Thankfully, Georgia cheerleader Alex Smith's turn hoisting the flag known as "Super G" on Friday went far better than a recent attempt by Sam Clay.
Clay, a teammate of Smith's, ran the massive black banner with the familiar oval "G" onto the Stegeman Coliseum floor to lead the Gym Dogs gymnastics team. However, trying to negotiate his path between various gymnastics apparatus in the darkened arena, he didn't account for a camera crane hanging above his path.
"I slammed right into it," said Clay, a junior business major from Hiawassee. "It made a really loud noise."
The thousands of fans gathered at the Georgia Dome on Friday for the second round of the SEC basketball tournament likely gave little thought to the flags run out by cheerleaders bearing school emblems or spelling out school names beyond cheering (or booing) their appearance. They are the lucky ones.
"People have gotten close to tripping," Alabama cheerleader Josh Olson said. "One guy last year actually rolled his ankle running the big flag out."
The perils are everywhere. During football season, Olson said, a strong wind billowing Alabama's massive script "A" flag can force a cheerleader off course, like a wayward sailboat, as he sprints down the field.
"I've come pretty close to getting blown over halfway down the field," Olson said, not mentioning that such a fall would leave him prostrate in the path of 100-plus cleated Crimson Tide football players and likely blow up YouTube.
A teammate of Vanderbilt cheerleader Kevin Strong's once ran out with the giant black flag bearing the Commodores' star, only to realize the team wasn't following him. Then there's the figure-8 pattern of waving the flag that must be mastered.
"You want to make sure if keeps moving, so the flag stays out instead of all bunched up," Strong said. "Also, sometimes if you spin it, you start getting it wrapped around the pole."
Just the act of waving the large banners, perhaps 8 x 10 feet, is a killer, even for cheerleaders used to holding women above their heads. Strong thinks that his flagpole has less give than others, making it even more difficult to wave.
"Of course, it might be kind of a macho, ‘My flag is bigger than yours' kind of thing," he conceded.
Still, these young men bravely wave on, risking turned ankles and monumental embarrassment for ... the eyeballs.
"Everybody's looking at you. You're starting it off," Olson said. "You're the first one out, and the team's right behind you and the stadium's going crazy."
Georgia's Clay sees it similarly, camera cranes or not.
"It's usually the first thing people see, and that's when they know, OK, the team's coming," he said.
Friday before the Alabama-Georgia game, Olson and squad mates lined up by a corner of the court as they waited for the Crimson Tide to come out of the locker room. Second in line, he checked one final time to make sure he had the "L" flag. Soon after, as the team emerged on to the dome floor and the band played, teammates yelled, "Go! Go!" and Olson ran onto the floor, well spaced with his teammates, running a looping path to the opposite baseline.
On this day, he reached his destination with ankles and pride intact.
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