Jeffrey Gorman Webb, professionally Jeff Webb

Jeff Webb was an American cheerleading coach, educator, and entrepreneur who fundamentally transformed the sport's institutional structure and competitive landscape. Born in Dallas, Texas in 1949 or 1950, Webb participated in cheerleading in high school and at the University of Oklahoma before joining Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer's National Cheerleaders Association, where he absorbed the camp-based teaching model while developing his vision for a more athletic and entertainment-driven approach to the activity.

In 1974, Webb founded the Universal Cheerleaders Association and the enterprise that became Varsity Spirit. Through UCA camps, he scaled the dissemination of new material while integrating instruction, apparel, competitions, and media into a networked national system. He helped establish national championship formats and negotiated television relationships—including ESPN broadcasts in 1983—that brought competitive cheerleading before a national audience. His model emphasized tumbling, partner stunts, pyramids, synchronized motion, and showmanship while preserving the activity's crowd-leadership traditions.

In 2004, Webb founded the International Cheer Union and served as its president, expanding the organization to more than 120 national federations. In 2021, the International Olympic Committee granted full recognition to the ICU, a significant governance milestone even though cheerleading has not become an Olympic medal event. Webb stepped down from Varsity leadership in 2020 while continuing his international advocacy work.

Webb's legacy is both transformative and contested. His systems created unprecedented opportunities and trained millions of athletes worldwide. At the same time, Varsity's market dominance drew antitrust criticism and settlements, while the escalating technical difficulty of competitive routines intensified debates about athlete safety and protection. Any serious assessment of his influence must account for both the structures and opportunities he built and the questions those structures have raised about commercialization, access, and governance in the sport.

Webb died in Memphis, Tennessee on 19 March 2026 following an accident, at the age of 76.