Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (2018) - full transcript
The never-before-told story of Suzanne Mitchell, the fiercely-loyal den mother of the original Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Seen by many as regressive and exploitative, this diverse ...
You once said
in American Weekly,
You said: "Women, they're
an necessary nuisance."
You said, "American women have
to learn to accept
a man's domination."
Did I say that?
Who was the boss of your family?
Absolutely my husband.
What is a husband?
A husband Is the guy who's
is in charge and should be
all of the time.
And this thing about saying
let's talk it all over
this baloney, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't work because
talking it over, only...
Is a kind of a relentless
insidious and it's about a woman.
Do you hear me?
I really don't know what
women are asking for.
Now, suppose I wanted
to give it to them.
Listen, you may as well
relax because whatever
it is they're asking for,
honey, it's not for you.
It was 1967 in Dallas, Texas.
Four years after the
Kennedy assassination, the
Cowboys were hosting the
Falcons at the Cotton Bowl.
The cheerleaders were
there but they were
high school kids, boy and
girl couples who tried
to lead cheers at the
football stadium but
they never captured the
fans' imagination.
And then at half-time, a woman walks
down the aisle on the home team side.
She was an exotic dancer
a topless Dancer
or call it what you want, but
Dallas knew her as Bubbles Cash.
Bubbles Cash.
Do you remember that?
Bubbles Cash.
She was a stripper.
Well, yeah.
And this woman had big
hair and she had a short mini skirt
and she carried in each hand cotton
candy but just like pompoms.
People turned around, the players on
the field, the coaches, the referees.
She was such a sex bomb,
you could not miss Bubbles Cash.
And this is the moment when general manager
Tex Schramm has a vision that would
change the game of football
in America forever.
These are the
Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.
Fans sometimes spend
as much time watching
them as they do
watching the Cowboys.
In 1972, when
we walked out there
on that field, people went
crazy in the stadium.
The next day,
it was on all the news.
It was in the newspaper.
Everybody's going:
"Did you see what they
had on or what
they didn't have on?"
They didn't look
like all-American
college kids anymore
or high school kids.
They were the most sexed up
cheerleaders anywhere.
Midriff, hot pants, the
boots, men would be howling.
You know, you could see a wife
nudge went up and stuff like that.
This is not two, four, six,
eight, who do you appreciate?
This is Broadway coming
to your sideline.
This is a show.
They perform.
It was just this whole
new way of thinking of it.
It's like putting a sparkle on the
sidelines to glitter and glam.
No one's thinking like this.
Tex Schramm sees the future of
the NFL on TV when no one does.
You are in the entertainment
business as well
as being in the sports business
or the two are synonymous,
and we think that it adds
color and a little bit of
excitement at our games
and for the television camera.
I mean you tune in CBS with
that great voice of Pat Summerall.
I'm Pat Summerall.
This is Tom Brookshier.
You'd see Landry in a suit
and tie and a goofy little hat
and here comes Staubach
leading the team onto the field,
throwing his pass to Drew Pearson
who would constantly just get
flipped head over heels and
yet somehow hang on to the ball.
Dorset would take off
on a long touchdown run.
And then CBS would cut away
to Dana Presley.
I've seen all I need to see.
My life's over now.
But Dallas is a place where
the sacred and the profane exist
simultaneously, sometimes right
across the street from one another.
It's fundamental religion
and hellraisers, and so you had a
lot of pushback early on and the
pushback was led by the coach's wife.
Alicia Landry,
Tom's wife, didn't like us.
She did not like
that there was too much...
boob showing.
So, at one game, we had these
little pieces of blue fabric that
snapped into our uniform top and
they were called modesty shields.
That experiment lasted one-half.
The outcry
was so bad, they came down
to our dressing room and said:
"Get those off. They're terrible."
There's always people in
our society who want to
tell other people what they
should and should not enjoy.
And what I find refreshing, and there's
not nearly enough of it anymore,
is a guy like Tex Schramm who says
that: "I hear your criticism.
I just don't care.
I know this sells.
I know this works."
Go, Cowboy, go!
Go, Cowboy, go!
It was in 1976.
It was the bicentennial.
The cheerleaders were well
known in Dallas, but at that
Super Bowl they suddenly
became a national phenomenon.
You ask anybody what
one of the biggest games
in NFL history was,
and Super Bowl X
between the Pittsburgh Steelers
and the Dallas Cowboys
is going to make
that list invariably.
Touchdown Drew
Pearson The Cowboys take the lead.
CBS was figuring out how
we're going to televise
the Super Bowl,
talked about a lot of things,
but one consensus agreement
was they were going to
key in on the
Cowboys Cheerleaders.
How'd you get the
idea for Honey Shot then?
I got the idea for
Honey Shots because
I am a dirty old man, okay,
because I turned, uh, 17.
I remember I was terrified.
Every time I looked at a girl,
I just crumbled, and I thought:
"If I'm like that, maybe
other people are like that."
And you know what? They are.
The notoriety and fame,
it seems so silly
now to think that that
totally came from a wink.
It was the right game,
right place, right time.
And when one of those cheerleaders
winked at the camera,
the nation forgot there was
a football game going on.
This is really the wink that launched
the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
The wink.
Oh, the wink changed everything.
One of the cheerleaders,
Gwenda Swearingen, who obviously
was a beautiful child and she
had no idea what she was doing.
Oh, the Gwendolyn Wink.
It was just pure magic right
out of a Hollywood script.
And everybody thought in America
that that wink
was just for them.
After the wink, it seemed
like all hell broke loose.
I mean, there were calls from
Hollywood, William Morris Agency,
marketing companies wanting us
to do unbelievable things.
And Tex Schramm had
a very strong television
media background and he
saw the potential for it.
The first time I walked into
Tex Schramm's office, I had
no idea who he was and I really
didn't care about the Cowboys.
His really big question to me
was what I wanted to do in
five years with the Cowboys, and
I just looked at him and said:
"Your chair is pretty comfortable."
And he thought that was
hysterical, so he banged on the
desk and said: "You're hired."
Now, understand
at the time I was doing
all his personal financial work.
I was doing all the player
contract work, all the NFL work,
then came Super Bowl X in Miami,
and that's why he called me
into his office and said:
"Somebody's got to handle this,
so you do it in your spare time."
And I just said: "Okeydokey."
Suzanne Mitchell was
probably the perfect
hire to be in charge of
the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
This is a strong woman.
I think I was more
afraid of upsetting
Suzanne Mitchell than I've
ever been of upsetting
any coach or owner or
general manager in any sport.
She was kind of scary at times.
Suzanne, that was our mama bear.
