Vintage UW Cheerleader Uniform Donated by Eisele Family
The outfit worn by a Wisconsin cheerleader in 1942 and 1943 has returned to Camp Randall!
Karl Eisele Jr. ’46 was the head cheerleader of the UW Badger cheerleading squad in 1942 and 1943. Back then all the cheerleaders were male. Women did not begin cheering until the men went off to World War II.
Eisele was cheering for the Badgers during football and basketball games up until 1943 when, as well-known sports writer Roundy Coughlin of the Wisconsin State Journal reported, Eisele was cheering his lungs out and in the following days was entering the military to go off and fight in World War II.
Eisele became a bombardier/navigator on B-24s stationed in England and flew on 20 missions helping to destroy the Nazi war machine. On the 20th mission, their plane was hit by flak, killing the copilot and knocking out two engines. They could not return to England but turned north and were able to barely make it to Sweden, where they landed and were taken in by the neutral country until the end of the war.
Eisele returned home to Madison, where he finished his degree in business at the UW and he and his wife, Janet, raised a family of five boys. He went on to work for 37 years as the national advertising manager of Madison Newspapers Inc. and was an avid backer of Badger football, beginning to buy season tickets in the early 1950s — tickets that still today are purchased by the family.
The family donated the cheerleading uniform to the UW this past fall, and it is now on display near the W Club room in Camp Randall Stadium.
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