Western University’s cheerleading team is planning to appeal a $140 ticket it received Sept. 28 for performing cheers in the street on the way to a homecoming football game, according to head coach David-Lee Tracey.
Tracey said the team was making its way down to the football stadium with a crowd of students, when the team “did what cheerleaders do,” and started cheering in the street. The team also tossed a few of its members into the air, he said.
“[The team] simply started a ‘Go ‘Stangs Go!’ cheer . . . all the other people were doing the same thing, heading down to the game,” Tracey said. “It was tremendously nothing.”
Tracey said the street in question was a cul-de-sac, and that the team was not in the middle of the road, but on the side of the street in a parking area. He said the police officer had to weave through the crowd to get to the team.
“What was particularly odd was that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the street, yet we got the ticket,” he said.
Tracey, who was not present at the scene, said team captain Max Gow stepped forward when the officer asked who was in charge.
“The guy hands [Gow] a $140 ticket for a ‘nuisance performance of cheerleading,’” Tracey said. “It’s rather silly.”
He said the team has gotten a kick out of reports that they had been blocking traffic or causing safety hazards.
“How in the heck does calling out your school name become an offence?” Tracey said. He said many lawyers have offered to represent the team for free as it appeals the ticket.
Tracey said he felt the officer should have just told them to keep moving along in order to curb the situation. But London Police’s media officer Ken Steeves said the team was given a ticket instead of a warning for violating the police’s Project L.E.A.R.N. (Liquor Enforcement and Reduction of Noise) strategy.
The specific charge issued to the cheerleaders was on “causing a nuisance in the street by conducting a cheerleading performance.”
Steeves said cheerleading “does not encourage negative activity, but gets people excited.”
“We were trying to get people out of the area because they were covering the whole roadway,” Steeves said. “When the cheerleaders came through, they conducted a cheerleading act right in the middle of the roadway . . . this brought several students back to the direct location.”
Steeves said the team should be cheering in the field, rather than “in the middle of the roadway, amongst a large group of people who have consumed alcohol.”
A statement issued by the university supported the cheerleaders.
“The university believes strongly that an impromptu performance by some of the cheerleaders en route to campus was well-intentioned,” the statement read.
Western’s media relations director Keith Marnoch said via email that university officials have accepted an invitation by the police to meet and review the incident.
