Friday,
January 7, 2005

Three cheers for former Fowlerville coach

By Fred Costello

daily press & argus

HOLLAND - Peggy Lintemuth
is a trailblazer.

The former
Fowlerville resident has been responsible for the formation of three Michigan high school
competitive cheerleading teams, and in November, she was awarded the Michigan
High School Cheerleading Association's Coach of the Year award.

She ran Fowlerville High School's cheer program from its
inception in 1986 until 1995.

Lintemuth
has a deep commitment to making sure that competitive cheer is viewed as a
serious sport.

"When
I first started, we had no place to practice and no equipment, it was very
old-school," Lintemuth explained. "Now, competitive cheer is the
fastest-growing Michigan High School Athletic Association sport."

Lintemuth's love for cheerleading started during her
high school days in Byron, when she cheered, ran track and played basketball.

Years after
she moved to Fowlerville in 1971, her daughters decided they wanted to get
involved with cheerleading. Lintemuth thought it natural to enter the world
of coaching.

She was
fortunate enough to be able to coach - and coach with - all of her daughters.

Lintemuth
had Jennifer, 33, Sarah, 30, and Kate, 27, in the Fowlerville program and she
helped Beth, 20, with her coaching career in West Ottawa.

Fowlerville's
program was a grassroots effort at first - they had only a sideline team for
the first few of Lintemuth's seasons, but still
competed.

The results
were commendable.

The
Gladiators were among the top three Class B teams for five years, winning
titles in 1992 and '93. When competitive cheer began as an MHSAA sport in
1994, Lintemuth's squad was the state Class B
runner-up - the best finish of her career.

Lintemuth
semi-retired after the 1995 season, when she and husband Dennis moved to the Holland area.

She helped
her daughter form a team at West Ottawa and
was there two years before retiring again. Then, in 2002, she was persuaded
by Holland Christian to help the school form a program.

"They
called and asked if I would just come in and talk to them about competitive
cheer," Lintemuth said. "The school wanted to start up a program
and I thought this is where I should be."

Starting
another new team has been a challenging experience for Lintemuth.

"Imagine
if you took a bunch of ninth-to-12th grade boys who had never played
basketball and had them compete at the varsity level," Lintemuth said.

"Maybe
they'd dribbled on the driveway before, but had never played the game. That
would be a very similar situation to our first year. The girls had cheered
before, but had never seen anything like competitive cheer."

Lintemuth's goal for her first year with Holland
Christian: Don't come in last place.

But despite
the relative inexperience of her team, Lintemuth's
squad won a conference title last year, her second with the team.

Next season
will definitely be the last for Lintemuth, who says she's retiring "for
real" this time.

Looking
back, her career feels very rewarding.

"Just
getting competitive cheer as a recognized sport (at three schools) has been
the biggest thing," Lintemuth said.

"I've
always though that this was where women's sports should be."