Cheer Medal and Bow Display Ideas for Cheerleaders

Ask any cheer parent what takes over the house and they will not say medals. They will say bows.

A competitive cheerleader's collection is really two collections — competition medals, and game-day and competition bows — and most display solutions handle only one of them. The result is medals on the wall and a plastic tub of £25 bows crushed in a closet.

The two-rail principle

A cheer display works when it separates the jobs: a rail for medals, and a rail or row of hooks for bows. Bows need more clearance than medals — a full-size competition bow is 15 to 20 cm across — so a display designed for medals alone will crush them.

Our personalized cheer medal hanger and bow holder is built around exactly this split: medal rails below, bow space above, with the athlete's name engraved across the top.

Ideas by level

Youth and rec teams

At this level the collection is small and every medal matters. Hang everything, put the display where the athlete sees it daily, and let the engraving say something about effort — Keep showing up reads better on a nine-year-old's wall than a champion line they have not earned yet and may feel pressure from.

School cheer

School collections mix medals with non-hangable things — patches, letters, ribbons from spirit awards. Keep the display for medals and bows, and frame the patches separately; mixing formats on one board reads as clutter.

All-star and competitive

Volume is the challenge here, same as Irish dance. Two patterns work: a season display that gets photographed and reset each May, or a "majors only" wall — nationals and summit medals on display, the rest in a keepsake box. Both are better than trying to hang forty medals at once.

Bow care while displayed

• Hang bows by the ponytail holder, never by the tails — the tails stretch.
• Keep them out of direct sunlight. Sublimated bow fabric fades faster than medal ribbon.
• Dust with a hairdryer on cold, not a cloth. Cloth catches rhinestones.

Make it a team gift

Cheer runs on team culture, and a personalized display works as an end-of-season gift for the whole squad — same design, each athlete's own name. If you are a coach or team parent considering a group order, our guide to coach and team gifts covers timing and how to collect names without spoiling the surprise.

Setting it up

Mounting is the same as any wall display — our hanging guide covers walls from drywall to rental-safe methods, and kids' sports display ideas has more on height and placement for young athletes.

Browse the full other sports medal hanger collection, or see how personalization works — name, icon and quote are engraved free on every display.