High Kicks at Halftime

by Pamela Colloff

September 2006

Could football be played without drill teams? Well, sure—but then how could you keep kids in their seats instead of under the bleachers, drinking beer? That was the informing idea back in 1939, when Kilgore College first conceived its Rangerettes. Their instructor, Miss Gussie Nell Davis, pioneered the crisp choreography that made the drill team famous around the world. Teenage girls have been marching onto football fields to the thumping beat of their high school bands ever since, wearing sequined tops and wide-brimmed hats and unflappable smiles that suggest they know, no matter how bad the score, that their side is going to win.

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