Lawrence Herkimer

Who is Lawrence Herkimer?

Lawrence Herkimer is an American innovator in the field of cheerleading. He created the Herkie cheerleading jump, which was named for him, and received a patent for the pom-pon. Herkimer has described his contribution to the field as taking it "from the raccoon coat and pennant to greater heights".

As a cheerleader at Southern Methodist University developed what became known as the Herkie by accident while intending to perform a split jump. The move features one arm extended straight up in the air and the other on one's hip, with one leg extended straight out and the other bent back. At SMU, he formed a national organization for cheerleaders and created a cheerleading-oriented magazine called Megaphone.

Herkimer started his first cheerleading camp in 1948 at Sam Houston State Teachers College with 53 participants, funded with $600 he had borrowed from friend of his father-in-law. By the following year, enrollment had grown to 350 the following year. Shortly thereafter, he was making more money from his summer programs than he was teaching the remainder of the year at Southern Methodist, so he gave up teaching and took up the cheerleading business full time. His camps had as many as 1,500 instructors teaching tens of thousands of students nationwide each summer, and his Cheerleader Supply Company was successfully retailing skirts and sweaters for cheerleading squads.