Longstanding Rivalries Between (Predominately Black) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Neighborhoods Can Further Heat Up Stomp & Shake Cheer Battles, Part I- Video & Overview

Cheer Mom Dance Mom Videographer, Oct 10, 2024
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This post doesn't include any transcriptions of these cheers.

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series about stomp and shake cheer battles in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This post showcases one YouTube video of a 2024 cheer battle between two Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania community based elementary/middle school stomp and shake cheerleader squads from rival (predominately Black) Pittsburgh neighborhoods. This cheer battle was held outdoors and separate from any football game. 

This post also includes my editor's note that provides some background about battle cheer encounters between stomp and shake cheerleaders from Garfield and from Homewood. Garfield and Homewood are two adjacent predominately Black neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

A 2008 foot stomping cheer that expresses the rivalry between those two Pittsburgh communities is also included in this post.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/02/three-videos-of-comments-about-cheer.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post showcases three YouTube videos of stomp and shake cheer battles between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania community based elementary/middle school stomp and shake cheerleader squads from rival (predominately Black) Pittsburgh neighborhoods- Homewood & Garfield (Video #1 and #2) and Homewood and The Hill (video #3). 

Those videos document that the performance of stomp & shake styles of cheerleading in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by elementary school & middle school girls who are members of community based squads. These cheerleading squads are affiliated with the same community's competitive football teams (and not with public or private school's athletic team). There are no community based basketball teams, and these same cheerleading squads don't cheer for any school or other community based basketball teams.

Part II of this pancocojams series also includes selected comments from the discussion threads for those YouTube videos. Although there some comments in those discussion threads that praised the cheerleaders, the focus in that compilation are examples of comments that are critical of these cheerleaders' performances. I'm sharing those examples as a means of documenting commenters' opinions about what they are looking for in stomp and shake cheer battles (ie. What makes a quality stomp and shake cheer battle and/or a stomp and shake cheer performance?)

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and recreational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of these videos on YouTube.

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE

I am an African American woman who has lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania since August 1969.

Pittsburgh is divided into a number of neighborhoods that are located close together or widely apart. Two of those predominately Black neighborhoods are Garfield and Homewood. When I moved to Pittsburgh I first lived for a very short period of time in the Hill, which is another predominately Black neighborhood. I then moved to Homewood, but for almost all of the years I've been in Pittsburgh, I've lived in Garfield.

It would be an understatement to say that for as long as I can remember, Garfield and Homewood have been rivals. These two Pittsburgh communities are less than twenty minutes from each other and aren't separated by bridges as is the case with some other predominately Black Pittsburgh communities like parts of "the Northside" and parts of the Southside. For almost fifty years that I can recall, Garfield and Homewood have considered each other as natural competitors if not natural enemies.  In the 1990s I believe that the relationship between Garfield and Homewood can be equated with the relationship between the Crips and the Bloods gangs. Indeed, in the 1990s, Garfield's "color" was black and Homewood's "color" was red, in imitation of or in adherence to the colors representing the actual (or wanna be) Crips and Bloods gangs. I remember making the mistake of buying my pre-teen sons "Dickies" (the popular casual pants and shirt sets) that were the color red. I had to return those clothes and exchange them for the "right" color or a neutral color (of beige?) after my sons informed me that they couldn't wear anything red. Back in those days, even adults couldn't wear anything red and I remember hearing about cars being vandalized because they were "the wrong color".

Fast forward to 2023, 2024, and 2025 and the stomp and shake battle cheer "encounters" between the elementary school & middle school age cheerleaders from Garfield (the Gators) and the elementary school & middle school age cheerleaders from Homewood (the Lady Dawgs.). Both of these cheerleading squads (and other cheerleading squads from other predominately Black Pittsburgh neighborhoods) are associated with a community based competitive football team. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are issues between those football teams and their members based on the long standing rivalries between the Pittsburgh neighthood that they represent.