She would take you on.
I crossed her one time when I was
in her office and I was just kind of
browsing through this big box she
had on the corner of her desk.
I didn't think
it was any big deal.
She let me know
it was a big deal.
I didn't browse around on Suzanne
Mitchell's desk ever again.
She was a tough cookie but she
had to be, and if she had not
been as tough as she was,
I think things would have
gotten way out of control.
You're asking
about my private life?
There was no private life.
There was none.
I mean, literally, I worked seven
days a week, 18 hours a day.
I truly did.
The first year we had like
250 auditions.
The second year,
I had 4,000 applications.
The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders
have been called
the most select line up
of women west of the Radio
City Music Hall Rockettes.
You're dealing with Miss
this, Miss that, Homecoming Queen,
cheerleader, all thought they
were hotsy-totsy, wonderful:
"I'm the best one here
and I'm the cutest one."
But they're in a room full of people
thinking exactly the same thing.
I remember my aunt
in San Diego telling me
to never be a cheerleader because
they're exploiting themselves on TV.
I was like: "Oh, I'll never
be a cheerleader." Mm.
Well, my father was
a cheerleader at Rice.
I was actually 17
when I auditioned.
I was supposed to be 18.
I never told anybody that.
I was raised in
Collinsville, Texas, population 800.
No dancing in school because
it was sinful and corrupt.
I hold peanuts.
I hold cotton.
And so I was always a loner,
so, I tried out for
cheerleader without
telling anyone.
Growing up,
I was climbing trees.
My sister
was playing Barbie dolls.
I was a tomboy.
My whole life I wanted
to be a quarterback
of a professional football team.
I never made
the high school squad because
I wasn't good enough, I guess, or they
didn't like my look, but when I went to
college, I was the first
African-American cheerleader
they ever had at Texas Lutheran and then
I came back and tried out for Dallas.
I auditioned the first time in 1981.
I was in college. I was married.
I mentioned it one night at
dinner with my then husband and
He said: "There's no way you'd
make it." So it started out
as just a dare, but once I met
those 250 other girls at
semi-finals, it became:
"I must do this or I will die."
We're looking for an all-American,
sexy girl, one that has a very
good background, a very good
personality as far as
representing the Cowboys
and Dallas, Texas.
I'm a writer, I'm a journalist
and I was asked to write a book
about the
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
And so I spent nine months with Suzanne
Mitchell and the cheerleaders.
The cheerleading tryouts
were... it blew me away.
Everyone has got the make-up, and the
clothes, and the cleavage and, you know,
the bathrooms are full of everyone's
blowing their hair and curling it.
It's very much of
a performance-type feeling.
Suzanne came across
very intimidating.
She got a pair of readers
on top of her head
and a pair of readers across
the bridge of her nose.
She's got her legs crossed and
she's tapping a pencil and looking
at you and you're like: "Am I doing good?
Is... you know, is she liking this?"
Toni was 18 years old and
I wondered why the hell she was
even there because she couldn't
dance her way out of a paper bag.
My routine was from Billy Preston,
Nothing from Nothing Gets Nothing,
and I had a big pompom hairdo
and it was more
of a comedy routine.
I wore a black outfit
and I wanted to be like,
look like a girl paladin, you
know, "have gun, will travel".
When I got up on the stage,
I shot at all the judges
And then I did a twirl, and I blew
on the gun, and then I walked off.
The process
took about two months.
Finally got to the finals
and then I suddenly realized:
"I want this more than I've
ever wanted anything else."
They were desperate.
They would
go sob in the bathroom
afterwards because
they had messed up.
When we were sitting down
in the pickup truck eating
our baloney sandwiches
and drinking our sweet tea,
there was an announcement
on the radio and
Ron Chapman says:
"I'm going to announce the
36 girls who made the Dallas
Cowboys Cheerleader Squad."
And my dad goes: "What the heck,
there are no professional
cheerleaders, are there?"
The winners are,
number 14, Vonciel Baker.
Number 50, Shannon Baker.
They called out Sherrie McCorkle
and when they did, my dad
like fell out of the truck
and my sisters were ecstatic
and my life has never
been the same since.
My mother was not thrilled.
She was very baptist
and said: "Oh, my god.
You're going to be
out in front of God
and everybody
showing your navel?"
I had no idea I would make
it out of 3,000 girls.
So when my name was
called, I was ecstatic.
Ladies and gentleman,
your new Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
My boyfriend was not as excited.
In fact, he said: "You're gonna
have to pick between being a
Dallas Cowboy cheerleader,
or dating me."
I said: "Well, gotta go.
See ya."
Suzanne once told me
that she had these images in
her mind that she thought
the Cowboys' fans would love.
And if you noticed,
over the years, she was always
looking for girls
to fit into those images.
There was the redhead. There was
Tami with the pigtails.
There was the blond.
There is the brunette.
Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians.
It just kind of lull you in.
The diversity of the cheerleaders,
was important to Suzanne.
She wanted to pick
a different variety
of girls so that the people
on the stands or on the
television, could have somebody
they could relate to.
The Dallas Cowboys were
probably one of the single
most important factors of
integration in the city of Dallas.
Black people went to black churches,
white people went to white churches.
Black people went to
black schools and
white people
went to white schools.
Everybody went to
Texas Stadium on Sunday.
We had some very articulate,
well-educated girls,
and then we had
some off the turnip truck.
Suzanne had a natural promoter's instinct
in her. I mean, it was in her blood.
As it was described to me,
I wasn't one of the pretty ones
And so the whole thing with the pigtails
came from: "We need a gimmick."
I didn't realize it would grow
into what it would be.
I mean, the pigtails became
like their own entity.
She knew what the public wanted.
They were Bible Belt
good girls, you know,
but they were
selling sex, come on.
They weren't putting
flat-chested girls
in those uniforms,
but they were abusing
the dichotomy of
look, but don't touch
which is always so much sexier.
The thing that I've
always tried to figure out
is how the Dallas Cowboys
did pull this off.
You had the cheerleaders
in hot pants and halter tops,
the boots, and the big blond
hair, and there's no question
they were selling the sex
appeal of these young women,
and yet at the same time, they
were like the girl next door.
I don't know where
that next door would be.
I mean, none of them have
ever lived next door to me.
We got a lot of
criticism in the beginning.
Basically,
it was, I was a madame.
I was a procurer of young women
and that I was not representative
of the quote "Bible Belt."
There are two religions
in the State of Texas.
There is
Christianity and football.
At times,
the football has been more
dominant than Christianity
in this State.
The pastors were definitely
into football and they knew.
They would come and say:
"Okay, we've got every...
