It’s been an unexpected detour in life’s path for Charmaine Chard. “I actually didn’t like cheerleaders for a number of years,” she says. That viewpoint has changed with her latest venture. The 21-year-old, an avid football fan, went to the Grey Cup in Vancouver last November to watch the Winnipeg Blue Bombers take on the BC Lions. “The Felions were down on the field and I was watching them. At one point I said, ‘I could do that – I could totally do that.’”The Felions are the cheerleading dance team which performs at BC Lions home games. Chard researched the team and decided to try out. She was shocked to find she made it through the first round of cuts. The second cut didn’t go as well and she was told factors like having to commute from a distance and not being the strongest dancer were weighing against her. “The last time someone told me I couldn’t do something, I ended up hosting a festival for two years,” she says. Chard is referring to the Shuswap Festival of Arts for Kids she organized as a 19-year-old at Marine Park in Salmon Arm, with proceeds given to the Shuswap Family Resource Centre. Chard was subsequently bestowed with the 2011 Young Woman of Excellence Award in Salmon Arm during the annual It’s All About Women Conference.She had trouble sleeping the night after the Felions interview. In the morning, call-backs from the Felions co-ordinator were supposed to come between 8:30 and 9 a.m. At 9:45, the call came. She had been chosen as a member of the 32-woman dance team out of more than 50 applicants. She asked about the interview. “We wanted to make sure you know what you were getting into,” Chard was told. “We wanted to know you weren’t the type who would be upset if someone was attacking you.”On game days the Felions perform for free. For promotional events, however, the dancers get paid – $20 per hour for a minimum of four hours. For instance, she notes, there was an awards dinner last weekend. If not the pay, what’s the draw? “It looks fun and I constantly have to keep busy, otherwise I go crazy. I thought, why not? I haven’t been in dance for a while, so what better way to do it, in front of thousands of people. Go big or go home,” she laughs.Chard says there is absolutely no interaction between the Felions and the football players, under threat of dismissal, to protect the young women from advances. “We’re not allowed to talk to the players at all. Unless it’s a promotional event we’re at, and then it has to be a professional conversation about the event.” She plans to move to Victoria soon so her commute to the games will be shorter. Some of the perks, she says, include extra game-day tickets, tanning, hair styling, gym passes – all kinds of sponsorships. “Plus the fun and publicity of it. It gets you out there.”But some people don’t appreciate her plan. Chard said she’s already had a couple of older women come up to her to express their disapproval. “I’m going to school to become a geotechnical engineer. This is more of a hobby, a fun hobby,” she says. There’s already a lot of sexism going on. They just assume I’m a pretty girl with a pretty face and that I’m stupid – definitely not. There’s always going to be that. I’m not going to let it bug me.”The only travelling the Felions do is for the Grey Cup festival in Toronto. Chard will be selling Felion calendars soon – she needs to sell 100 by September – to help pay for the dance team’s trip. And then there’s football. Getting to attend all the home games is a definite perk. “My entire family’s really into football. My mom was expecting my brother to get involved with the BC Lions,” she laughs. “Not me.”

Salmon Arm Observer