Wisconsin school ends cheerleading awards for body parts

February 20, 2019

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin high school is ending cheerleading awards given annually to girls with the largest breasts or buttocks — dubbed “Big Booty” and “Big Boobie” — after district officials received repeated complaints from parents and a former coach.

Coaches at Tremper High School in the Kenosha Unified School District give out awards each year recognizing the most improved or hardest working cheerleaders, but they have also given what they called gag awards. Those awards also included one for “String Bean” — the thinnest team member.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin said emails and other documents it obtained during a yearlong investigation showed the awards were handed out for at least five years at a banquet attended by about 100 people, including coaches, family members and friends of students.

“I’m disgusted with the cheer coaches and with the Kenosha parents that sat there and said and did nothing,” former track coach Patti Hupp told the Kenosha News . Hupp emailed Tremper principal Steve Knecht last year to express her concerns after a parent notified her of the awards.

“I don’t think it takes much to see that this is extremely degrading to women,” Hupp said in the email to Knecht.

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