Go home
and cheer for the Cowboys."
I was raised from a very small
child in the Pentecostal Faith.
It was a very emotional faith.
There were people
who spoke in tongues.
There were people
who danced in the aisles
in the spirit, and my
dad was the preacher.
I grew up a Baptist so my dad
didn't let me date until
I was 20 years of age.
He was very, very strict
and actually didn't speak
to me for three years
after the calendar came out.
I went home
to get a teaching job
after I quit cheerleading and
they wouldn't hire me because they
said I was not ready for Collinsville.
What they meant to say
was that because I had
been a Dallas Cowboy
cheerleader and my image
have been tarnished doing
that, that I shouldn't
be a teacher of
any of their children.
One nation under God
indivisible...
Probably one of the
biggest dichotomies is the
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
came out in 1972, the new ones.
And then, like,
what was it, a year later?
We have this
amazing Supreme Court decision
that we're still
fighting about today.
There is a tremendous irony
that Roe V. Wade
happened in the State of Texas
and in the City of Dallas
and I think there is an
even greater irony
that it actually succeeded.
Good evening. In a landmark ruling, the
Supreme Court today legalized abortions.
The majority in cases
from Texas and Georgia
said that the decision
to end a pregnancy
during the first
three months belongs to the
woman and her doctor,
not the government.
The sexual revolution
was in full swing by
the mid-70s and we became
a little more independent.
Things got kind of fun and wild
and funky and people say now:
"If you remember the '70s,
you weren't there."
Free love had gone mainstream.
Husbands and wives were
having key parties, there
were orgies,
aids had not appeared yet.
Dallas was
pretty wild back then.
There was a place downtown
at a club where people
were going and partying
till all hours of the night
and drugs were being used.
You could see
some of the cheerleaders
out with some of the
players at some clubs.
Some of the players, married.
Those guys are running rampant.
I mean, they're coke heads.
They're weed heads.
They're pill poppers, drunks.
There were a lot of things going on
that I was not supposed to write about.
They needed direction.
They needed discipline.
They needed to understand
the part they were
gonna play in this
enormous production.
And I knew that it was
my leadership that was
gonna make or break it,
because that was it.
Suzanne told us on the very
first day we got there:
"I can be your best friend
or I can be your worst enemy."
I almost felt at some
times, at some points,
that there was a military-like
approach to what she did.
We went to the club in our uniform and,
uh, it did not go over well at all.
No. That's when Suzanne started
with the rules and regulations.
Oh, gosh.
We had lots of rules.
Oh, my God.
Do I remember the rules?
Suzanne had this massive
rule book. It was typed out.
It was in a blue binder
and you had to memorize it.
The things that
we were forbidden to do.
We could not talk to a
Dallas Cowboy football player.
We knew we couldn't date them.
We were not allowed to
talk to them.
One night, I am at the bar
trying to get the bartender's
Attention and I heard this voice
that said: "Hey, little one.
Do you need a drink?" Looking down
at me was Ed "Too Tall" Jones.
I was like: "I'm not
allowed to talk to you."
You don't have
too much to drink.
You don't wear your cheerleader
uniform out and about.
The uniform made you.
You didn't make the uniform.
You became
an overnight celebrity,
so you had
an image to live up to.
If you go into a bar,
you maybe have a little too
much to drink and you get up
on the bar and you're dancing.
You have to understand
that they don't see you.
"She's a
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.
I guess they're all like that."
We weren't allowed to swear.
We weren't allowed to wear
jeans, blue jeans in public.
You could never go out in hair
rollers or smoke cigarettes.
You never, ever,
ever chew gum, ever.
If she caught you chewing
gum in a Tom Thumb
grocery store,
you could be put on probation.
They felt
I knew everything, I knew
everything they did 24 hours
a day which I didn't.
I just made them believe I did, so
that they'd watch their own behavior.
We will look for her
some time and she'll
be in one spot and you
turn around, she's gone.
Suzanne had spies.
Some young girl
that looked like one of us,
You know, patting their face
and fixing their makeup and
listening to every word we said.
Every time there
was a party, every time
somebody thought: "Oh,
I'm gonna date somebody
and I'm gonna get away
with it. "Okay, good
luck with that."
It didn't work out for you.
They took some photographs of me
with that
Miller Lite cup in my hand.
And Suzanne called me into her office
and she said: "Look at these pictures."
She told me and she said: "You
may not make it back next year."
Fear had a lot to do with
my direction, I think.
If it's a minor infraction,
you get a warning, but if it's
something that's
really obvious that
you went outside the line,
you're out.
That's it.
You don't come back.
Wow. Just don't
cut that uniform.
That uniform has been through
tougher times than this.
Vintage 1976.
The girls, when they
first put on the uniform,
and they'd
just be shaking almost.
I can hear someone's:
"Suzanne, are you looking at me?
I have the uniform on. "Suzanne,
do you see me? I have it on.
I did it."
It was an element of:
"My God, this is
actually happening.
It's happening
and it's happening to me."
I'll tell you a secret.
I still have one of mine.
And I'm the only one
that has their uniform.
Not only
do I have one, I have two.
How many had two?
I had five uniforms
when I retired.
I was there
for four years and I had
five different uniforms
when I retired.
And I turned in three, and
Suzanne said: "Presley, I know
you have one more." And I said:
"Aww, man, you caught me."
The day I had to turn
it in, which I did,
thank you very much to those
of you that kept yours.
I didn't know I could do that
and get away with it.
This is the first cheerleader
uniform ever cut.
It's one of the original
and you could see that
this is a knot that Suzanne
used to personally,
personally tie that knot
right there so everything
would stay where it's
supposed to be in place.
She was meticulous.
You never saw her
really resting.
You never saw her
stopping or sleeping.
She would probably sleep
for two or four hours
and she'd get right back
up and start again.
We had to control that
classy image so that
it didn't take a life of its
own in just a sexy way.
So, I put my foot down in terms
of how they would be presented.
I walked off
of a set of Love Boat
because the camera was on
the ground looking up at the
girls, and I just went: "Whoa."
One of the strict rules was
the camera was not to be shooting
up at the girls, especially
when they were in a kick line.
This was the '70s and Suzanne was
a woman and it was Hollywood.
So, everything was agreed upon and
then they did what they wanted, right?
So Suzanne didn't even say
anything. She was done talking.
She walked over and she kicked
the camera in the pool.
And I took the girls and we left,
and the producers come to me
And they say: "What's the deal?" And
I said: "You know what the deal is.
We signed. This is what was said
we would do and we would not do."
And they presented the girls with a
lot of roses and a lot of apologies.
