One Baltimore Ravens cheerleader, 23-year-old Courtney Lenz of Baltimore, Md., is a five-year veteran of the squad, but she didn’t receive an invitation to attend the biggest game NFL football game around.
Now fans of football (and t&a mostly) have taken to the internet, launching an online petition asking the Ravens to let Lenz cheer at the Super Bowl. After all how many chances like this come along? I mean this is the cheer squad that helped launch the career of Stacy Keibler.
“I wouldn’t even have reached out and let fans know if I didn’t think it was clearly wrong,” Lenz told ABCNews.com. “I’m just devastated by the whole situation. This was very unexpected… I didn’t even think there would be a chance of me not going with being a five-year veteran.”
The news came right after Lenz announced her planned retirement at the Ravens’ last home game against the Indianapolis Colts. She considers this move by the Ravens- leaving her off the cheerleader travel list of 32, to be retaliation for leaving, as she claims the team was hard on her all season. She is the only 3-yr veteran member of the squad who is not going. Lenz’s petition has over 2,000 signatures and she was voted the 57th hottest cheerleader in the NFL by some publication.
The Ravens claim they have to choose a select number of the 60-member squad for the Super Bowl, and Lenz didn’t make the cut. “As set by the NFL, we are permitted to bring 32 cheerleaders to the Super Bowl. Our selection process was based upon three criteria: seniority, performance ability and personal conduct throughout the season. As much as we would like to take the whole team, we are unable to do so, due to parameters set by the NFL,” spokeswoman Heather Harness, said in a statement to ABCNews.com
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, a Google News site generating millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Chicago Tribune.com, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
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