Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press

Six years after she started the Detroit Pride on a whim after a conversation with a former Detroit Lions executive at a wedding, Andrea Wilamowski is finally seeing her vision come true.

The Lions announced Monday that they will have a cheerleading squad this fall for what’s believed to be the first time in the modern history of the team.

The all-female squad will hold tryouts later this month, be introduced in August and be on the sidelines for the Lions’ Sept. 18 home opener against the Tennessee Titans.

Lions president Rod Wood announced the move in a statement released by the team that championed the addition as part of the organization’s "commitment to improving the Detroit Lions fan experience on and off the field."

“After thorough consideration and receiving input from our fans through season ticket member surveys and focus groups, we believe that this is an opportunity to elevate our game day entertainment,” Wood said in a statement.

Though the Lions have talked openly about adding cheerleaders for months, and privately held discussions about the concept for years, the current movement started in 2010 when Wilamowski co-founded the Detroit Pride as the team’s unofficial cheerleaders.

The Pride did not perform on the field at games, but roamed the concourse, led cheers from outside the stadium and even produced its own calendar.

Wilamowski, the Pride’s director of operations and president of The Biggest Loser Race Series, said her goal in starting the Pride “was more to be kind of a test team for (the Lions) so that they could see what it could be, and I think they finally did see that.”

“Our whole goal when we started the Detroit Pride cheerleaders was to bring professional cheerleading opportunities to women in Detroit and be able to be mentors to youth, and in the meantime showing the Lions brass that it’s something that the fans had wanted and we answered a call for that,” Wilamowski said. “I put a quarter of a million dollars of hard work into the last six years in paying girls in season tickets and buying tickets and paying people. It’s all come down to this and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see it happen.”

Lions cheerleader announcement is huuuuuuge!

The Lions were one of six NFL teams without cheerleaders in recent seasons and had long ruled out the possibility of adding a squad despite regular questions about the subject from fans.

Wood said this spring that Lions owner Martha Firestone Ford was not opposed to adding cheerleaders, as many had long suspected, and that the organization was examining the logistics of how best to employ a team.

"I don’t know where that gets reported," Wood said last month. "I think everything that we’re considering is part of what the fans are interested in, and if we’re going to have cheerleaders, we’re going to do it the right way. And if we decide not to have them, we’ll talk about why we decided not to have them. It’s not because of some preconceived notion that we can’t do it."

The Lions will hold auditions for cheerleaders beginning June 25 at Ford Field, with callbacks through that weekend and a training camp for finalists in mid-July. The minimum age to try out is 21.

Rebecca Girard-Smoker, who spent 10 seasons as dance team director for the Detroit Pistons and about two months as a consultant for the Pride in 2011-12, will coach the Lions cheerleaders.

She did not return a message seeking comment Monday, but Wilamowski said she’s well equipped to handle the “big undertaking” of picking a team that could surpass 20 members.

“They’re talented women that are going to come out of this,” Wilamowski said. “And in Detroit there aren’t many opportunities for women once they reach their 20s to be active like this, and I think people need to look at it like that and supporting their team, and look at it as entertainment value, like a Las Vegas show.

“You’re going to go, you’re going to sit there, you’re going to get entertainment dollars, and I think that as the Lions continue to raise the prices of their tickets, which they did, that this is exactly what they needed to do. They listened to their fans. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have the leadership team that’s in there now. This is exactly what the Lions have been needing and I think it would be wonderful if this year we made the playoffs and went all the way then we could just say it was because of the cheerleaders.”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Download our free Lions Xtra app on your Apple and Android devices.

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