Giants’ Attempt at Cheerleading Goes Horribly Wrong
Illustration By James Bennett
The New York Giants are proud of their 87-year-history in the National Football League, and have largely achieved their popularity and success while eschewing the frivolity embraced by most other teams. This means no mascots or cheerleaders. The Giants are one of only six NFL teams—along with the Bears, Browns, Lions, Packers and Steelers—that don’t employ a cheering squad.
There was a time however, when the Giants did have cheerleaders, for at least one season and possibly as many as five. This was about five years after the Baltimore Colts were credited with fielding the first official squad in 1954.
The New York Times introduced the Giants’ 10 cheerleaders, young women ranging in age from 17 to 20, in October of 1959. Various reports had them cheering as late as the 1963 season, but official confirmation is sketchy. Giants’ vice president of communications Pat Hanlon says he has a memory of their being used “ever so briefly in the mid-60s.”
Even more clouded is what ended their tenure. The league’s official documenting agent NFL Films didn’t begin regularly shooting Giants games until 1964. But there is a good chance that the squad’s demise has to do with an ill-fated attempt to use flip cards, those slogan-carrying placards popular at college games.
Accounts from fans who learned the story from parents or broadcasters describe 10 cheerleaders coming onto the field, each with a card intended to combine for a message to motivate the Yankee Stadium crowd. An alternate version had a card section consisting of hundreds of participants in the stands.
Not in question is what happened next. At the signal, the cards were flipped over to reveal not words of encouragement but “OG GINATS OG.”
“It was a disaster,” said Ed Croke, who was the Giants’ head of communications in 1976 when he told the story to a group of reporters; he retired in 1993. “We never tried that again.”
That goes for the flip cards and, presumably, the cheerleaders.