Ole Miss Cheerleaders Tossed Up in Stanford Scandal

Published by Cari Gervin on 02 Mar 2009 1:46pm
Ole Miss cheerleaders at practice
Members of the Ole Miss cheerleading team at practice last week.
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Troubled financier Allen Stanford was well known for his sponsorship of affluent sports like golf and polo. Less well known – his company’s sponsorship of collegiate cheerleading. From Oxford, Cari Gervin reports.

It was two former Ole Miss cheerleaders who suggested that Stanford Financial’s Memphis office sponsor the team. Cheerleading is not an NCAA–recognized sport, so there is only limited university funding for recruiting talented athletes.

“That is what I wanted to do, I wanted to keep people at Ole Miss,” says cheer coach Amanda Hoppert. She says the Stanford sponsorship did that.

“Each year that you’re on the team you’re able to get more money – basically trying to keep people here at Ole Miss, as opposed to spending a year cheering here and then going to a school that offers more money.”

For the past three years, Stanford Financial’s logo has been on the Ole Miss cheerleading team's warm-ups and megaphones. In return, the company provided scholarships for the 36 students on the team and at least two summer internships.

Hoppert declined to say how much Stanford had donated. However, members of the cheerleading squad said they received a thousand dollars for each year they had been on the team.

Katie Manor is a freshman cheerleader from Pennsylvania. She said losing the prestige of a scholarship was worse than losing the money.

“Like, one of the reasons I came to cheer here was because they gave a scholarship. ‘Cause I was gonna try to go to, like, Florida State or something, and I was like, well, they don’t give scholarships for cheer.”

LSU cheerleaders are facing the same problem, as Stanford has also sponsored their team for the past two years.

Allen Stanford was officially accused of running a Ponzi scheme on Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not been arrested. A criminal investigation is ongoing, and at this time, all of Stanford Financial’s assets remain frozen.