Juggling girls: Princeton's sole male cheerleader

Before each kickoff, the only male member of Princeton’s cheerleading squad hoists a female cheerleader onto his shoulders, holding her aloft to celebrate the score. Few, if any, other members of the Princeton community perform this stunt, but for Fuenmayor, it’s an integral part of life.

“In what other sport do you get to throw a girl in the air?” he asked jokingly.

Fuenmayor acts as a stuntman on the team, throwing girls into the air for various maneuvers. His favorite stunt is the “backbend,” in which one elevated female cheerleader stands on the torso of another. “As the stuntman, I leave cheering and dancing to the girls,” he said.

Fuenmayor began cheerleading in his senior year of high school at Warren High School in Downey, Calif. His school required all students to participate in a sport. When he dropped swimming, though, “the only sport that would take me was cheerleading,” he explained. Initially, he said, he expected to be a team manager, but soon he was participating in the routines.

“At first, cheerleading was something I only did a little bit, but I really liked it and enjoyed going to the big sports events,” he added.

Fuenmayor joined Princeton’s cheerleading squad last year as a freshman and was attracted by the sport’s intricacy and the sense of camaraderie among his teammates. “It’s much more intense than high school with practice and lifting, but I really enjoy stunting, and all the girls on the team are great, so it’s definitely been worth it,” he said.

Along with the rest of the squad, Fuenmayor cheers on the football and men’s and women’s basketball teams, for both home and away games. “I love cheering at football games because of the big crowds we get sometimes, but basketball is more interesting for me personally, because we’ve almost made it to the NCAA tournament the past few seasons,” he said, adding that one of the squad’s greatest ambitions is to cheer on one of the basketball teams at the NCAA tournament.

The squad sometimes performs independently of Princeton’s other sports teams, competing in a Universal Cheerleading Association-sponsored event each year. The squad is also looking to organize an Ivy League cheerleading competition next year. “At practice, we mainly work on stunt routines for competitions,” Fuenmayor said. “Sometimes we’ll look on YouTube for stunts, because we’re looking for creativity and originality.”

Despite being the only male member of the cheerleading team, Fuenmayor said he hasn’t had trouble finding his niche in the squad. “In some respects, it’s tough not having other guys, because we can do more stunts with more guys and we can be a better team, but it’s not awkward being the only guy on the team,” he said.

“In high school, some people gave me crap, but no one’s going to be closed-minded in college,” he added.

Though Fuenmayor said that balancing cheerleading and schoolwork can be difficult, he said he is confident that he will continue to cheer in the future. “Just like any other athlete on campus, you can’t do everything you want to do, but … I definitely see myself staying with it,” he said.

Being a male on the squad has advantages, Fuenmayor said. “My flexibility’s gotten much better because I have to stretch with the girls,” he noted. “The other day, they challenged me to do a split, and I thought I had no chance, but I actually got pretty close.”