Calkins: How do you celebrate turning 50? If you’re Memphis Pom, you dance.
Cheri Ganong (middle), a former University of Memphis Pom Squad member and coach, rehearses on Thursday, March 6, 2025. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
Geoff Calkins
Geoff Calkins has been chronicling Memphis and Memphis sports for more than two decades. He is host of "The Geoff Calkins Show" from 9-11 a.m. M-F on 92.9 FM. Calkins has been named the best sports columnist in the country five times by the Associated Press sports editors, but still figures his best columns are about the people who make Memphis what it is.
Cheri Ganong watched the man enter through the side door of the Mid-South Coliseum and walk up into the stands.
It was 1979. Ganong, the coach of Memphis Pom, was feeling a little nervous about the upcoming game against Louisville.
“We had always worn traditional cheerleader uniforms: a skirt and a sweater,” she said. “But we had decided to wear these unitards. We had never worn anything as risqué as that.”
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