speaker 1:Insanity. I met my husband in early 2006, and he was a Bengals season ticket holder. So then I became a Bengals season ticket holder In 2007,. We moved to Tulsa and couldn't use them anymore. When I say in the years to come, we couldn't even give those tickets away. The Bengals were horrible. However, from 2006 to 2013, I would say I watched every single Bengals game, even going to bars in my orange and black.
Speaker 1:Fast forward to March of 2011, when we were moving to Nashville, tennessee. I was 29. I'll use the term skinny, fat and needed some motivation to work out. And what could do that more than being half naked in front of hundreds of girls in a room with judges? Now, if you are old school Nashville, you remember how hot the Predators dancers were.
Speaker 1:The Nashville Predators are Nashville's NHL hockey team. They had dancers, just like the football team did. They were wicked popular, gorgeous and talented. My girlfriend, jillian, was a Preds dancer from 2007 to 2008, and I remember when she made it it was the coolest thing I had ever heard. I was obsessed. The hot preds dancer era faded out and the rumor I heard was the wives of the owners didn't like them so sexy, so they ended up with more of a spirit squad, fully clothed, and they weren't allowed to dance on the ice anymore. It was a bummer and everyone was like why Jillian helped me out so much when I started showing interest in trying out for Titans. She grew up a pageant girl, so she gave me all the tips and tricks and even let me borrow all her audition clothes and dance shoes. I had nothing going into this, so public shout out thank you to Miss Jillian.
Speaker 1:Now this was 2011. Social media wasn't how it is now. You didn't have access to everyone trying out. I was sent a TikTok this week on a girl doing a get ready with me for her Titans interview. Like what? When we cheered, we weren't allowed to post any pictures unless they were like branded Titans media. It's not like it is now. Anyway, you just kind of had to wing tryouts by looking at pictures from the Titans website.
Speaker 1:I took dance classes from the wonderful Jessie Peralta Thompson. Jessie was my age and I had watched her in college on so you Think you Can Dance. So I was totally starstruck. Growing up, not a studio lifelong dancer. I had a ways to go on learning the style of NFL dancing and just to get my confidence up, I also attended every single workshop that was hosted by the Titans. Yes, let me say it's not cheap getting into this. I met my cheer bestie, brooke in 2012 at my first workshop, when neither of us were on the team. Brooke went on to make the team in 2013 and she was very helpful in my process of making the 2014 team. We ended up carpooling to everything for three years and, good lord, we needed each other.
Speaker 1:April of 2012 came and I showed up to the preliminary auditions at the Bubble, aka the Titans practice facility. It was so fucking intimidating but I was like I got this shit. Looking back at pics, that girl did not have her shit. I remember being embarrassed to tell people I was trying out. I remember being embarrassed to tell people I was trying out. I can't even recall if more than my parents, Jillian and my husband even knew I was trying out. I guess me trying out did kind of come out of right field. And what I learned through those years is that people will madly support you and your crazy dreams if you have the right people in your life. During the preliminary auditions, everyone came together and learned a couple, eight counts of dance and then performed them in front of the judges. After that they cut the field down to the next round of semifinal auditions, where you learned even more choreography and then performed it again. I made it to semifinals and I was stoked and I totally thought I was making it to finals.
Speaker 1:My first year auditioning NERP. My number didn't get called and when I say I sobbed the entire way home, I was so sad and so upset. After not making it, I decided to dedicate another year of working towards becoming an NFL cheerleader. I started doing CrossFit to get that soft body in shape. I started tracking my food and my fitness pal. I would end up tracking every single calorie I ate and weighing myself for the next four years. When I say I ate baked chicken and steamed vegetables every night for dinner, I am not exaggerating. If I drank one McUltra, it was in the app. It took me up until about two to three years ago to be to even be able to open up an app and track food again. It was. It was kind of PTSD for me. I also started stalking every current Titans cheerleader with their online presence as much as someone could do in 2013. I tried out again in April of 2013 and I made the finals. I was just happy to be there and really had no idea if I would make the team.
Speaker 1:Titans cheerleading finals used to be held at the Wild Horse Saloon and it was a show. I think now it is Luke Combs Bar on 2nd Avenue, I'm not even sure the name of it. So we had big hair, makeup galore and dancing on a giant stage with lights blaring on your face. I, in fact, did not make the team, but I wasn't distraught. Sure, I was bummed, but I was like cool, I did it. During the dancing I made these crazy ass facial expressions and I think it scared everyone, but really the girls that made it in 2013 were top tier talent.
Speaker 1:A couple of months after the 2013 finals, I ran into the director of Titans Cheerleading at a local salon and she said hey, come on back and try one more time. So I went home, talked it over with my husband and I was like, okay, one more year dedicating working my ass off for this goal. Listen, some girls make it their first time. Shout out to my girl, johnsy, who I think tried out five times. I also had to learn a lot about the glam side of it learning hair and makeup and the look. I never managed to learn how to put fake eyelashes on and still cannot to this day. By the time the final tryouts came in 2014, the director told me don't make any weird facial expressions at the wild horse and you should be good to go.
