Watch History-Making Male Cheerleader Audition for ‘American Idol’

Kyle Tanguay is the first male dancer to perform for the Philadelphia Eagles.

As much as sports are about winning, they are also about supporting your team mates, on and off the field. The Philadelphia Eagles cheer squad showed just that when they took their teamwork off the field, and into the American Idol audition rooms to support their teammate Kyle Tanguay.

Tanguay is one of a small wave of male cheerleaders getting into the sport at the NFL level. When he made the squad in September, he became the first male cheerleader in history to join the Eagles, but followed Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies who cheer for the Los Angeles Rams, and Jesse Hernandez who cheers for the New Orleans Saints. But, only a few months in and he’s already set his sights higher.

On Sunday night, Tanguay made his American Idol debut, revealing that he had never sang publicly before. Along with him, he brought the entire Eagles cheer team who gave him a special cheer, just for the occasion. The encouragement set the stage perfectly for the dancer’s rendition of “Mercy” by Shawn Mendes. 

“I remember when we were kids, my sister and I would play ‘American Idol,’ and I would try to sing, and my sister would sit there and be like, ‘Sorry, not today,’” he told Outsports of taking the experience.. “It’s the thing we always dreamed of. When you think back to 2006, 2007, 2008, American Idol was the show everybody watched. People knew more about American Idol than they did sometimes for the election. I remember watching with my family and then going into school, we would talk about the contestants, and who had done great, and who was in the running to be the next superstar. So to have this opportunity to be on a huge like that and have a platform like that, and I’m so grateful American Idol and the Eagles have allowed me to show this side of me.”

And for good reason: Tanguay’s audition got him straight through to vegas, in a unanimous decision by the judges. Not too bad of a hobby during the off-season.

RELATED | Jerry Harris From Netflix’s ‘Cheer’ Might Be Coming Back to TV