The Mexican wave is something that has been seen at sporting events for decades. Yet when did it all begin and why is it called the Mexican Wave? Well, a likely explanation is that it was invented in Mexico, but this is not the case. Read on to learn the origin of the wave and why it is now seen as a bad thing by many.
A Mexican wave is when one part of a crowd starts to stand up and lift their hands above their head. It becomes a wave when the people beside them all start to do the same thing. Technically a Mexican wave is only completed when it goes the whole way round an entire stadium. While many things like the wave can not be pinpointed to one moment or one man, it appears the wave can.
The inventor of the Mexican wave is Krazy George Henderson. He created the wave on October 15th, 1981 at a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees. The Yankees won the game 4-0, an easy victory. Yet the game is now famous for what the crowd was doing.
Krazy George Henderson has the title of being the longest-serving cheerleader ever, he has been a cheerleader for the last 41 years and is still going to this day. He says that the wave was something he had been working on in some shape or form for a number of years. It started when he was leading a San Jose State game. He turned to the crowd and asked one section to shout San, one section to shout Jose, and one section to shout State. Whenever he pointed at a section, they were to shout.
In later games, he would ask people to stand up when he pointed as well. As he moved from one side to another, this created a wave effect and he noted it with interest. Then in the Oakland game he decided to try something different, he caused the first wave.
This came under some controversy initially as Robb Weller the famous host of Entertainment Tonight claimed that he and a friend had invented the wave. Weller was a cheerleader as well and said that he first launched the wave on October 31st, 1981. As you can imagine, the controversy didn’t last long. After a quick check of calendars, everyone realized that October 31st came after October 15th. Weller had stolen the wave off Henderson (or had the same great idea two weeks later?). There were nearly 50,000 people in attendance at the Oakland game and there is a lot on record discussing the wave, with the Oakland Athletics actually including it in their season highlights video. Case closed.
However, from that point a number of teams started to adopt the Mexican wave and by the mid-1980s it was being done by many sports teams in America. When the World Cup reached Mexico in 1986 the wave was introduced to the world. This is why it is called the Mexican wave.
While the Mexican wave was loved by everyone when it first came to pass, today it is a little less loved. The wave is something that takes almost total audience participation to pull off and while most people are happy with a couple of attempts, the novelty can wear off pretty quickly. If you have a big plate of nachos on your lap and a beer in your hand, the Mexican wave is not the ideal move to pull.
Today the Mexican wave is seen as the biggest indicator of a boring game. If the entire audience is so bored by a game that they decided to distract themselves with off-field antics, you know it is a non-event. If we think back the original wave it was a game that the Yankees won 4-0, perhaps it started due to a boring game as well.