'Today Show,' NIL deals and one shining moment: The story of IU cheerleaders' viral moment

BLOOMINGTON — The near 7-footer failed first. Standing on a chair, the referee failed next. The ball, somehow wedged between the back of the backboard and the shot-clock rigging behind it, just beyond the reach of a Saint Mary’s player and a chair-boosted official hoisting a green mop pole in the air.

Saint Mary’s forward Matthias Tass, who had failed to get the ball the first time, had the next idea. Behind the Moda Center basket in Portland were the Indiana cheerleaders. Another Saint Mary’s player waved to them, motioning to lift someone up.

“Tallest one, Nathan you go!” cheer team captain Ethan Ferguson called out.

So Nathan Paris stood up. Cassidy Cerny jumped up too. She wanted to go, seemingly calling out “I wanna go! I wanna go!”

They didn’t realize the TV cameras were on.

Doyel: Yup, I wrote about IU cheerleaders. Because they deserve it, and the game doesn't.

***

They’ve joked about it before. The ball gets stuck all the time. Normally a mop is good enough. Somehow it wasn't on this day — IU's first round NCAA tournament game versus Saint Mary's.

When they’ve sat in their normal spots on the floor, they’ve thought about why they don’t just get the ball themselves when it’s gotten stuck before. But there’s not a plan for such a moment. There’s never been a need for one.

Referee Kelly Pfeifer can be heard on the TV broadcast asking for a ladder or a chair. He tried extending the pole of the mop. It doesn’t extend.

Then it was Paris and Cerny’s turn.

“We were starting to get confused,” Paris said. “Then I start to get nervous thinking, we’re going to have to actually do this.”

Back home in Bloomington after it all, sitting in a Wilkinson Hall chair, Paris demonstrated the lift, a stunt called a hands extension. Cerny would stand in front of Paris and get into what’s referred to as a “hands position” before Paris extends her above his head to complete the stunt. Paris showed how to extend his arms, to keep them locked for Cerny to balance and hold his hands on an angle as if Cerny was wearing one-inch heels.

Yet back in Portland where Paris lifted Cerny, they weren’t quite in the right position. Paris had to walk holding Cerny above his head.

“I was like, ‘I really hope I don’t drop this stunt in front of the whole stadium,” Paris said. “I put the stunt up because I knew they wanted us to hurry, and I put it up about seven feet away from where we needed to be. So I was like, ‘Well I’m gonna have to walk there.’”

Indiana cheerleaders save the day

They walked under the basket, Cerny bending her knees to duck below the mast of the basket — a trip Cerny and Paris made look far easier than they said it was.

Safely under the basket, Paris got in position and lifted Cerny just a bit further. It, finally, was enough. Cerny grabbed the ball to a roar of applause and waved with delight as she and Paris ran off the floor.

They hardly had time to take in their moment, sprinting off the floor unaware if they could step in the wrong place on the floor where they weren’t allowed and earn a technical foul called on Indiana.

And the TV cameras caught it all.

“Why don’t the cheerleaders, they’re used to going up high,” Andrew Catalon began to call on the TBS broadcast.

“Yes! Get the cheerleader up,” he continued as Paris hoisted Cerny in the air. “Get her up there! This is how you do it!”

The cameras then showed Cerny reaching up to grab the ball.

“Oh she’s got it! What a play! The cheerleaders save the day! That’s her one shining moment,” Catalon finished as the crowd roared. “The cheerleader is the hero in Portland!”

When the game ended and they turned on their phones to the barrage of messages and seeing the broadcast, the TV interview requests quickly came. They were interviewed for "Good Morning America" at 3 a.m. in Portland. They’d go on "The Today Show" live with about 15 minutes notice.

The messages and attention kept coming.

Cerny is an RA in Briscoe Quad. Her residents all messaged her about the play.

“We just saw you on TV!” some texts said.

“You’re famous!” read another.

At the IU women’s basketball game against Charlotte in Assembly Hall on Saturday, Cerny and Paris sat together and were featured on the broadcast. People came up to them at the game, asking to take photos with them.

“I thought it would start to die down, I refresh my Instagram as another like, another comment,” Cerny said.

“It’s a little bit daunting at first, you think about being watched by so many people,” Paris said. “But that’s kind of our job as cheerleaders We’re supposed to lead our fanbase. It’s just a wider scale at this point now.

"We were talking about it last night. Let’s just enjoy it, let’s just be in the moment.”

That includes Cerny landing a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal with apparel company Breaking T to sell T-shirts featuring her with Catalon's "The cheerleader saves the day!" call.

***

The now viral hoisted duo of Cerny and Paris took vastly different routes to wearing IU cheer uniforms for a March Madness game in Portland. They’re both Indiana natives. Only one actually envisioned themselves cheering for IU.

At 5, Cerny stared gymnastics. And at 13 she woke up one morning totally tired of it.

So Cerny began cheering in eighth grade. She went to Avon High School, where she was part of the cheer team.

“My freshman year I knew I wanted to cheer at IU,” Cerny said. “That was a really big goal for me. This was like a dream come true.”

Paris is a senior at IU, and before midway through his time in college had never cheered in life.

In high school at Christian Academy of Indiana in New Albany, Paris played baseball and basketball. But he also played alto saxophone in the high school band. He came to IU and joined the Marching Hundred.

At both basketball and football games, the Marching Hundred is seated right behind the cheerleaders. So Paris got to watch nearly every game for two years.

“I saw what the cheer team was doing, and I thought ‘This sounds so cool,’” Paris said. “So that’s when I tried out. I joined two years ago. It’s been life-changing since.”

The cheer team needed guys that year, and as a former multi-sport player, Paris had the athleticism to make the team. He got help from the cheer team to learn many of the foundations of the sport.

“It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying,” Paris said of trying out.

When Paris made the team, Cerny came in as a freshman. She was already experienced, Paris was not. They were paired together often — Paris as the base, Cerny the flier. And much of the initial time they had to work together was in the early month of the pandemic, when it was hard to find time to be with each other at all.

So they stunted outside, regardless of weather. It was one of the few opportunities they had to practice.

They never had any major falls, Cerny and Paris said, but especially hand-in-hand lifts were hard at first. A flier isn’t always paired with one specific base, Cerny said. So they continued to practice through the pandemic and now, after two years are beginning more elite stunts.

“I remember from the first time that we were stunting, you can tell as you start to get better,” the more experienced Cerny said. “You can definitely tell who has potential and who doesn’t. He definitely does.”

They’ve cheered together for nearly two years now. And earned their way onto the traveling roster — among the more prestigious assignments on the team.

They were selected to go the NCAA tournament, the first time for either of them — Cerny now a sophomore and Paris a senior — to go to March Madness.

Their trip to Portland was far from as planned. They were on that flight to Portland, delayed in Dayton until 4 a.m. Eastern time with a plane change and baggage left behind before they finally got to Portland around 6 a.m. Pacific time.

And IU's performance against Saint Mary's didn't provide much to cheer about. But for Cerny and Paris, it'll be a moment they'll remember forever. There's even a T-shirt.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana basketball cheerleaders' one shining moment in March Madness