The Glenbrook North athletics website lists cheerleading as a “girls sport” even though senior Ryan Prevo joined the team this year.

“GBN should definitely label it coed,” said Prevo. “It’s not a big thing here, but at other schools there are huge coed teams, and it’s a cool thing to do.”

Prevo said he thinks more boys would want to join if the school advertised cheerleading as a coed sport.

According to cheerleading captain Daphne Kramer, most people associate cheer with girls, even though there is a whole division for coed teams.

“I addressed [cheerleading being labeled as a girls sport] at the beginning of the season,” said Cheerleading Head Coach Greg Wilhelm. “The reason they don’t change it is because for the sport to be considered coed, there has to be at least two males per team. … In the future I’d like to have more boys in the program to get that title changed and to have a coed program.”

Kramer said the cheer team would perform better with more boys, and they are lucky to have Prevo since he is “so strong.”

“He has brought our skill level up by doing full-ups in certain stunts,” said Kramer. “If a stunt’s not hitting and you put Ryan in … it will hit.”

Senior Hanna Silverman said everyone is happy to have Prevo on the team, but at first they were surprised he was interested.

“I could tell [the girls] were shocked,” said Prevo. “They did not expect [to see me at tryouts].”

Prevo said he decided to join cheer last spring after talking to Wilhelm.

“Ryan emailed me out of interest about cheer last year,” said Wilhelm. “After I got the email, I told him, ‘Ryan you have to come out for gymnastics if you’re interested in cheer.’”

Wilhelm said the skills Prevo learned in gymnastics, like backflips, have prepared him for this cheer season.

“Greg and Ryan have a dude bond,” said Kramer. “When we all talk about girl things, they’ll both talk and just be like ‘What?’”

Silverman and Kramer said Prevo probably feels uncomfortable because of some of the girl talk.

“We recently got new uniforms that are strapless so we had issues with bras,” said Kramer. “We were all complaining about it, and Greg and Ryan are just in the corner kind of looking at us like they have no idea what we’re talking about.”

Although Prevo can confide in another male, he said he does not think they ever need to separate from the girls during practice.

“The team is always all together,” said Prevo. “The girls treat me the same, and I treat them the same.”

Silverman agreed and said she does not feel like the team’s dynamic has changed now that Prevo joined the team.

“I’ve had experience with stunting with boys so I’m used to it,” said Silverman. “I’ve had a lot of people come up and ask like ‘Isn’t it weird that he touches your butt?’ But it’s fine.”

Kramer and Silverman said the team’s goal is to get to state.

“Last year we were .04 [points] away from it, so we definitely want to get there this year,” Kramer said.

She said she thinks Prevo could help put them over the edge this year.

“[State is] always on everyone’s mind,” said Prevo. “We really want every routine to be clean for competition season.”

Silverman said she is happy that Prevo is so comfortable cheering.

“It has to be hard being the only boy on a team, but I think he’s been doing a great job,” Silverman said.

Wilhelm said the girls did a good job including Prevo from the start. He even felt comfortable enough to sleep over at the cheer bonding night at the beginning of the season.

“Originally, Ryan was on JV, but because of injuries we had him come over and start stunting with the varsity girls,” said Wilhelm. “After practice the girls all came up to me and said, ‘We need Ryan on varsity. He’s strong. The stunts are hitting. It’s working.’ Immediately, from there, I took everything they were saying into consideration and made the decision to move him up. Pretty much right off the bat they were inclusive.”

Prevo said he would encourage other boys to join cheer since it could make the team a lot better.

“It’s not awkward because [the girls] pretty much act like boys too,” Prevo said while laughing.