And the next day, new cameras.
They were up.
We're good to go.
Hey, did you see that? Did you?
She winked at me.
Yeah.
It was going to be
our way or the highway.
Have you noticed how often
you're surrounded by glass these days?
You're living in
the golden age of girl watching.
In the 1970s, sex and
sex appeal was used
to sell everything.
These companies
are selling the idea
that women need to look this way
and if you buy this product,
you will look like this
and it's absolutely impossible.
If you look as broad as this
and you'd rather look as slim as
this, try the Ayds reducing plan.
Delicious tasting Ayds candy contains
vitamins and minerals, no drugs.
This was the late
'70s, the early '80s.
Everyone was taking diet pills.
Doctors were handing them out.
It was a totally different time.
We were not
talking about anorexia.
We're not talking about bulimia.
We only
wanted the pretty surface.
We wanted to see the thin girls.
It was very unhealthy,
but nobody knew that.
We were in the public eye.
We had to learn...
Look a certain way.
The very first
practice that we had,
Texie says: "The camera
will make you look
heavier and it wouldn't hurt one of you
in here to lose another seven pounds!"
And I thought to myself:
"Seven pounds?"
Thank golly, I lost seven pounds.
I did too.
It was a solid year for sure.
I would wrap my waist in Saran wrap and
I would go and run five or six miles
and my waist would be about 26
inches. So I always loved that.
Some of us had... I call them trash
pants and you would wear them
to help sweat and Suzanne turned the
heater on to help us sweat more.
She had her scale on the
floor and you weighed in.
She kinda poke on our legs and she goes:
"Well, I guess that's your bone there.
You can't lose that."
She had this list
she would post on the wall.
"If you had a tummy, or if you had...
your calves were too big or...
"As if you could
shrink your calves, right?
She put pictures of me
that were taken
at games where I would
have a little jelly roll
on the side and she would circle
it with an arrow saying:
"Lose this."
That was demeaning.
It was really cruel.
It hurt.
Maintaining the weight, was all
determined by the uniform.
That uniform is this big.
The uniform doesn't hide
anything, but it covers everything,
but there's elements of the
shorts that if you have
anything hanging over
there, it don't belong.
Oh, my God, and they
would starve themselves
and the diuretics and
stuff that they did.
The weight regimen
was extremely strict.
Unfortunately, for me,
it created anorexia.
You put the girl in the shorts
and you sit them
in front of the mirror
And you say: "Tell me what's
wrong with this picture?"
Have them critique themselves.
"I get it, Suzanne.
I'll have it off. I promise."
The self-image never ends.
I will always see
the fat girl in the mirror.
Prior to cheerleading, I never
thought about my body image.
I'd walk around in
string bikinis, but after
cheerleading, I had definitely
had a weight problem.
For some of us, it was a little too harsh
especially for as young as we were
and impressionable,
because I did look up to her.
I think from their perspective,
I was too hard for them a lot.
From my perspective,
it was necessary.
Did you ever see the
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders?
Who hasn't? They're everywhere.
Did I detect a note of
quasi-intellectual disapproval?
Quasi-intellectual?
They happen to be the
hottest thing in the country.
They've hit some kind of nerve.
Women from coast to coast
are looking up to them.
I thought at the time: "This is a
fun ride and it's not really gonna
probably go anywhere,"
and then it kept
going and it kept going
and it kept going.
They are more than cheerleaders.
They are an institution
unto themselves.
They're bigger than the
football team, which makes the
double standard that they're
living under all the crazier.
Let me introduce,
the one, the only,
the original,
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
We've got Bob Hope, Crystal
Gale, Andy Gibb, Jimmy Walker,
and the
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
Did you say Dallas Cheerleaders?
I saw them on
the Donnie Osmond Telethon.
I saw them on
the Country Music Awards.
We're gonna go do a show
with Oak Ridge Boys.
We're gonna go do
a show with Bob Hope.
I told your friends
about Faberge organic shampoo.
And we told two friends
and so on and so on.
Make them feel like they're my
daughters, the Cheerleaders.
Then Esquire poses the question
On their cover: "What is the best
thing about the Dallas cowboys?
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
Everybody knows that.
They call the cheerleaders and they
said: "Klif radio wants a cheerleader
to do an ice skating event with an
armadillo. I said: "Oh, that's me."
We were constantly being
asked to do appearances.
We were in Florida one week,
Tennessee the next.
At the end of the month,
we're doing a benefit in Garland
for the little boy that was
mauled by the lion
to raise money for his family.
I was in Dallas Cowboys
Cheerleaders Movie,
The Dallas Cowboys
Cheerleaders Movie 2.
The idea of made-for-TV
movies was fairly new,
but that was immediately the highest
rated made-for-TV show ever.
Boy, everyone is just dying
to be a cheerleader In Dallas.
Obviously, I was Bond girl.
I would say at the time of the
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders,
they were bigger
than Bond girls.
In 1981, when I was
approached to write this book,
the cheerleaders were now
something bigger than life.
They pop up on magazine covers.
They sell out the magazines.
The cheerleaders' posters
outselling the Farrah Fawcett posters
and everybody had
the Farrah Fawcett poster.
It was beautifully done.
It's the most beautiful
poster ever, ever, ever made.
The smoke, the girls,
the looks, the sex.
We got everybody's
attention, obviously,
but we had a backlash from it.
The Playboy,
former cheerleaders, did it
exactly the same way
we did, topless.
What are you gonna do?
We caught a lot of flak about
"Oh my goodness, were
you in Playboy?" No.
No.
No.
These were not current girls.
They were former cheerleaders
who did the poster.
I remember how devastating that
was and I also remember thinking,
"I wonder why they didn't want me," but I'm
really glad they didn't because...
They've been deleted
from the database.
I told them at the time:
"I told you a long time ago,
we become the choices we make."
Okay, now, who's going to try
a real high carry? Okay?
Whoop, there we go. Whoa!
I like very much Mary Calderone's
comment in a recent Playboy interview
in which she said,
you know, she's less
interested in women's rights
than human rights.
So, I think that is...
I certainly would.
The role that you have
selected for women is
degrading to women because
you choose to see women as sex
objects, not as full human beings.
Well, obviously, you're degrading...
Hold on now.
The day that you...
I haven't finished. The day that
you are willing to come out here
with a cottontail
attached to your rear end...
Well, you can't make a political
point altogether politely.
We were the angry women
And the men were
the product of their time.
The idea
that a woman wanted her own
self-fulfillment,
was really revolutionary.
The women's liberation
movement who really
are, sort of, pressing for
equality for women and so on.