Speaker 1:Well, as we know, I made the damn team in 2014 at 32 years old, which for the next three years, I would be the oldest person on the team. My rookie teammates were 18, 20, and the rest were low to mid-20s. I was a mama bear. It's 100% a different experience going into it older way into my career and married. I always say if I had made the team at 22 instead of 32, I would have been crazy. I would have been partying with the players. I probably would have gotten kicked off the team. When I made the team, I could maybe have named five people playing.
Speaker 1:You are just so busy. I couldn't keep up. And let me say, when you are in a relationship as NFL dancer, nba, what have you? You have to be with someone who is comfortable with you being half naked and also never home. For three years I lived off to kind bars, coffee and five hours of sleep. I worked my full-time job downtown, coached CrossFit classes and then was gone from 7 to 10 pm every night we had practice. You miss weddings, vacations, special life events. We had practices on Thanksgiving. We had games and practices on Christmas Eve, christmas Day, new Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Now, in 2025, things may be more chill. I have no idea, but our schedule was not chill.
Speaker 1:There is one thing I have heard that has gone away from a lot of teams and those are weigh-ins. Yes, we had to weigh in during my tenure on the team. At the beginning of the season, you weighed in and that was your goal weight for the year, and then you had to weigh in every Tuesday night before the Sunday home game. If you didn't make weight, you could possibly be benched. I never failed a weigh-in, but by the third year I was having to take more extreme measures to hit my goal weight, like juicing for 48 hours before and even turning the heat on into my car to make myself sweat. Luckily, we always had girlies in the locker room messing with the scale to our favor. And you heard me say we weighed in at night.
Speaker 1:Imagine having to be skinny at 8pm, starving. Imagine having to be skinny at 8 pm, starving, and also having to learn a dance. It was madness. My famous story was I weighed in and then immediately started eating a chicken sandwich in the back of the room where we were dancing. I didn't care, I was hungry. There was a Taco Bell on the way home to my old house from practice and I may as well have had a punch card. And guess what? You will never be skinny enough. Like I have said, if you saw me in person in 2025, you'd probably think she's fit and trim. Now imagine my rookie year and me being 24 pounds lighter. I am shocked when I see pictures now, 11 years later. That girl needed some snacks.
Speaker 1:It took me a long time post NFL cheer to quit weighing myself and it took a long time to let go of those goal weight numbers. To let go of those goal weight numbers. Now, maybe twice a year, I get my body scanned from an in-body machine and that's good enough of a check-in for me. Remember, ladies, being strong is cool. I get asked often if I miss cheering for the Titans. I mostly, without a doubt, I miss my friends. Mostly, without a doubt, I miss my friends goofing off. There were many perks I can't even name all the perks and, yes, it was just a fascinating experience. Game days were actually not my favorite part of it. Yes, you got some sick pictures after, but it was exhausting and the Titans sucked. When I cheered, we drafted Marcus Mariota in 2014 and thought we were going to the Super Bowl. While I cheered, we had 14 wins and 34 losses.
Speaker 1:We had to arrive at the stadium on game day, I think around 7.15 am for the noon games Remember, we'd be on that central time Maybe by 8 to 8.30,. We were on the field practicing our quarter break routines. Then we had to rush back to the locker room, sweaty as hell, to get glammed up by 10.30 am to start game day appearances. This could be greeting fans at gate one, going out to the tailgates or dancing on the stage within the stadium with the DJ. By fourth quarter I could barely move my arms and I just wanted a cold beer. So Brooke and I would start planning where we were going to dinner. I think we would get out of the stadium around 4 pm. It was a long-ass day and remember we wore tall white-heeled go-go boots. We def got our 10,000 steps in.
Speaker 1:Now I mentioned pictures. Every Monday morning I would scour the internet for photos of myself. Well, hell yeah, I mean I worked my ass off for this. Whatever, give me the evidence. I cheered I'd be on Associated Press, getty Images, sports Illustrated, local sports outlets, etc. One of the funniest picture moments was my dad texting me saying, and I quote your ass is on the MSN homepage and, by golly, when I got to msncom, there was my booty in our cowgirl outfits with the jean shorts. I guess that could be a fun fact about me when I play two truths and one lie during a horrific icebreaker for work. Ask on search engine homepage.
Speaker 1:At one point when I was on the team, we were called strippers on the ESPN Mike and Mike in the Morning radio show and online. They even had one of our dances from practice on Instagram and I was in it. I was like cool, I'm on ESPN associated with an article being called a stripper. I think kind of the temperature of NFL cheerleading is chilled out. But like every couple years, an article has to come out and the headline is either number one these sexy sluts are too much for football, or it's number two NFL cheerleaders aren't appreciated and paid enough. It's one side or the other. I had a good experience. Some girls across decades and programs had shitty experiences. Yes, we were paid and we were even part-time employees of the franchise. Did we get paid a lot At the time? No, but I think it's better these days you ain't doing it for the money. Or maybe you cheered for the Patriots and you got to end up dating Rob Gronkowski. Did I say that right? Maybe you're dating him for the past 10 years. Bless that cute little blonde model girl. I'm glad I cheered when I did, because I think the social media aspect of it now would be too much to handle, too much. You'd have people picking you apart left and right on the internet.
