Breaking formation: Utah's high school competitive drill teams go co-ed

By Kennedy Stapley

 

The gymnasium at Roy High buzzed with tension that Thursday evening in March, as the drill team coaches called out the numbers of the dancers who had earned a spot on the squad. 

“No. 21,” one of the coaches called as a young woman with a brown slick-back ponytail and all-black uniform jumps up and down. 

“No. 6,” the coach continued. 

And then: No. 16, No. 3, and No. 23. On that evening, 26 girls made the team, each bounding up, just like the one before, to the cheers of her fellow dancers and newest members of the Royalaires.

This scene has been playing out at Roy and 88 other high schools across the state for decades. 

Girls doing all three: trying out, making the team, and competing. 

But that soon may change. 

Come next spring, boys will not only be able to make the team but compete, too. 

“We’ve had several inquiries over the last few years from our schools and coaches wondering about the possibility of allowing boys to compete,” said Jan Whittaker, who oversees drill for the Utah High School Activities Association.  “Our board, up to now, weren’t willing to make that change. They wanted a girls-only space.” 

And some still do. 

Jayden Kaufman, a former Royalaire for Roy High School, said she is among those who are concerned that the new ruling will fundamentally change the sport.  

“Although I do love the idea of a sport not being gender specific, I do feel like it is going to pull away from the drill part of it and make it more like studio competition,” Kaufman said. “A lot of judges from my competition experience tend to give solo guys or teams with guys higher scores. 

Whittaker said she knows that not everyone is happy with the shift. 

“We have had some coaches that don’t want a change because they like having an all-girl space for those girls to feel safe and secure,” she said. 

Whittaker added she has also “had a few calls from parents who are unhappy about it.” 

In Utah, drill teams combine dance, precision, discipline and uniformity in choreographed routines performed at various school events and competitions during the winter season. Historically, drill teams have been predominantly female, and participants often make lasting connections with other girls, Whittaker said.

 

Mixed Reactions

The association standardizes regulations and competitions across the state, and according to its handbook, has long sanctioned this sport for girls only.

“You could have a male participating on your dance team or your drill team, but they couldn’t compete,” Whittaker added. 

 That change was unexpected for some drill participants. 

“I was surprised when they announced that boys can be on drill team, too,” said Kambree Kolb, who joined the team as a sophomore and graduated in 2021. “I didn’t feel like there was much attention on boys wanting to be on drill teams, but with the growth of the dance industry lately, it makes sense to assume that.”

Not everyone is worried about the shift, though.

“I welcome the change,” said Marci Hartvigsen, the assistant drill team coach for the Farmington High drill team, the Nixelles. “It will only be a big deal if people make it a big deal, the dance world has always been male-female.”

Jayden Herman-Lopez, a Granger High School graduate, talked to Fox13 in 2021 when he pushed to be allowed to compete with his drill team. He argued that he was at every practice, paying the same fees and learning different spots in all the dances. But when it came time to compete, he was left watching. 

“Five years down the road,” he told Fox13, “I want that boy who decides he wants to be on the drill team to be able to just go on and compete with the rest of the team without any complications or problems.”

 

Legal Perspective

In reality, the shift has been in the works for the past few years. 

“It’s not like it’s a really unique thing,” Whittaker said. “It’s just that we’re a little bit slow to the game changing that role.”

In an opinion article forThe Salt Lake Tribune in 2023, Caleb Trotter, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, argued that “any seasoned Title IX regulator would agree that based on the evidence particular to drill competitions, that there would be no need for those to be segregated.” 

Title IX is the federal law set in place to prohibit sex discrimination in education programs and activities, including sports. 

“The purpose and the spirit of Title IX is to increase opportunity for everyone,” Trotter said. “The only reason they would be separated is either stereotypes of what boys and girls prefer to do or just outdated notions of preferences, and if that’s all they have to support something, then that is unconstitutional.”

Title IX has generally created more opportunities for girls and women. However, that’s not always the case. Whittaker also noted that the change won’t limit the number of girls who can be on each team’s squad. 

“We don’t have a rule against how many can be on a team, drill is kind of ‘the more the merrier,’ so you’re not going to really be cutting females to allow a male on your team. You’ll just be adding a male,” she said.  

Cheer was sanctioned by the UHSAA in 2023, making it officially a competitive sport. However, their requirements look a little different than drill. There are two separate divisions for competitive cheer including both all-girls and co-ed teams. Per the handbook, co-ed must have at least one male on their team in each category to be considered a mixed gender team. Drill will not have that option, instead just co-ed. Also noting that males have a significant advantage to scoring in the cheer world as compared to dance. 

“It is not like in cheerleading where it is a competitive advantage if you have a boy on your team because boys can generally toss girls higher and we don’t do any kind of release stunts or anything like that in drill,” Whittaker said. “So if there’s no competitive advantage to having a boy on your team.” 

In 2022, there were 13 sports that only girls could compete in and 11 that were limited to boys. The UHSAA decision on drill, along with a similar ruling on cheer, means that now both boys and girls have 11 gender-specific sports, and there are now four sports, including baseball and football, in which boys and girls are permitted to compete on the same playing field.

“I just don't think it's a big deal except that we allow boys to participate, I don't anticipate there being a huge number of boys participating, but I guess we'll see,” Whittaker said. “So I think that most people are just kind of taking it in stride because dancing is so prevalent and male dancers are there dancing professionally as much as female dancers are so it's out there.”