You don't agree with that?
Equal with the man?
Yeah.
No, that's against nature.
A woman you know, automatically
looks up to a man.
If I would say,
right now if this theater
caught on fire and we saw
no outlets, it would
be nature for them to
look to us to find a way out
before we look to them
to get us out.
I mean, like, you never... I mean,
I don't look like to see a woman
walking down the street this
tall and the husband that tall.
Women by nature look up
to men in every way.
In the 1970s, with the feminist movement
really going against the patriarchy
and fighting for equal rights,
at some point it turned,
women started
going after each other.
Women did go after
other women but, you know,
that's the history of,
of radical politics.
The discourse has always been anti-this,
anti-that, attacking this one,
attacking this one
to make your own point.
And Somewhere along the way,
the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
became a target.
We went
to Fresno State University.
We performed at their halftime.
We were there to help
the women's athletic
department build
a new fieldhouse.
When we got there, there were
protests from all the women athletes.
They literally held up
posters that read:
"Hearts and minds, not bumps
and grinds." And they were
All yelling: "Dallas cowboys
cheerleaders, go home."
Huge signs out
their dormitory window.
We raised, I think,
$200,000 for the department
and yet they
didn't want us there.
A lot of women
didn't like us back then.
If you are a
feminist, you probably do not think
women should be doing this sort of thing,
turning themselves into sex objects.
If someone were to say to you,
"Suzanne, you're
selling sex here.
You're really exploiting
these women."
It's ridiculous. I've had several women's
lib groups tell me that sort of a thing
and the girls answer it
in the same way that I would.
Uh, this is a voluntary thing.
Many women, feminists,
say that you... That you all
are being exploited.
They say you are a sex objects.
How do you
respond to that? Vanessa?
When you're exploited,
you're forced to do something
that you really don't want to do
and we all want to be out there.
We had that option
and we chose to be out there
So we're not being
exploited at all.
The feminists
really were looking
at the Dallas Cowboy
Cheerleaders as being
anti-brain,
anti-intelligent, pro-sex,
pro-flaunting
and pro-selling your goods.
I remember getting
a phone call from
a reporter from one of the
northeastern periodicals who
couldn't understand why I
didn't feel like I was just
totally being thrown out to
the wolves as a sex symbol.
And I tried to explain to her
it wasn't that way
and she was going:
"Oh, it can't be.
You must be. You're out there
exposing yourself."
Remember year ago when the women
from the
National Organization for Women
were picketing the
tryouts for the cheerleaders,
and they were upset that you were being
exploited and used as sex objects
and stuff like that? Let me hear
some feedback about that argument.
My feeling is: "How dare
they?" I think that they
are exhibiting the worst kind
of chauvinism against women
by implying that the girls who
tried out to be cheerleaders were
incapable of making a decision, that
we were so stupid or so foolish.
I remember getting
mad sometimes:
"Why do they just see me as a sex symbol?
Why are they writing that?
Or why are they saying that?" I
thought: "Open your eyes girl,
look at what you're portraying,
now educate them.
Let them know you're not
just some dumb blonde."
They said we were just
nothing, but a bunch of Barbie dolls
out there dancing around, bopping
around and I guarantee you
there're no Barbie dolls
in that group.
You had to either work,
be married or be in school,
therefore you're not consumed
with just being a cheerleader.
If they said we were just sex objects,
Suzanne could shoot that down so fast.
I think Suzanne Mitchell
was a feminist and I would
argue with anyone who said
that she was exploiting women.
She was working on her own,
she was paying her mortgage,
she was taking care of herself.
I mean how much more of a
feminist can that be? You know.
I didn't feel like I was part of
a movement even though
I was really the only
executive female
in the cowboy organization,
but I didn't
look at it as feminism.
I looked at it as though
obviously I was
the best person at that moment
for the job.
The culture at the time was
entirely confusing and conflicting.
We had these really strong
powerful women in pop culture.
The Bionic Woman,
Wonder Woman, Princess Lea.
By the 1970s
the ideas of feminism had
certainly had its effect
on mainstream television.
And then you've got
these icons telling you
that you can be
the CEO and be powerful.
They aren't
privilege demands at all,
we just want what men
have had all these years.
You can be somebody's wife, you can be
somebody's mother, you can be somebody's lover,
you can be somebody's anything,
but you can't be somebody.
And then at the other end,
there was cosmopolitan.
How to catch a man, or what to
do with him when you catch him.
The classic was called,
Sex and the Single Girl.
She now of course is editor
of Cosmopolitan and here is...
Helen Gurley Brown.
Wear beautiful sexy clothes
and have those
candle light dinners.
And try to go
on a trip with this man.
You have to take the initiative
to make some of that happen.
I came to Dallas from the
Colombia school of journalism,
and when I moved to Texas, I realized
that there was a lot of more male
pleasing going on
than I had been raised to do.
Women here took great pride
in their appearance.
They worried about their
figures, they worried about
their face, they worried
about plastic surgery.
And I'll never forget one of
the girls' mothers telling me:
"Honey, I get up at five in the
morning and put my makeup on
because I really don't want my
husband to see me without makeup."
But as I got into the story and
got to know each one of these girls
and got to see how
much they wanted this
and why they wanted this and
the backgrounds they came from,
I almost thought that the
feminists at the time were being
kind of armchair snobs,
intellectual snobs and judgmental.
I know that I had friends
who, kind of, were sneering at me
for even writing the book like:
"Why are you doing that? Oh, my
God what's wrong with you?
You've gone to Texas,
you've gone crazy."
I can understand why the
feminist had a problem with
the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
that I think it was misguided.
We were making a choice
as young women to do
what we wanted to do
and for the feminist
movement to tell us
we can't do that,
is contradictory
to their belief system.
We were the modern women.
We were doing exactly
what we wanted to do.
We were mothers, we were doctors,
nurses, receptionists, sales people.
We had our day job,
we had our family
and then we danced because
we love to dance.
It wasn't just on Sundays,
you weren't just
on the field as a
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.
It was life changing.
It was 24/7.
I would get up in the morning,
go to work
at my office job at eight
o'clock, get off at five.
And then I'd go across town
to our old studio,
our old dance studio and
I would drink a diet Coke
and eat an apple in the car
in traffic while changing
clothes in my car on the way
to the rehearsal studio.
Sherry Worthington, she drove
all the way from Oklahoma.
And then I had things to do
for work the next day.
Go to bed,
get back up in like four hours.
Get ready to go to work
And do it all again.
Even though it said
practice is over at ten o'clock,
that doesn't mean
practice is over at 10 o'clock.