Speaker 1:One of my other funny stories during every third down in the game we would spread out and try to get the crowd pumped up. My rookie year I was doing this and punched a Houston's kicker in the head. I was so fucking embarrassed and I thought I was going to get fired. I literally was like this is it? I will be kicked off the team. And I'll tell you someone who works their ass off during the games and that is the mascot. On those 95 degree days they are in those crazy hot costumes and our mascot had to have the EMTs come to him after every game for an IV because he would sweat so much and be overheated. After my rookie year, they were looking for a mascot and when I found out how much they could potentially make, I almost quit cheer and pursued it. Make and bank if you do it long enough. Not saying it's an easy job, I'm just saying good career Again. There are so many stories, but a lot of them wouldn't make sense unless you were there to experience them. It was blood, sweat and tears, lots and lots of tears.
Speaker 1:I will say the most memorable appearance I attended was the 2016 televised fundraiser that Dolly Parton put on for the wildfires that happened in Gatlinburg, tennessee. There were five to six of us just standing around with celebrities as they answered the phones to collect money. Some people were famous, but I didn't know who they were, but I did get to stand next to Chris Stapleton and his wife for a while. We also got to meet the queen herself, dolly Parton. I snuck a video of her on my iPhone, which I still have. She was so glamorous and nice we weren't allowed to take pictures on our iPhones, but somewhere out there in the ether there is a group photo with her that we never found, even though we reached out to her media team Boo, in 2017, after I decided to no longer cheer, I stayed on and worked all 10 home football games as a part of the Titan Up team.
Speaker 1:I really got more background on how game day works and got to attend the game day meetings. I shot t-shirts out of the t-shirt cannon and got to help with all the on-field sponsor activities and games. You see sometimes, like when they bring down a fan to try and kick a football into the field goal uprights, whatever and win something. The biggest thing I was in charge of was the Kroger race. They had a Kroger mascot race. We had four guys, including my husband, dressed up as the M&M Bread, bunny, chester, the Cheetah, and I can't even remember the fourth one and obviously it was all scripted. So like okay, guys, today the M&M wins and everyone in the stands gets a free pack of M&Ms at Kroger, the gentleman in charge of marketing was very serious about the skit every game and would tell me to my face, don't fuck this up. Aye, aye, captain, the Titans actually had a home playoff game that year and won it for the first time since 2008.
Speaker 1:But I was so burnt out on games at that point I could just stand on the field. I could go anywhere in the stadium. I wanted to watch the action, but instead I would go into the mascot lounge and watch the game on TV, counting down the minutes until I could go home. I knew after that year I would not be participating with this anymore. I remember at my first game ever, when I was getting my hair and makeup done and seeing all the chaos of behind the scenes from us management, concessions, janitorial staff, just everyone working I was like this is all just theater. We may as well be getting ready to put on a Broadway musical, but our musical will involve 22 men on a field playing a game. It's all about the money.
Speaker 1:I have been to two NFL games since 2017, and that was last year. I went to Kansas City to watch the Bengals play New Year's Eve and in 2018, I got to see one of my dear friends, brianna cheer in her very first game as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader at Jerry's World in Dallas. When Bree cheered for Dallas, I vicariously lived through her. Let's just say being a DCC is very different from being a TTC. I mean, they have a dang Netflix show which I loved. I thought they did a very good job representing what it was like to cheer in the NFL.
Speaker 1:My biggest takeaway from Titans was my friends, ladies I still talk to on a daily basis and am still lucky to see, quite often at lunches and life events. These girls will be in my life forever. These girls will be in my life forever and don't be scared to try new things at an age where you may feel out of place. I cheered from ages 32 to 35, and I also started a podcast at 42. Now we have the new Titan Stadium being built that allegedly will be ready by the 2027 season. That allegedly will be ready by the 2027 season. It's going to have a roof. No longer will these beautiful ladies either be sweating their makeup off or freezing their little booties off.
Speaker 1:I cheered at the third coldest game in Titans history. Monday Night Football, november 17, 2014, when it was 25 degrees, and I worked. The second coldest game, december 31, 2017, when it was 23 degrees, I think. At both the wind chills were negative digits. Imagine being in a leotard and wanting to cry for three hours because you can't feel your body. 10 out of 10. No, thank you. If tryouts are at the new stadium, I will totally, at the age of 45, go down and sign up because I just want to see the behind the scenes. Who's with me? We start training this week. Thank you for listening. Go Bengals, go Titans. Jennapod is directed, produced and edited by me, your girl, jennifer. Please rate, review and subscribe to this on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you are listening to my lovely voice Laters.
