Quick answer: there's no single inventor of cheerleading as we know it today - it grew gradually out of organised college crowd-leading in the United States. The most commonly cited "first cheerleader" is Johnny Campbell, a University of Minnesota student who is often credited with leading an organised crowd chant at a football game in 1898.
Why There's No Single Inventor
Cheerleading didn't appear as one invented activity - it evolved from informal crowd noise into organised "yell leading" over the final decades of the 19th century, as American colleges began appointing students specifically to direct and coordinate crowd chants at football games. That gradual, collective evolution makes a single "inventor" difficult to identify with certainty.
The Most Commonly Cited Origin Point
Within that gradual history, one specific moment is most often repeated as cheerleading's symbolic starting point: a University of Minnesota student, Johnny Campbell, is widely credited with leading an organised cheer from in front of a football crowd in 1898, generally treated as the first time an individual took on the role we'd now recognise as a cheerleader.
Why This Story Should Be Treated Carefully
Early organisational history like this is often preserved through institutional retellings and oral tradition rather than extensive contemporary documentation, so precise dates, names and "firsts" can vary between sources. Treat the Johnny Campbell story as the most widely repeated origin point, not an uncontested, precisely documented fact.
What's More Certain
What's better supported across sources is the broader pattern: organised crowd leading at American college sports developed through the late 1800s, was overwhelmingly performed by men in its earliest decades, and gradually formalised into the structured activity that would eventually become both sideline cheer and, much later, competitive cheer. See Were the First Cheerleaders Men? for more on this.
A Note on Dates and Sources
For a topic with this much variation in how it's retold, we recommend cross-checking any specific date or "first" claim against a dedicated historical or archival source if precision matters to you - see our sources page.