CLEVELAND, Miss. -- The Delta State University cheerleaders have been suspended for three weeks for disregarding orders to abandon their Spandex uniforms for more traditional ones.
Dianne Crews, who also teaches aerobics at the university, said the 10 girls in her cheerleading-dance squad have been wearing a kelly green, single-piece Spandex outfit known as a unitard. Over that they wear french-cut briefs belted with a bandanna and leg warmers.
The unitard covers the girls from ankle up to a scooped neckline, Crews said. It is frequently worn during aerobic exercise.
'They say it is vulgar,' Crews said. 'The tights ride up when they are dancing but they are still completely covered.'
'The biggest thing about this is that we are being censored,' Crews said. She said her squad had been ordered to wear its old uniforms, which she claimed were actually more risque.
'The old uniform was a short skirt and a top that came off one shoulder,' Crews said. 'You had to be careful which way you turned or it would fall off.'
The squad was banned from wearing the unitards by athletic director Brad Hovious before the Tennessee-Martin basketball game on Jan. 19, Crews said. Butthe squad wore the unitards anyway and was placed on three weeks suspension and probation for 'insubordination,' Hovious said.
'I never said they were vulgar. I said they were inappropriate,' Hovious said. 'It was my judgment that the uniforms were improper for our athletic events.
'I am the one who is prudish and conservative. It is not the campus as a whole,' he said.
The girls have not decided what they will wear to their first game on Feb. 12 after the probation ends.
'We are going to make everybody squirm a little bit,' Crews said. 'We would all like to go to the other extreme and come out in sweats.'
