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He Blazed a Trail As a Cheerleader, Now Jerry Quandt Wants To Be Alderman

By Mark Konkol | August 13, 2014 8:48am
 In 1990 at Thornwood High School, Jerry Quandt broke the mold to win a spot on the cheer team. Now, he hopes to get elected as 43rd Ward alderman as an independent.
In 1990 at Thornwood High School, Jerry Quandt broke the mold to win a spot on the cheer team. Now, he hopes to get elected as 43rd Ward alderman as an independent.
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Carrie Greeney Campbell

LINCOLN PARK — When I was in high school a certain classmate who was clearly overflowing with school spirit asked about trying out with the girls for a spot on the cheerleading team.

The cheer coach told Jerry Quandt, "We don't have boy cheerleaders," and that was the moment he decided to prove her wrong.

"I went to the dean and then the principal to ask if there was a rule that Thornwood did not have male cheerleaders. And they said, ‘Absolutely not.' " Quandt said. "So, I formally submitted my application to try out. … I did it to prove wrong a double standard. I didn't think that one person's vision for how something should be — no boy cheerleaders in this case— was important enough to stop me."

In the end, Quandt made the cheer squad.

All the girls thought he was so cool for that.

"He kept us in stitches, and he was so full of energy," team captain Carrie Greeney said. "It was great having him on the squad."

And in the fall of 1990, the Thornwood Thunderbirds football team, myself included, made him pay for it.

We'll get to that later.

Twenty-four years later — after moving to New York City to become an international marketing expert, getting married and starting a family — Quandt moved back to Chicago and embraced his role as a Lincoln Park stay-at-home dad.

He got involved in community issues in his spare time, a fulfilling public service that made him wonder: "Can a truly independent candidate run for alderman and win?"

Well, that's exactly what he's about to find out.

On Tuesday, Quandt told me he will challenge incumbent Ald. Michele Smith and former Special Olympics president Jen Kramer — who has the backing of the politically mighty Sheahan family — in the 43rd Ward.

Already, Quandt says he's amassed a team of about 30 volunteers and enough cash to launch a formidable independent campaign that aims to "bring our neighbors together to come up with solutions to the issues we face in the ward."

Quandt got a taste of Lincoln Park's issues by getting involved in the battle to ease overcrowding at Lincoln Elementary, where he served on the Local School Council until this year.

"I was watching people hurl points back and forth at each other not to solve the problem, but to argue for their solution," he said. "That prompted me to get involved with the issue … and I worked to bring people together on a compromise. It wasn't the best, but it was a solution."

Later, Quandt got involved in community meetings regarding redevelopment proposals for the former Children's Memorial Hospital site, which he said, "disintegrated" into heated arguments under Ald. Smith.

"I became frustrated with her approach to her role as alderman. This job is a community caretaker role, and it requires someone who can bring people together and to create a vision and establish criteria for accomplishing that vision. That wasn't happening. People in the ward don't know what an alderman does for them. They feel like the mayor makes decisions and the alderman goes along with it."

 In 1990 at Thornwood High School, Jerry Quandt broke the mold to win a spot on the cheer team. Now, he hopes to get elected as 43rd Ward alderman as an independent.
In 1990 at Thornwood High School, Jerry Quandt broke the mold to win a spot on the cheer team. Now, he hopes to get elected as 43rd Ward alderman as an independent.
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Jerry Quandt, Facebook

Quandt, a marketer who knows how to stay on message, says the 43rd Ward faces three key challenges: balancing preservation and progress when it comes to development; investing in local schools and preparing for an overcrowding crunch at Lincoln Park High; and being an independent advocate for tackling the city's budget woes in a fiscally responsible way.

"I'm a family man who moved his kids into the city. I would love more families to move into the city and to do that we need to elevate our schools to the highest level," he said. "And absolutely tackle the tough issue of our city budget because we — and I'm talking about property taxpayers across the city — will be the hardest hit if we don't."

In a contentious three-way race, which could end up with even more candidates, Quandt says he likes his chances.

He laughed when I reminded him of that time in high school when he beat the odds, made the cheerleading squad and paid the price during the football season.

It was, after all, Quandt's idea to do a progressive number of pushups for every point our football team scored, an idea he cribbed from the Notre Dame cheer team.

"What I didn't realize was that our football team was going to be so exceptionally great, and I didn't think through the implications of scoring so many touchdowns," Quandt said, while I laughed out loud in his face.

What came to mind was that sunny Saturday afternoon when the T-birds scored 63 points on the lowly Eisenhower High School Cardinals.

"I'm still convinced that during half-time you guys went in the locker room and decided to run up the score just to torture me," he said.

"I didn't just do seven push ups every time you guys scored. I did seven, then 14, then 21, then 28 and so on. It felt like I did a thousand pushups, and I had to end the game doing jumping jacks because my arms felt like Jell-o and I wasn't going to give up cheering you guys on."

And that made me think about what might happen if Jerry gets elected in the 43rd Ward.

One day in 2015, somebody — maybe a bossy mayor and probably a reporter or two — just might punish him for it.

We'll just have to wait and see.

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