Purdue's first black cheerleader to try out, make squad blazed a trail that still lacks color - Indianapolis Star

July 14, 2019 at 11:06AM

Kathy Jordan was known around Purdue University as the gymnastics girl with the braids. She was quiet, flew under the radar, but nevertheless, was noticed.

Black girls didn't do much gymnastics in the 1970s.

And if Jordan was getting noticed for her tumbling and flipping and walking the narrow path of a balance beam, her Boilermaker fame was only about to explode.

In 1976, with the nod of a coach's head, a 5-3, 113-pound Jordan became the first black cheerleader at Purdue to try out and make the squad. She became one of the first black cheerleaders in the Big 10, one of the first at any integrated university in the nation.

Kathy Jordan shown during her time as one of Purdue's first three African-American cheerleaders. (Photo: Purdue Handout Photo)

Jordan blazed the beginning of a trail that people only assumed would quickly burgeon. But it didn't.

In the 43 years since Jordan landed her position, a glaring lack of color on university cheerleading squads still exists. USA Cheer, the national governing body for sport cheering in the United States, doesn't track numbers based on race. But simple scans of Division I cheerleading squad photos for the 2018-19 season show a few minorities on each team, if that.

African-American students of Jordan's era had no idea that this new beginning would be so slow to take off. They erupted with pride when she made the team. It was time. It was time for a black cheerleader to try out and make the squad on her own merit.

"The black student body was very embracing and very excited that they had a black cheerleader," said Jordan, now 62. "I do remember how excited everybody was when I made the squad."

But Jordan doesn't consider herself the first black cheerleader at Purdue. She wasn't really. There had been two women before her and their experience hadn't ended well.

'Lacks grace and coordination'

They were known as the "two Pams" on the squad — Pam Ford and Pam King. They weren't cheering because they made the team. They were appointed.

Racial unrest and civil rights protests were flaring up across the U.S. in the spring of 1968 and Purdue had just chosen its five female cheerleaders, all white.

The Black Student Action Committee demonstrated on the steps of the president's office. Members had a list of demands; one was that two black women should be on the cheerleading squad.

Ford and King agreed to take on the challenge.

Pam King is shown giving the "Black Salute" in her Purdue cheerleading uniform. (Photo: Image from The Purdue Exponent)

"She is regarded uneasily on campus as an instigator of the Black Student Action group demonstration," said a 1969 Sports Illustrated article about King. "Without doubt she lacks the grace and coordination to be a good cheerleader."

"I had a purpose in wanting to become a cheerleader here," King said in that story. "I saw it as a sign, a good omen, that Purdue could have black people on the squad. And I thought it would give me an opportunity to be close enough to a group of white people to sort of help them when they were being bigoted."

But King quit the team in December 1968 after being "severely criticized" for giving the Black Power Salute in her cheerleading uniform during football and basketball games. According to The Purdue Exponent, King quit after being denied entrance to the Purdue-Ohio State basketball game.

Purdue's current cheer coach, Steve Solberg, told IndyStar in an e-mail that Ford and King are considered Purdue's first African-American cheerleaders, "appointed together in 1968."

Kathy Jordan (on top left), one of Purdue's first three African American cheerleaders, and a teammate flip off a pyramid with no spotters, during the mid 70s, Indianapolis, Friday, June 7, 2019. (Photo: Purdue Handout Photo)

"There haven't been many of us and I always want to give due respect to Pam and Pam," Jordan said from her Indianapolis home earlier this month. "I don't think it was a good experience for them.

"Mine was great. I wasn't treated any differently."

'Always a ham'

It was at Westlane Middle School that Jordan first tried out to be a cheerleader. "Well, I've always been a ham," she said.

She was a tomboy who loved sports, a daredevil who loved to perform. Cheerleading, she thought, would let her combine all of that.

She didn't make the squad at Westlane. "I thought, 'Oh, I'm just not good enough,'" she said. At North Central, she tried out again as a sophomore. Still not good enough.

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Kathy Jordan, one of Purdue's first three African American cheerleaders, talks about different training standards than today, and wanting a black Purdue Barbie doll, Indianapolis, Friday, June 7, 2019. (Photo: Robert Scheer/IndyStar)

Her junior year, she made the reserves and her senior year she made it as an alternate.

"I got to cheer because people would break an arm or break a leg or something and I got to come in and stand in for them," she said. "But I never really made the squad."

