If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I don’t want to come back as a bird, or a tree, or the world’s richest woman, or the geoscientist who discovers that shutting down water parks will save our planet. I want to come back as a Crimsonette.
My New York City husband, Lex, asked me, “What’s a Crimsonette?”
I said, “You know, the baton twirlers marching at the front of the University of Alabama’s Million Dollar Band. With the white go-go boots and the Wonder Woman unitards, hair big enough to hide a six-pack of Mr. Pibb, and makeup so picture-perfect it belongs in a gilded frame at the Frick.”
“Is that a cheerleader?” Lex asked.
“No, cheerleaders have pom-poms.”
“Is that what you watch Sunday mornings on ESPN?”
“No, those are reruns of national high school dance championships.”
I was raised in Tuscaloosa in the eighties, so my memories of the Crimsonettes are dated. Now they wear cowboy boots and thousand-dollar two-pieces with BAMA written in sequins across their hot pants. But they still have the-higher-the-hair-the-closer-to-Jesus TRESemmé-sprayed locks that can withstand hours on a football field in Alabama humidity. They still have the Bryant-Denny Stadium jumbotron smiles. And they still hurl hot metal rods cooked in the game-day sun twenty feet into the air, do a twirl, and expect to catch them. So they are always looking up. There is no sport more optimistic.
Former Crimsonette captain and social media influencer Chloe Holladay, who graduated with a nursing degree in 2024, is so optimistic that she aspired to a job that didn’t exist: Since 2025, she’s twirled for the Tennessee Titans as the first (and only current) NFL majorette in two decades.
Holladay once said that her Crimsonette coach “Mrs. April” Henderson taught her that “we are blessed to be a blessing.” So to give back to a young woman who makes the team during April tryouts, Holladay started the Extra-ette Scholarship. Holladay said, “The root of the name is because I am very extra.”
Extra is Southern Lady Code for “brings a baton to a knife fight and wins with pizzazz.” The Crimsonettes are the living embodiment of homecoming corsages but must be as tough as pigskin. As far as I know, Alabama football players don’t have to audition to stay on the team every year.
In 1986, the sitcom Designing Women’s Julia Sugarbaker made baton twirling sound like domestic terrorism when she ripped into the current Miss Georgia World in defense of her sister Suzanne’s talent: “She didn’t twirl just a baton—that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and twelve thousand people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie—just so you will know, and your children will someday know—is the night the lights went out in Georgia!”
Hmm. Maybe I’d like to be reincarnated as Julia Sugarbaker. Or better yet, Suzanne, who claimed to work out daily, twirling her baton to the tune of “St. Louis Blues” in a silk blouse and espadrilles.
Now, let me be clear about my Crimsonette do-over fantasy. I am fifty-five years old and do not want to go on one of those reality competition shows where I squeeze myself into what I consider to be a bathing suit and learn to do split rolls and horizontal leg pops. There’s a reason writers aren’t invited onto Dancing with the Stars or that survival show where they strap you into a helicopter and submerge you in the icy Atlantic until you gurgle uncle. I’m up for thrifting with Lara Spencer and turning a trunk into a coffee table, but that’s as far as my risk factor goes.
And yet, bless his heart, Lex got me a baton for my birthday. It’s a Star Line Starlet with a twenty-eight-inch silver shaft and white rubber ends. Have I taken it to Central Park or looked up lessons on YouTube? I have not. Finger rolls in the safety of my living room offer enough excitement. But I do hold onto my Crimsonette fantasies. I keep my baton in my umbrella stand so that on my way out the door, I can remind myself to meet the day with courage, stamina, glamour, and a little something extra.
Helen Ellis is a Garden & Gun contributing editor and the author of five books, including the national bestseller American Housewife and Southern Lady Code. Raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, she lives in New York City with her husband, Lex.