College Yell

Trinity's original College yell or cheer was “Wah-Hoo-Ah,” originating sometime between 1865 and 1870, after the Civil War and about the same time that intercollegiate athletics began to appear. The purpose of the yell was multifold: to raise morale and spirit, College pride, unity, and excitement. Individual class yells also appeared, for camaraderie between the classes.

Though cheerleading is today associated with femininity, “cheer leaders — or 'yell leaders,' as they were then called — led cheers from the sidelines both to encourage the spectators and to serve as a form of crowd control.” ¹⁾ During the early twentieth century, Trinity students elected a cheer leader for each class, who taught and practiced the cheers with their classmates before leading them during an event. By 1906, Trinity had a variety of cheers: “Trin, Trin, Trin,” for example, or “Hike-a, hike-a,” which the students wrote were getting monotonous.

The Trinity yell was not only present at athletic events. It was used at the Lemon Squeezer Supper, ²⁾ Alumni Dinners, ³⁾ annual banquets ⁴⁾ parties, award presentations ⁵⁾ and College meetings.

In the December 1907 Tablet, an anonymous alumni from 1870 wrote that “it would be an interesting thing to trace the development of college cheering from some such shout as this to the elaborate unintelligibilities which now stimulate the college man to lofty deeds and self-sacrificing patriotism.”