Give Me An A

As the West Virginia Senate held out against the public school teachers demands for a five percent raise, schools across the state had been closed for almost two weeks and public opinion was turning against the educators. It was looking like fourth down and long for the third lowest paid teachers in the country when the National Football League Baltimore Ravens Cheerleading Squad stormed the steps of the Capitol Building rallying the exhausted educators and turning the cameras and the nation’s attention back on.

Governor James C. Justice was caught off guard by the spirit squad especially since West Virginia doesn’t have an NFL team to cheer. “Doesn’t matter,” said Dipsey Noodle, head cheerleader and choreographer for the squad. “We go wherever our fans are.”

In the spring of 1954, the recently reincarnated Baltimore Colts formed a marching band along with baton twirlers and dancers that were effectively the original NFL cheerleading squad. This action was taken in response to the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown vs The Board of Education which was handed down that May. Drawing on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment the decision ended enforced racial segregation of schools and collegiate athletic elitism.

The meteoric rise of college football in the 1920’s threatened America’s more democratic pastime, Baseball. Professional football teams and leagues were formed to represent blue collar towns and cities but they never had the glamor or tradition of the college game. So in the fall of 54, with the United States now threatening their citizenry with universal education the need for violent gladiatorial contests coupled with thigh wide gyrations were needed on both Saturdays and Sundays to get America through its now pedagogical autumns. 

The country’s two largest teachers unions, National Education Association (Ned Ass) and The American Federation of Teachers (Whup Ass), recognizing that cheerleaders were basically doing the same job and working toward the same goal formed a discrete alliance with professional football spirit squads. 

Though the two professions have secretly worked in tandem to educate and pacify the masses for more than fifty years it was not until the West Virginia Teachers Strike that anyone realized the power of the Cheerteacher Alliance. With teachers and cheerleaders across the nation enduring substandard and often dangerous situations in their workplaces, forced to provide their own materials and uniforms and often treated with disrespect by those they serve the “wildfire” that some politicians have declared is sweeping the south and west is unlikely to be put out anytime soon. 

Satire 1 alone has pointed out that the only factor all the states with teachers in rebellion share besides low pay, under funded schools and raids on their pensions is the absence of NFL representation. Though Arizona has the NFL Cardinals it has not been apart of the United States since its absorption into Greater Northern Mexico twenty years ago.

Kentucky and Oklahoma have turned down NFL expansion teams for years for fear of radicalizing their teachers. Both states figure huge in college basketball and football but student cheer squads tend to be more gymnastic than Vegas and have a balance of men and women. Only the heroic Baltimore Ravens squad reflects the collegiate ideal. Presidents Eisenhower (West Point), Reagan (Eureka), FDR (Harvard) and both Bushes (Yale) were cheerleaders. None wore go-go boots.

As the teachers unions press state legislatures for higher pay and benefits rumblings through the hall of academia are mostly over the near serfdom suffered by the all women spirit squads of the NFL. Minimum wage for games, no pay for constant rehearsing, Aunt Asshole rules controlling the cheerleaders behavior on and off the field. One rulebook even instructing shaving techniques and the preferred usage of tampons.

When First Lady Melania Trump heard that the cheerleaders for most teams had to immerse themselves into the tailgates and stands to sell raffle tickets and calendars and take pictures with drunken fans she asked Donald to get legislation passed so that both cheerleaders and teachers could carry guns. Where most teachers cry out “there ain’t no cannon big enough” to protect them from students a number of cheerleaders have expressed interest in Uzis and other manageable machine pistols. 

The super secret mystery chat site of the Cheerteachers movement is said to be Pom-Poms and Pencils featuring debates on federal grants for superior scholastic weaponry and allowances for ammunition. Many cheerleaders and teachers also want the right to act like sluts even when they’re not in schools and stadiums.

“We won’t be satisfied until Debbie does Dallas, Charleston, Louisville and Oklahoma City,” said Our Miss Brooks.  

“Little does the public appreciate what it takes to perform in front of a group, using every tool at your disposal to focus their attention, whip up their enthusiasm, take them step by step, yard by yard as they tackle their assignments, move their projects down the field, through their doubts and fears through distractions and confusions to rally them again and keep them in the game until they reach their goal. Give me an L! Give me an E! Give me an A, R, N, I-N-G!”

“What’s that spell?”

Democracy

Don Arrup

Satire1