At North Central, she participated in track and field, gymnastics and sang in the choir. She was still getting to perform, just not the way she wanted to — cheering.

One cheerleader on the team told Jordan that she had actually made the Westlane squad, but hadn't been put on the team.

Jordan didn't dwell on that. She tried not to believe it. She assumed she just wasn't good enough. People didn't judge her by her skin color. After all, the student body had voted her the first black homecoming queen at North Central.

Plus, that's how her parents had raised her.

"We had just gone through this big '60s civil rights thing, so there were a lot of things being done," Jordan said. "So my parents were raising me, 'You judge a person by character, not by the color of their skin."

Finally on the squad

She faced another disappointment as a sophomore at Purdue, when she got up the nerve to try out for cheerleading again. She didn't make the five-woman team. She didn't give up.

"A lot of people kept encouraging me," Jordan said. "They came out to tryouts and saw me, a lot of African Americans, in particular."

When she made the team as a junior, she almost couldn't believe it. She remembers her older brother, the late Rev. Charles Williams, who led Indiana Black Expo for three decades, being ecstatic.

Kathy Jordan, one of Purdue's first three African American cheerleaders, with a teammate in the mid 70s, Indianapolis, Friday, June 7, 2019. (Photo: Purdue Handout Photo)

"He was proud as a peacock," she said. "He's the one who would walk around saying 'My sister is the first black cheerleader at Purdue.'"

Unlike the experiences of Ford and King, Jordan said hers was nothing but positive. The five white male cheerleaders who lifted the girls were always respectful. There were no racist chants or sideways glances.

She made the team again as a senior, traveling to away games in a van. She flew to New York for an NIT tournament appearance. She dated Purdue basketball star Walter Jordan and later married him.

She did crazy, risky backflips off the tops of pyramids. She smiled and never once really thought about the color of her skin.

"Nothing was different," she said. "They treated me like everybody else."

Cheering void of color

It would seem in the 43 years since Jordan started cheering at Purdue, there would have been scores more black Purdue cheerleaders. But there haven't. Not at Purdue and, other than historically black colleges, not at most universities.

No statistics exist that breakdown ethnicity of college cheerleaders, according to Sheila Noone with USA Cheer. But a look at three of Indiana's Division I schools cheering squad photos shows teams apparently devoid of racial diversity.

Kathy Jordan (third from left), one of Purdue's first three African American cheerleaders, with her squad in the mid 70s, Indianapolis, Friday, June 7, 2019. (Photo: Handout Photo)

On Indiana, Ball State and Purdue teams for the 2018-19 season — more than 100 women combined — there appear to be four or fewer minority cheerleaders on each squad, according to the team's public photos. For the three squads, 9.6% appear to be minorities.

Regarding the under representation of minorities, Purdue' Solberg told IndyStar 19.2% of its cheer program were minorities for 2018-19. Solberg, who is Asian American, included male and female cheerleaders in that count with four African Americans, three Asian Americans and three Hispanic Americans.

"In regards to other D1 programs you looked at, I can't speak on their numbers," he said.

Black Girls Cheer, which was founded in 2015, seeks to bring awareness to the lack of minority girls on cheerleading squads at all levels, and overcome that deficit. The group did not respond to an IndyStar request for an interview, but its web site says, "Ask yourself, how could cheerleading become more accepting of the diverse population that already exists? What are some things that people in leadership positions within... cheer organizations on a local or national level do to make cheerleading more diverse and inclusive?"

Jordan believes the answer to that begins with exposure.

"Cheerleading has come so far. I think you will start to see more (minorities)," she said. "It's getting more exposure on television, the competitions. Like anything else, you get more exposure, people see what it is..."

It opens doors.

Kathy Jordan (third from left), one of Purdue's first three African American cheerleaders, with her squad in the mid 70s, Indianapolis, Friday, June 7, 2019. (Photo: Handout Photo)

Jordan has been to almost every one of Purdue's cheerleading reunions, which take place every two years. Cheerleaders from as far back as the 1940s show up.

If Jordan happens to see a minority cheerleader on the current team, she introduces herself. She tells that cheerleader she had a great experience on Purdue's squad and that she hopes she is, too.

She lets them know what her journey was like.

"That's one of the reasons I go back," she said. "I want everyone to know there was a black cheerleader back in the day."

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