Prior to Garfield's Fort Pitt Elementary School closed in 2010, the Garfield Gators' elementary school age cheerleaders and football players attended that school. They also practiced and had their competitive home games at the field that was attached to Fort Pitt Elementary School. And. based on the videos that I've watched of cheer battles that feature Homewood's Lady Dawgs, the home field for that cheerleading squad is  Homewood's Faison Elementary school. (Fort Pitt was and Faison still is a Pittsburgh Public School.

My daughter Tazi Hughes was a teacher at Fort Pitt Elementary School for a number of years. I was a substitute teacher at that school for a few months, and I also substituted at Faison Elementary School for two days. In preparing for this post, I talked with my daughter about when the Garfield Gators began doing stomp and shake cheerleading. Neither of us can pinpoint when these Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania cheerleader squads started to perform stomp and shake style cheerleading and have cheer battles separate from any competitive athletic game. However,  my daughter shared with me that she remembers that some years prior to 2007 when she transferred to another Pittsburgh public school, the Garfield Gators lunging forward (getting in a person's face) at the end of some of their cheers and otherwise performing some confrontational cheers. 

My daughter also reminded me that insult and boasting cheers are a large part of other African American chants (She gave the example of how AKAs (members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first historically Black Greek letter sorority) disses Deltas (members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and other  historically Black Greek letter sororities and vice versa when referring to predominately Black Greek letter fraternities.). 

That conversation also reminded me that many of the foot stomping cheers that I collected (prior to 2007) in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania are dissing cheers from girls living in Garfield (and to a much lesser extent, from Homewood.)  Click for https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/09/foot-stomping-cheers-alphabetical-list.html for Part I of that five part series on examples of foot stomping cheers.

Here's one example of a foot stomping cheer that I collected in 2008 from a girl living in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Garfieid who is dissing females from Homewood:

"GATORS [cheer title]
All: Gaaators *
(clap two tines and stomp four times while turning around)
Gaaators
(clap two tines and stomp four times while turning around)
Soloist #1:
Gator’s aint wid it
So Homewood betta quit it **
All: Gaaators
(clap two tines and stomp four times while turning around)
Gaaators
(clap two times and stomp four times while turning around)
Soloist #2: Homewood betta chill out
cause I’ll put their tracks out. ***

Directions:
Repeat entire sequence two more times; start facing forward, first time you say it, you turn to your right while you are clapping two times, 2nd time on the beat, you turn to the back, 3rd time you turn to your left forth time, you turn to the front; then to the “chorus”. Continue the same pattern of the group reciting the first part while a new soloist recites a new different two line mocking or confrontational verse.
-Sha’ona and Conraya; (African American females, 11 years old; Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, collected by Azizi Powell, June 2008

*The Garfield Gators is the name of a community football team in the Garfield section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Garfield is a mostly African American working class neighborhood.

**Homewood is a nearby and rival mostly African American, working class Pittsburgh neighborhood.

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"tracks" is another term for "(hair) weaves - fake or real hair that is attached to a female's hair to lengthen it and/or give it more body."

Note: Feb. 27, 2025 I don't know if these two girls were part of the Garfield Gators cheerleading squad or learned that cheer another way. I collected this cheer during the students' "free time" while I was substituting at Garfield's Fort Pitt Elementary School , June 2008 or around that date.

Source: https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/09/foot-stomping-cheers-alphabetical-list_40.html  "Pancocojams Compilation Of Foot Stomping Cheers (Alphabetical List: D- G)"

This is Part II of a five part pancocojams series that was first published in 2018.
The links to all of these posts are given in each post.

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My daughter and I agreed that the problem isn't that these Pittsburgh stomp and shake cheerleaders perform dissing and boasting cheers during cheer battles and otherwise. It's the extent in which they seem to internalize the antagonism towards their opponent cheerleading squad shat is expressed in those cheers. Furthermore, we are troubled by the ways the adults attending those games "big up" this antagonism between the girls from these rival communities who are cheering for their neighborhood and against the other neighborhood. 

I also have problems with how poorly the cheerleaders performed these stomp and shake cheers. Some of the comments that are documented in Part II of this pancocojams series reflects those same concerns.

Additions and corrections to this editorial note are welcome.

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This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.

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