It means practice is over
when she's done
and feels like everybody's
done a good job.
Oh, Cindy. Oh.
How hard did we train?
I don't know.
I didn't give them water.
I turned off
the air conditioning.
You had to do what you
had to do to prepare them
and that first game was tough.
It was a 110 on the
field, it was in August.
I'll never forget unbuttoning
the sleeve of my blue blouse
and my arm was
completely white with salt.
All the hours
we did volunteer work.
When we went to visit the children's
homes and the VA hospitals,
We did those on weekends
where the games were out of town.
We were still working.
And they were doing
all of this for $15 a game.
14-12 after taxes.
That did not include practicing
five nights a week
for four to five hours.
That didn't really
even cover our gas money.
That's why we
rode together to, to practices.
Didn't even
pay for the pantyhose.
As it turns out we became million
dollar showgirls, who made 15$ a game.
I do think that the Cowboys were
exploiting these
girls financially.
Not their bodies, I mean, they
would have done it anyhow.
They probably would have been
models or something, but why not
pay them more? Why not give them
a little bit more of the cut?
Of course, who doesn't wanna
make money? We were broke.
We were living
paycheck to paycheck.
But I was a 20-year old girl
who was experiencing fame.
And I was from a small town,
and my parents were proud of me.
I was somebody and that
really is all that mattered.
But it is not always
awesome to be in the spotlight.
You can work, and work and work,
and build your reputation,
and build your name and it
can be brought down so fast.
These are America's sweethearts.
They're bigger than
the football team.
Everybody's trying to get
a piece of the cheerleaders,
and all of sudden,
here comes Debbie does Dallas.
Debbie does Dallas.
Debbie does Dallas.
D and Debbie
and Dallas it rhymed.
It's like every
time I'd turned around I had
to go after somebody who's trying
to make a buck off these girls.
This is at a time when
porn all of a sudden just
works its way in to pop your
imagination through a film
called Deep Throat, which all
of a sudden it's supposedly
safe and wholesome for couples
to watch a film like this.
The MovieDebbie does Dallas,
supposedly traces the
adventure of some high school
aged women
who aspired to move to Texas
and become Dallas
Cowboy cheerleaders.
Tex brought Tom Landry into his
office and showed him part of the film,
and Tom nearly fell down
on the floor when he saw it.
I watched the movie,
it was stupid.
But, uhm, I felt like
I had to research it.
There is no plot.
Is there area for a plot
to a pornography movie?
But, see, they were
using our uniform.
Greenfield!
Greenfield I'm
here, dressed as you wanted me.
Debbie, this is Mr. Greenfield.
Please lock the doors and come
up to the mezzanine level.
Uh-huh.
You know, the girls that,
for goodness sake,
were named Debbie on the
squad, they had it tough.
There were three Debbies on the squad
that year, which I was one of them.
And so we got lots of flak.
Hey, Debbie does Dallas,
Tammy does Tulsa.
Shannon does San Antonio.
It's not something you just let
go lightly, and Suzanne went after it.
With the vengeance.
(Reporter The first showing
of Debbie Does Dallas drew
three members of the law firm representing
the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
It created quite
a mess for the Cowboys.
And I had had bodyguards and...
because we were
dealing with the mafia.
Suzanne was in New York for
several weeks and she had death threats.
At one point, somebody was
tasting her food
for fear of her being poisoned.
Now that was Carmine
Galante, his gang and it was his
right-hand man Michael Zaffarano,
who was in Federal Court with me
and he jumped in the elevator, and I
was there alone, and for some reason
a bodyguard wasn't there and he
pulled out a knife from his boot,
and stuck it, not in my neck,
but right like he was going to.
And I hit his arm.
He didn't drop the knife
totally, he just let his hand
go down, he started laughing
and the door opened.
But that was enough for me.
She was
formidable and could get very
angry about things that
she didn't think were fair.
It had to be fair
and it had to be right,
but she's the one that
got to define right.
I'm sure
she drove the lawyers crazy.
It cost the
Cowboys million dollars
to prove to them that
the girls on the squad
named Debbie were not the Debbie
Does Dallas in the movie,
We had to protect what was ours.
15 minutes of fame comes very quickly
and can get very creepy very quick.
You're constantly
under the spotlight.
You are in a fishbowl and you
feel like your private life
is taken away from you,
and it's very hard to process.
The girls were receiving
a lot of fan mail,
all of a sudden were feeling
more like celebrities.
After the games
the girls would go to
the wall and shake hands
and do autographs.
So, all of that
became part of this:
"I want to know
these girls better."
When I think
of how people assumed
that I wanted them in my face,
or we wanted
them chasing us, and that
they were entitled to that,
that's when it
would get frightening.
Well, I've had a problem,
several problems...
A lot of problems
in my life with stalkers.
Back then
you could get your phone book
and find out
where somebody lived.
This guy showed up at my house and
he started banging on my door.
So I went in the bedroom and
I thought I'm just not going to
answer the door and he'll go
away, he never went away.
One night,
I turn off the lights,
I get in bed and my phone rings.
I said: "Hello", and
this very deep husky
Voice said: "Goodnight,
Tammy," and hung up.
He climbed up on my roof and
started yelling into the chimney.
"Carrie, this is Phillip,
I want to meet you.
I know we're a perfect match."
Three nights in a row
when I decided I'm
done with this, I'm going
to bed with the lights on.
I went to bed with every
light in my apartment on,
Phone rang: "Goodnight Tami."
I moved that weekend.
We had a
cheerleader named Michelin,
she had long
gorgeous blonde hair
and somebody reached
in with scissors
trying to
cut Michelin's hair off.
Suzanne caught it at the
last second and knocked
the scissors out
of the person's hand.
I mean Suzanne was a super hero.
We were constantly being bombarded
with people trying to harm us,
tarnish the name, tarnish
the uniform, ruin our image.
It's amazing that one woman could
do what she did, she protected us.
They were what I was here for.
I never thought about marriage,
I had a lot of children.
And I felt so deeply about them
that they became
totally and completely
why God had put me here.
And I believed in it so strongly
that it was easy for me
to give every ounce
of energy I had to it.
Suzanne was always,
always on guard for us.
She would intercept letters that may
have disturbing information in them.
There was one guy, my gosh,
he sent me cartoons
and stuff that he drew up of me
hanging the girls on the walls.
I was dressed in black
leather with whips
in my hand, and I was
whipping the girls.
Well, I got the FBI involved with that,
and they found him upstate Minnesota
at an outpatient clinic
living with his mother.
And I think there was another
instance to where
we received
a huge package of knives.
Well, first I opened
them up and I thought
my husband sent me a big
thing of new knives.
