This is a story about a professional cheerleader named Krazy George and a University of Washington cheerleader called The Yell King and the very public feud between them.
The tale spans from Seattle to Oakland – or Oakland to Seattle, depending whom you ask – with detours in Michigan and the Library of Congress. Everyone agrees the story starts in 1981, but other than that, no one agrees on much of anything.
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Are The Yell King and Washington the true creators?
Or are Krazy George and the Oakland A’s?
This is the heart of their disagreement, but no matter how deep you dig, there are no clear answers. All that’s left is the creation itself, still rolling across stadiums to the gleeful joy of children, the drunken joy of some adults and the annoyance of everyone else.
This is a story about the fight for The Wave.
It started on Oct. 31, 1981.
The Yell King’s real name is Robb Weller, and on that day he returned for the Huskies’ homecoming game against Stanford. Now, there’s something you should know about Weller. In addition to hosting “Entertainment Tonight,” he was the most popular cheerleader Washington has ever known.
No, really.
“If Robb Weller ever decided to give up his popular show in Chicago,” the Post-Intelligencer wrote, “he could doubtless reestablish residence in Seattle and campaign successfully for Emperor of Elliott Bay.”
Bill Bissell, the Huskies’ longtime band director and a key player in this drama, once called Weller a “legend in these parts.” And legends never die. Bissell explained to Sports Illustrated that on the day in question Weller dug into his “repertoire” and selected the “Expanding Cheer.” Fans waved from the bottom row to the top, a “waterfall in reverse,” but it involved only one section.
At halftime, Bissell challenged Weller to think bigger.
“I told Robb to keep going,” Bissell told SI, “to try it sideways or something.”
And it worked. After the game, the P-I wrote, “The cheering literally swept around Husky Stadium in waves last Saturday, the fans in this section, then the next and the next, leaping to their feet on cue.” The Wave was born.
Then Krazy George accused Seattle of creative thievery.
(Jake Roth/USA Today)By 1984, The Wave was a full-on thing. The Seahawks had the Seahawk Wave. Michigan had the Silent Wave. There were Waves with jingling keys and Waves that started at opposite ends and met in the middle.
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People were already starting to complain about the phenomenon, but now they were interested in its origin.
During a college football broadcast that year, Dick Enberg told a national audience that The Wave originated at Michigan. This led to an uproar in Seattle, because the Wolverines picked it up after playing in Seattle, and Michigan quickly conceded. All roads led back to Robb Weller and Bill Bissell.
“I’ve been called the mother of The Wave,” Bissell said.
“I know what Moses must have felt like when he parted the Red Sea,” Weller said.
“They’re a bunch of turkeys,” Krazy George said.
Krazy George’s real name is George Henderson, and he did not concede.
For proof, he always told reporters to watch the video from the A’s playoff game on Oct. 15, 1981, two weeks before Washington’s homecoming. Back then Krazy George had wild yellow hair that called to mind Bozo the Clown: bald on top, puffy on the sides. He was a professional cheerleader, an employee of more than 20 pro teams and 10 colleges.
He even formed Krazy George Inc.
The playoff crowd in Oakland that night was pumped. So Krazy George had a krazy idea: He would get fans to rise one section at a time, the noise and cheers flowing around the stadium, building and building.
In the video from that game, Krazy George is standing on the dugout, drum in hand. Sure enough, fans stand and cheer, section by section around the stadium, as Krazy George beams.
“Crescendo rising here,” the announcer says. “It’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The video was uploaded to YouTube by the user George Henderson. The title: “The First Wave — Documentation.”
Weller and Bissell rejected Krazy George’s claims right away. In 1984, a reporter for the soon-defunct Pittsburgh Press set out to find the truth and found himself in the middle of a war of words.
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“Number one, Oakland, where he said he did it, is not a true oval,” Bissell countered. “Number two, I saw the film and it was nothing more than a stand-up cheer, section by section by section.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” he added, “Krazy George can climb a pole and sit on it.”
Krazy George fired back, “I enjoy every part of it except those people who have the gall to take credit for it.” He later said he was “like the Wright brothers.”
As the debate raged, Rick Anderson, a columnist for The Seattle Times, took the matter to the Library of Congress. He filed papers to copyright The Wave in the name of Weller, Bissell and Seattle sports fans. But he couldn’t remember if anything came of it (The Library of Congress said in an email the claim would have been rejected).
The Wave never stopped popping up at games, and neither did the fight for its origins.
When Bissell died in 2001, headlines around the country credited him as the co-inventor of The Wave.
Krazy George appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2015. He banged his drum, introduced himself as a professional cheerleader and told the judges he had invented The Wave. He lasted 10 seconds on the show.
Over time, Weller, the famed Yell King, grew tired of his creation and even considered killing it. Ten years after The Wave entered the world, Weller planned a Stop The Wave movement, complete with bumper stickers and a telethon.
But he didn’t go through with it, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1991, because although he was sick of The Wave he guessed it must give somebody joy.
Then again…
(Top photo: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
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