10 Game Day Hours With the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
As the bus departed The Star, on Sunday, December 14, at 1:57 pm, a group leader walked the aisle counting heads. All 36 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders were present and accounted for, hair and makeup ready, on the way to Arlington.
Game day prep had been a weeklong endeavor. The fair-skinned set slathered on self-tanner daily to ensure bodies matched hosiery. They all had to hydrate and consume sufficient calories. The squad had three practices and multiple appearances throughout the week already.
“You have to look like a supermodel but perform like an athlete,” said a dancer in the first-ever episode of America’s Sweethearts, Netflix’s hit docuseries, which has given an international audience a close-up look at the dazzling squad’s individual facets and flaws.
Fifteen minutes into the bus ride, DCC director Kelli Finglass tapped a mic and announced the evening’s Sideline Sweetheart (Charly) and Game Day Girl (Anna Kate). With each announcement, the women erupted, a firework display of screams and squeals. Kelli handed the mic to Kristi Scales, the Cowboys’ sideline reporter of 27 years, to deliver “Bus Bits,” a breakdown of the team’s standing and what to look out for during the evening game against the Vikings.
“It’s going to feel like a playoff atmosphere again tonight, ’cause basically it is, right?” Kristi said. “Cowboys have a 9 percent chance of making the playoffs. Win tonight, it goes up to 14. Double digits, baby.”
Along the ride, the women of the DCC behaved like typical twentysomethings, talking lashes, taking selfies, recording TikTok dances, and passing a phone around to FaceTime with a retired cheerleader at her baby shower. Later, when asked what she did during the bus ride in her front seat perch, head choreographer Judy Trammell looked like a deer in headlights and replied flatly, “I talked to Kelli”—the kind of line that has made her a docuseries fan favorite.
On Timothée Chalamet’s Instagram grid, you’ll find a screenshot of Judy saying, “I listen to music.”
One hour later, after being delivered to AT&T Stadium’s underground facilities, the women swiftly unpacked poms and hung up uniforms in their locker room’s assigned mirrored cubbies, then filed out to the empty stadium to run through their routines: the jet-propelled “Thunderstruck” (minus the jump split, which is reserved for game time), Kickoff, Quarter 1, Quarter 2—and on it went for 31 minutes. A two-hour break gave them time to fuel with a catered spread, stretch, gossip, and touch up their ’dos.
A few minutes after 6, the cheerleaders, wearing warm-up suits due to low temps, gathered to ascend to the plaza for a pregame fan performance; the lingering fumes of Icy Hot were powerful enough to make eyes water.
After the fan performance, the dancers had 30 minutes to change into their iconic blue-and-white uniforms, blow-dry the sweat off their faces, touch up makeup, and re-curl and hairspray their layers, many kneeling on dog beds to cushion their knees on cubby benches. They gathered for a prayer circle just before showtime. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” they began in unison. In the tunnel, they stretched their legs against the wall while waiting for their cue.
At 7:05, the DJ hit play on AC/DC and the cheerleaders skipped onto the field.
The dancers divided into four corners of the field during the game, the groups rotating each quarter. The cheerleaders kept an eye on their respective group leaders. When the DJ played a song during a break in game play, it was each leader’s job to quickly decide which of the 40 “tag” routines to perform, and each dancer’s duty to fall in sync. When the ball was in motion, however, eyes were on the field.
Last season, Michelle took a football to the back of the head; in a preseason game this past August, the same dancer was tackled by a Raven.
At any given time, one woman in each group took a breather on a chair positioned next to a Gatorade water cooler. There, they smoothed their layers with hairbrushes kept in a basket and helped themselves to a piece of candy. For several years now, a member of the chain crew has taped a strip of Starburst to the legs of the dancers’ chairs.
The game was a bust. Cowboys fans began walking out midway through the fourth quarter. The cheerleaders continued dancing despite the stadium’s deflated energy. After the game, the ladies packed up, then sat in a circle helmed by Kelli and Judy. Kelli struggled to understand the notes she’d made on her phone using voice-to-text and periodically asked Judy to jump in.
“Abby and Jenna,” Judy offered, “when y’all are standing, y’all start to push your hands so far down that y’all look like your arms are straight. Instead of below your shorts, think of hips.”
The circle-up ends with the Abbey Bear, a DCC uniform-wearing teddy bear passed from one dancer to another she deems deserving of recognition. That night, Camille bestowed the bear to Reece, who had been out for a month due to a hamstring injury.
On the bus ride back, the women sounded slaphappy as they passed around white paper bags of taffy and Snickers. Phone screens lit up their faces as they scanned social media. “Tori, you’re trending!” said one. Before the bus returned to The Star at 12:09 am, Kristi Scales popped up with an update. The Cowboys’ loss meant they had only a 1 percent chance of making it to playoffs. An angelic voice rang out from the back, “So there’s still a chance!”