And then I opened them up,
and they're in a manila envelope,
and they were wrapped in a
Pittsburgh Steeler newspaper.
And as I start reading it, it said:
"Dear Billie, my goddess of love."
I mean I shake just thinking about
it, and it just went on from there.
So I hired a private detective
to watch her house.
There's really nothing you
can tell me about
Suzanne Mitchell in terms
of being this tough woman
that's going to fix
your problem. That's
gonna surprise me.
The women on her squad, that she looked
at like they were her daughters.
And if I was a guy dating one of
Suzanne's cheerleaders, I'd be
real careful about making
a mistake with that young woman.
When I became a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader
I was married to someone else.
He was 12 years older than me and he was a
very successful Elvis Presley impersonator.
The marriage was unraveling.
He was basically having
an affair with the yellow pages.
I went to Suzanne Mitchell and
told her that I needed to get a divorce.
I was terrified to tell her,
but she was fabulous.
She not only was supportive, she
said that the Cowboys would help me.
And she helped me find a roommate with
one of the girls within the squad.
I had to do some bad stuff
to her husband at the time.
She came in with bruises
once too often.
I mean, it's nice
when you have contacts.
We can get them taken care of.
I just figured out
that I would make a phone call
to some people that I knew,
and we would be able to
take him out in the desert
and tell him
not to do that anymore.
Suzanne Mitchell
has been referred to by
many people as the Iron
Butterfly because she was.
She could be ridiculously
demanding, incredibly hard.
And Yet, she had this
compassion for her cheerleading
group that would almost
surprise some people.
She put her heart and soul in it, her
heart and her soul. And she loved us.
She loved us, and not just as a
group, but she loved us individually.
Suzanne had the knowledge
to know what you needed.
I was able to
have empathy for what
was going on inside
of their heart and head.
I was raped twice.
I was 19 and 26.
At the time, I didn't have
anyone, which made me know
all the more how much people
needed someone they could trust.
Usually, they could never
tell their family,
but for some reason,
they could always tell me.
And I think mainly what
they needed was...
to cry,
to talk about it, to relive
it, and to understand they were
still here, they were
still whole, and they
were in a safe place that
would always protect them.
It will never stop you, is what I
always tried to tell the girls.
It doesn't have
anything to do with your growth,
with your ability to become
who you are supposed to become.
We could all learn
something from it.
We're all here to teach.
We got a call from the
Pentagon, General John Wickham,
and he asked Tex: "We would
like the girls to come
and entertain the troops over
Christmas." Because they had, had
a lot of suicides in Korea
during that period of time.
And Tex's immediate answer
was: "That's playoff. No way.
We need the girls here."
But the General insisted
and Tex finally called me
into his office and said:
"Suzanne, what do you
think?" And my immediate answer
From the bottom of my
heart was: "You bet ya."
It was the Cheer Group Squad
that would go on the USO tours.
They left their family for the
whole holidays over Christmas.
One of the girls
at the time had a baby.
When I selected the girls to go
on tour, I did not
select the prettiest.
I didn't select the best dancer.
I selected the ones I knew would walk
up in a handshake and hug a soldier.
Jeff.
Jeff, where you from?
It's nice meeting you.
Sometimes, we couldn't get to where
we needed to go, and I would push my
weight around and call a general in
Korea and say I need a helicopter.
And they'd get me a helicopter and
we'd go see four guys on a radar site.
Four guys that nobody knew
were there.
And the girls made them feel
like somebody cared.
We were dancing on the USS Iowa
and it was
rocking left and right.
I was like: " Oh, I'm going to
fall in." Mrs. Anna said:
"If you fall in, do you know how many
guys are going to be in that water
before you can even
hit the water?
She said that's the least that
you... go out there and dance.
Don't worry about that."
She's always giving.
I'm thinking about my life,
she's thinking
we'll die giving
the best performance.
She didn't say that, but that's
basically what she said.
I have landed on 12
aircraft carriers by cable.
I have catapulted off.
I have been hoisted out of
helicopters onto submarines.
It was really fun to be in the
Sinai and be in those helicopters.
There weren't seats.
There was just things and straps
and we were all
just strapped in.
Swerving like this
through all of the canyons
that we had to go through.
It was just...
Girls were screaming.
I know it sounds silly to say
professional cheerleading
is dangerous,
but there were a lot of times
we're in harm's way.
In Beirut, Lebanon
we were shot at.
Diana was with me in
my Jeep and we passed
the PLO - Israeli checkpoint
and gunfire started going off
everywhere and my marine
that was driving my jeep
hit me in back of the head
and knocked me against the dash.
And I have a...
a dip in my head
where that bullet...
If he had not done what he did,
the bullet
would've gone
right between my eyes.
I can't explain...
at that point all the girls
jumped out of
their jeep,
crawled on their bellies...
to get to me.
And I'm sure she got to her bed
that night and I'm sure
it hit her what had happened, but she
didn't say the show was canceled.
She didn't say we're going
back to the States.
We got up the next day and went
back and performed again.
And she probably did
10 more tours after that.
My name is Suzanne Mitchell and I'm the
director of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
This is my 12th year
with the organization.
It's my 16th BOD USO tour.
This is really the only way
that we have to save
our country, to be able to say...
Are you all listening to me?
Y'all don't want to be serious, but
I'm going to be serious for a minute.
You all listen to me.
There is a lot of people
that don't know
that you're even here and that difficult
position that all of you are in
and they say that we're
making a sacrifice
by being here, and we're not.
We are not.
This is such a joy for us to be
able to maybe bring a smile
and to help you all through the
next few weeks or the few months.
All we're doing is to let
you know we know you're here
and that we love you
and appreciate so much.
And most of all that we know
that everything we
have back home,
we only have because of you.
Suzanne was proud of being
a mom to
a whole lot of soldiers.
And they were
just additional family.
She felt that close to the men
and women in the service.
One young man came up
to me on our first tour in Korea
at Christmas and put
his unit crest on my jacket.
And from that point forward, every
time I turned around, some guy
was coming up putting a pin
on me, or handing me a patch.
Three years later
in Erzurum, Turkey
a guy comes running
down the field:
"Mom, mom, mom!"
Has his crest in his hand, he
said: "This is my crest now.
That one was
my crest in Korea."
My jacket weighs 14 pounds and I stayed
up every night to saw the patches on.
It's the most beautiful thing in
the world to recognize that
you are an American
and that's one of the most
beautiful things that I was
able to give the Dallas
Cowboys Cheerleaders.
