At 92, cheerleader still showing off

During the first timeout in the first quarter of last weekās home football game against Iowa State, Texas Tech held a ceremony honoring its alumni cheerleaders.
It was the type of thing you see at most every homecoming game in America, and in many cases, such an observance would go largely overlooked. It is a good time for a quick bathroom break, affords a brief window to buy a T-shirt or grab a tray of nachos before play resumes, whatever.
But there wasnāt an empty seat to be found among the announced crowd of 57,367 Saturday afternoon in Lubbock because Jane Kuykendall was on the field yet again ā and no one misses Jane when she does her famous splits.
That's because Jane is 92 years young.
Born on July 31, 1921, Kuykendall has been rooting on Texas Tech longer than most people you know have been alive. In fact, she joined the cheerleading squad at Texas Tech in 1939, quite possibly making her the oldest Tech cheerleader still giving the guns-up sign.
They were called yell leaders back in the day, of course, and there were only six of them when Kuykendall went to school. Asthma eventually forced Kuykendall to quit cheerleading, which might have been for the best anyway ā she said she was so clumsy and injury-prone that āif they had a course in tiddlywinks, Iād probably break my thumb.ā
But Kuykendall (pronounced āKirkendallā) remained in relatively good shape after she graduated ā a function of exercise more than diet, she admits. And after heart surgery at age 50, she recommitted herself to fitness and began teaching water aerobics at Carillon, a retirement community in Lubbock, where her mother lived at the time and Kuykendall now lives.
āWhen I taught the water exercising, as I would wave goodbye to my class, I would raise my leg and wave with my foot,ā Kuykendall said. āSo that got to be my trademark, and from that, I guess it developed into the splits.ā
In the decades since she first perfected her split, Kuykendallās flexibility has come to define her. Sheās been showing off her moves to cheerleaders for decades, her splits becoming an annual tradition at the yearly cheerleading and pom squad reception. When she was 87, she met Donnie and Marie Osmond in Vegas and did the splits for them, too.
At the 2011 homecoming game against Kansas State, Texas Tech honored Kuykendall on the field for her 90th birthday, and that was the first time she showed off her abilities to the masses and garnered rave reviews.
A subsequent broken hip slowed Kuykendall down some, but when Alicia Knight, the university's Director of Development for the Chancellorās Council and Scholarships, called Kuykendall this year to see if she was interested in performing again for homecoming, there was no hesitation.
āWe called her up and said, āJane can you do this? You donāt have to if you donāt want to,āā said Knight, a former Tech cheerleader herself. āSo she said, āWell wait a minute, let me see if I can still do them,ā and the next thing you know she puts down the phone, she does her splits, she gets back on the phone and says, āYep, Iāll do it.āā
So there she was on Saturday, in the end zone with 70 other alumni cheerleaders at Jones AT&T Stadium. During the ceremony, Texas Tech highlighted its 10 most senior alumni, and when they finally closed with Kuykendall ā mother of two, grandmother of five, great-grandmother of 12 ā she had her arms up, doing a split in the end zone. Naturally, the response was thunderous.
"When she dropped down to her split and 60,000 people gave her a standing ovation, we all got chill bumps," said Billy Smith, a former Texas Tech cheerleader who has been the head of the alumni cheerleading association since 1987. "Sheās just got that west Texas happy, friendly [personality], and thatās the spirit of Texas Tech."
However, Kuykendall jokes that the fans probably gave her an ovation just for being alive.
āItās ridiculous to be noted for being so old, but I guess it is an accomplishment,ā she said with a hearty laugh. āWhen they announced how old I was and I did the split, [the fans] couldnāt even imagine someone as old as I am walking and breathing and chewing gum at the same time.ā
Kuykendall said sheās not sure how long sheāll keep doing the splits or whether sheāll be back next homecoming to try it again.
āI think it would get kind of boring for everybody,ā she said. āWe might as well let me retire in glory.ā
But Texas Tech will certainly keep having her as long as she wants to be a part of the celebration.
āAbsolutely, we want her down on that field every year,ā Knight said. āShe represents everything about Texas Tech spirit, with her passion and that smile on her face. Sheās ready to get her guns up through the good times and the bad times, and you know, she just represents everything that we are about.ā
Added Smith: āIn this time and era, itās great to have someone in their 90s who is that gung-ho to represent your university with such pizazz. Itās just an emotional thing for so many people, because weāve known her for so long and we just donāt want it to ever end. You count your blessings that thereās people who make all of us feel young.
āSheās always been a mentor to all of us, and itās people like her that make me a proud Red Raider. Sometimes you think you have to grow up and act mature, and when I see Jane doing the splits, I realize that I donāt.ā
Kuykendall has some time before she has to decide whether her most recent public performance will be her last, but something tells me that if sheās able, sheāll be on the field again next year, at age 93, too.
"People ask me, āHow do you feel?ā and I tell them I donāt know how Iām supposed to feel," Kuykendall said, with her west Texas twang. "In the olden days, when you were my age, you were real old, But now youāre just kind of like everyone else if youāre still here. Us old codgers can carry on."
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