I wanted to share a story I was told by Jeff Webb, the CEO of Varsity Spirit Corporation, at staff training my first summer with the company.
We all know who Lawrence Herkimer is... "The father of Cheerleading," the man who had a jump named after him, THE Herkie, (and most important to this story) the founder of National Cheerleading Association. Plenty know who Herkie is, but not enough people know about Jeff Webb, Herkie's right hand man.
From the beginning, the two worked together to turn NCA into what it is today. But somewhere along the way Webb started having different visions of what he thought cheerleading should become and decided it best that he move in a different direction. His plan was to leave cheerleading behind entirely and attend law school at UT Austin. That was until a few of his former co-workers came to him wanting to split from NCA and create a new company, what would become UCA. The group relocated from Dallas to Memphis and set up the world headquarters of Universal Cheerleading Association in the second bedroom of Webb's apartment. (I could try to replicate the inspirational details Webb gives of the struggles they faced in their startup year, but I couldn't do it justice. Just trust me when I saw it was very moving and makes me proud to be apart of the company.)
Within the first few years, Webb partnered with Disney to host the first cheerleading competitions. You know the scene in the Original Bring It On where they're competing outside on a stage built over water? That's exactly what it was like! Webb shared with us that at one of their first competitions, the stage actually collapsed during a performance and the entire squad fell in the water and it was televised through what was a small cable company at the time, now known as ESPN! Another really fun fact is that when Webb decided cheerleading needed it's own brand of clothing, he partnered with Nike!
So moral of the story, UCA and Varsity grew up with some of todays most well known companies! Varsity itself is equally as successful in it's field. The true fortune came once Webb decided to move on from Nike to start a cheerleading-specific apparel brand: Varsity Spirit Corporation, which grew large enough through apparel sales and hosting competitions that it now owns 90% of the cheerleading world.
Whenever people come to me and ask about how much UCA must dislike NCA because of the "huge rivalry..." I cant ever help but to giggle before sharing the highlights of this story. There's really nothing but love between the two companies and the differences between Universal Cheerleading Association and National Cheerleading Association really don't stretch much further than their titles. They are sister companies. Do each focus on different aspect of cheerleading? Absolutely. However, both companies are perfectly capable of instructing game-day or competitive cheerleading.
Being so passionate of all sports, of course I more-so enjoy game-day, but in the same breath, competitive cheerleading took play in a lot of my life and the experiences are equally exhilarating and I'm forever grateful that Jeff Webb recognized the need for the separation, but still managed to not let the two styles of cheerleading stray too far away from each other.
Below I've attached a link to another very interesting article about Herkie, the man we owe it all to. That was published by the NY Times in March of 2009.