One out of every 200 baton twirlers in the country is a man. And one of them works at Baylor College of Medicine.

“We’re very rare; I estimate 1-in-200 is probably a guy,” said Dr. Trenton Haltom, assistant professor of Health Services Research and qualitative methodologist for the Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (IQuESt). “In terms of college twirling, I can think of two guys at the University of West Virginia, and one who just graduated from North Carolina State University.”

While Haltom no longer competes in twirling, he has worked as a judge for the National Baton Twirling Association (NBTA) since 2017. Before putting down his batons, he competed across the country for the NBTA and the United States Twirling Association (USTA).

“It’s pretty unique for a guy to be involved in this sport, and that was the subject of my master’s thesis at the University of Houston: men in baton twirling,” he said. “I have two published academic articles and a book chapter on that subject.” The articles are published in Men and Masculinities and Sociology of Sport Journal, respectively; the book chapter is part of a volume.  

Though well-versed on the subject, Haltom considered himself late to the twirling game when he started training at 16. Growing up in Lubbock, Texas, he remembers seeing a twirling studio next door to his preschool and looking at photos of his mom throwing a baton in the air at high school football games.

“She was a majorette for her school, and I grew up in Lubbock which is known for twirling programs at Texas Tech. It’s a southern tradition,” Haltom said. “Being a boy, I was told ‘Boys don’t twirl; boys don’t dance or cheer,’ and luckily that has changed a little over time.”

After getting his driver’s license, he drove to his first lesson, and months later, he began competing in twirling competitions in Texas.

In 2012, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma where he was a finalist for featured twirler. In graduate school, he was the first male twirler at the University of Houston in more than 40 years. While studying in Houston, he competed internationally for Team USA in the International Baton Twirling Federation Grand Prix.

After earning his master’s degree, he went on to twirl and study at the University of Nebraska while working on his doctorate in sociology. He was the first man to participate in twirling there since the early 2000s.

In Nebraska, Haltom shared his skills as a twirling coach at two local dance studios and taught private lessons. But his twirling performance career was cut short.

“While performing, I ruptured my Achilles (tendon) in front of thousands of people,” he said. “That cut my performance opportunities short, but I fully recovered and began judging across the country.”

Unlike dance and cheerleading, baton twirling has not seen much national attention in terms of reality TV. Haltom has heard of well-known twirling studios being approached to do shows like “Cheer” or “Dance Moms,” but he said many studio owners “don’t want the drama.”

Tied to low public visibility, twirling popularity has dropped since its heyday in the 1970s and 80s, which Haltom attributes to the passing of Title IX in 1972. Girls now can play a number of sports that their grandmothers could not, and that has affected the number of girls who join twirling.

“The mental strength that comes with performing as an individual in front of that many people – or even two judges – requires physicality, hand-eye coordination, dance and gymnastics,” he said. “You use both hands, so ambidexterity is involved. Twirlers are smart; we use both sides of our brain! There’s even physics involved.”

As a professor and researcher, Haltom uses his experiences, the skills he learned while twirling and perseverance from his injury to encourage resilience in his students and peers.

By Julie Garcia