And there are those
still today say,
Suzanne, I wouldn't
feel like I do about
being an American, if it hadn't been
for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
Suzanne once told one of
the girls, she said, when you
put on this costume, this is
like wearing the American flag.
Now, maybe that would have
been just a little too much,
you know, but I think Suzanne
really believed that.
It was a time in America
where people were
looking for something.
You go back to the early '70s
and we were still
struggling with the end
of the Vietnam War.
We had gas lines every place,
you tried to fill up your car.
You had a president that was
on his way to being impeached.
It was a hard time in America.
We just needed something to make us
feel good about ourselves again.
The wonderful thing
that sports can do
with a grieving nation,
with a grieving city,
is to rally them.
The team itself offered
something for the city to be proud of
instead of ashamed of
what had happened in their city.
Here's the institution
that has gotten the city
to forget the stain of the
assassination of John F. Kennedy.
It's no longer the city of hate.
It's been known around the country
as the home of the Dallas Cowboys.
My pride honestly stems
from being a part of
the era of Tex Schramm,
Tom Landry and players who
for the most part lived up to
the image that the community
expected of them.
But I think things change,
life changes, society changes,
and change
is hard for... me.
There's a stranger in town.
He rode into Texas from the bad
lands of Arkansas with
a fistful of dollars
and an itchy trigger finger.
He shot from the lip
and laid down the law.
Now, everyone knows
who the stranger is.
I think he's a jerk. He's got a lot
of money and he's got a big mouth.
I think he stinks.
He's obnoxious.
He's Jerry Jones,
the oilman, from Rose City,
Arkansas who paid more than $100
million for the Dallas Cowboys.
Jerry Jones bought the team
in February of 1989,
and I stayed for four months.
And, there were a lot of things
that happened during those
four months that told me
that this was not gonna work.
There was constant clash there,
constant confrontation.
I would have to kick coaches out
of our dance studio
because they would
come down drunk...
and ogle and gawp the girls
and I would just
kick them out of the studio.
In my opinion the respect for women was
not there that had been in the past.
Jerry Jones and his friends
wanted to be real familiar
with Cowboys Cheerleaders and there
was a problem there for a long time.
I was asked to go on
an appearance with...
In my uniform on an airplane
with Jerry Jones
and his business associates.
I didn't feel that
that was proper.
To me it was demeaning and
it appeared that we were
being treated as bimbos,
and I wasn't a bimbo.
I felt like we were just
bodies for his
entertainment purposes.
You could just tell the way he ta...
the way he talked about the women.
Now, you call them
the pick of the litter.
Sam, our cheerleaders, 36 of
them, are 36 girls chosen out
of some 900 girls that try out, so
they're outstanding young women.
He decided to loosen up some
of those stuffy old rules, they live by.
Let the cheerleaders
date the players.
Let them do beer commercials
and, oh yes, how about
if they wear outfits
that are more revealing.
As If that were
humanly possible.
I think Mr. Jones
wanted to create his own era,
therefore he had to
get rid of the other era.
And I was very much part of
that other era.
You came to Dallas and
you fired everybody in the Cowboys.
Particularly coach Landry.
I mean, here's a guy who had
20 consecutive winning seasons.
Took the team to
the Superbowl five times,
won two of them and; Fop!
Off with his head.
They were America's team.
And now?
They're Jerry Jones' team.
Jerry Jones
started firing everybody.
Tex Schramm was
humiliated by Mr. Jones.
He had given me everything I had
at that moment, for 14 years.
And one thing that I am
is a loyal human being.
So, May 8th 1989, I walked out
the front door with Tex Schramm.
We were devoted to what we did
because it was family.
And I saw my family being
torn apart, and that hurts.
Suzanne Mitchell left
the team this spring
after 14 years as
den mother of that other
beloved institution,
the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
She regretted leaving her girls.
She felt like
she abandoned them.
She realized she wasn't going to win,
and the image was going to change.
And she couldn't
compromise her integrity.
I don't think he thought
he thought he was
going to have resistance,
especially from the cheerleaders.
He thought, you know, we would
listen like everybody else listens to him.
She had girls who had been there before
and under the culture of Suzanne,
they just didn't feel it was right,
so they made their decision to leave.
Well son, in Texas
you can burn the flag,
but don't mess
with the cheerleaders.
14 veteran
cheerleaders have quit.
I had everything.
I was in the calendar.
I was the centerfold of the, you
know, the Gameday Magazine
with Troy Aikman on the cover.
I walked away from all of it.
The girls who left
the squad, the 14, were ones
that truly understood what
the whole image of DCC was.
What had been fought for
all these years
in court, in the public eye.
And when they were faced with the
fighting, they knew they could do it.
That's one of the biggest testaments
to Suzanne that there is.
That we didn't just follow along
and that we stood up for ourselves
and what she had built.
One of those paradoxes
I guess again,
that we rebelled against
the rules at first in the 70's.
And then when this came around beginning
of the 90's, we wanted those rules.
People didn't think that we could
do it, and people thought we'd go away.
But we never went away.
We still haven't gone away.
You still hear somebody say: "She
was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader."
It's not just
about being a cheerleader,
it's about a life set skill.
You learn that positive
energy: "I can do it."
I can do it.
I can do it.
I have raised a daughter and
I've got two granddaughters now.
And I hope that if they want to
be a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader,
no one's going to say: "Oh,
you're a dumb cheerleader"
or if they want to be a doctor,
no one's going to say: "Oh, you
shouldn't do that."
I think you should just
be allowed to be what you want to
be and not be judgmental about it.
Suzanne taught us, not just
to be girls, but to
grow up to be women.
The sisterhood will never die.
Not ever.
She changed my life.
So, uhm...
Excuse me.
She taught me
to believe in myself
and she gave me an opportunity
to make a difference in my life.
God bless you.
The DCC critical information.
You do not receive any
free tickets to the game.
You must go to the ticket office
like everyone else.
You are not special.
No, that last part
was just my add-on.
Number three, make
negative experiences work for you.
Example, if you are
made an alternate,
use that
as incentive to work harder.
Don't pout.
Oh, we had to know the
Star Spangled Banner.
Wow.
Number nine, do not
take anything for granted.
Allow callouses
on our feet to remain.
It will be easier to dance.
Otherwise, you will have
tender feet all year.
Do not compare
yourself to anyone.
If you feel you must compete,
do so with yourself.
Everything must be approved
by Suzanne Mitchell.
I think we all have a destiny.
My contribution to pass on
was solely and completely
who these ladies would become
when the music stopped,
So that your children look back and
say: "You see what my mom did.
You see what she gave the world.
And I'm so proud of her." That's
what you want your children to say.
That's it.