America's Girls | Introducing America's Girls

For 50 years, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have been a global phenomenon, endlessly photographed, televised and commercialized. They began as an experiment and became America’s sweethearts, a very Texas hybrid of pageant beauty, good-girl etiquette, and come-hither slink. But what’s always been missing from their story is the voices of the cheerleaders themselves—until now. Bestselling author Sarah Hepola hosts this journey through the wild and glamorous saga of a sideline spectacle that changed sports, fashion, entertainment, and countless childhoods of boys and girls like her.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, we are going on an adventure.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Okay, I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
The woman next to me made history, but you probably
don't know her. Now we're in a Starbucks parking lot
outside Irving, Texas, and we're going to drive to the
site of Texas Stadium.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
And is it depressive? That's what somebody said.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
It might be. You know what, we'll find out.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
For a long time, I didn't know this woman either,
but I grew up staring at her on trading cards
and calendars and TV screens alongside other women in various
shades of gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
My name is Buzzil Baker, and I'm one of the
original seven professional Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. The first time we
walked down that tunnel, we didn't know that we had
introduced something new to football.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
And what they introduced change how we look at sports.
It would change how we see women on television, and
it would change countless childhoods of boys and girls like me.
I just saw I saw a dear, I just saw
a funny I the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders became America's sweethearts,

(01:26):
a very Texas hybrid of pageant beauty, good girl etiquette,
and come hither slink. But despite their fifty years as
a global sensation, despite being endlessly photographed, televised, commercialized, what's
always been missing from the story of the Dallas Cowboys
cheerleaders is the voices of the cheerleaders themselves. It's about

(01:49):
time we change that. What the Cowboys gave me, nothing
in my life will ever compared to that time.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
So then where does the uniform come from?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, it really came from my imagination.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
What words come to mind when you think of.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
The cheerleaders boots, skin, flesh, sex, hair, big hair.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
It's not just about being beautiful or just about having
a rock hard body. It's about, you know, being smart.
And so I went on a search to understand this
legacy in all its complications. I saw their story as
part of an ongoing battle of a women's bodies, of
a women's behavior, over who and what determines our value.

(02:33):
It bothered me that I was supposed to sexualize myself
on game days and not allowed to any other days.
There was an awkwardness because I'm seeing my friends in
Playboy magazine. They're both major lawsuits for the Cowboys, and
they changed the culture of being a cheerleader.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Whatever you're doing, you're multitasking. You have so many things
to do, and then they're asking you to do this
five nights a week and not pay you for it.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Over the course of eight episodes, you'll hear those voices
as they navigate all that came after that first time
they burst onto the field. This is a saga of
high kicks and scandal and cleavage and controversy. I'm Sarah
Happola from Texas Monthly. This is America's Girls.