When most people think of cheerleading, they think of the spirit squads that attempt to pump up the local crowd at high school basketball and football games. People are not aware of what these athletes are doing when they are not in front of these crowds. Strangers to cheerleaders who do not follow the sport extensively do not know the exact involvement of the athletes in this sport, at all ages. Cheerleading requires athleticism like all other sports as you must be in shape and at a great fitness level to be involved in most circumstances. Cheerleaders have to know what they’re doing at all times; while knowing what everyone else on the team is doing as well, which involves a high level of mental preparation. Cheerleading, high school or club teams are now considered one of the most dangerous sports, and there is even a rule book for competition cheerleading now. The book consists of the same concepts that any other team sports such as football would include. The book has rules and regulations for jumps, stunts, tumbling, and many other conditions that involve the sport; School cheerleading, on the other hand, has very few rules and very seldom do they tumble or stunt. Most schools are not allowed to stunt they’re what is referred to as, “ground bound.” People that do not know the facts about cheerleading have deemed cheerleading as not being a sport, they usually call these teams a spirit club and show disrespect towards these athletes. If people knew all of the facts and strengths of cheerleaders, they would consider cheerleading to be a sport just as much as your common sports.
Just like many other common sports, cheerleading has grueling practices and extensive training that these athletes must be able to endure. These athl...
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...tted their time and bodies to this activity.
Works Cited
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Ruddock, Rebecca. "Your Thoughts on Cheer." Personal interview. 12 Dec. 2013.
For competitive cheer you have to athletic if you want to be good. The cheerleaders are non stop tumbling, stunting, jumping, or dancing for more than two minutes. They never have a break in the routine that is pushed to the max with all the difficulty you can make and all of the legal things you can do in a routine. The sport
Teams don’t get as good as they are overnight. There’s a process. Just like every other sport, cheerleaders have to attend workouts/conditioning
Cheerleading isn’t a sport. Loads of cheerleaders have faced this controversial statement. An image of peppy girls, twirling in short skirts for the football team fills most people’s minds when considering the topic of cheerleading. The truth is, we are a strong team that works together to lift each other up, literally. Although we work day in and day out to perfect our stunts, tumbling, and routines, our talent still goes unnoticed by our peers. Negative stereotypes often surround cheerleaders. In my high school, we constantly battle to gain the respect of our classmates not just as athletes, but even simply as people. Some of the most involved and highest ranked students in our school make up our cheerleading squad, but those traits are forgotten
Have you ever just thought and engaged on curiosity on how it feels like to stand and balance on hands of people? Being thrown high in the air with just trusting three people to catch you? Lifting people together while exhibiting strength and trusting that the stunt won’t completely fall? Lastly, having the guts to cheer, shout and to put on that cheerful smile despite all the pain and sacrifices you made just to complete the routine? These people are extraordinary athletes. These athletes just don’t perform difficult stunts but they also uniquely combine the factor of performing and getting the crowd’s attention through their routine. They are called Cheerleaders. Most of the people who aren’t familiar of the content of the sport would think that Cheerleading is just for the purpose of performing and cheering for their own team or school, but to Cheerleaders, it’s more than just those conditions. It’s just something more special than that. It’s a vision and of course, pure passion.
Mozes, Alan. "As Cheerleading Evolves, Injuries Mount." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 28 June 2013. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.
The average cheerleader dedicates 6-20 hours a week of their time to their training and conditioning. Cheerleaders are definitely considered athletes and deserve to be recognized for their hard work as an individual and as a team (Smith). A cheerleaders hard work emerges from their goals that are set in the beginning of each season. Competitive cheerleading is a sport that possesses multiple goals throughout the season. Goals are a set of things that you and your team are determined to reach throughout that period of time together. Behavioral expectations and skill accomplishments are just a few of the goals that can be set by a cheerleader in order to be successful. Goals are extremely important, because they help grow the structure of a team in a positive way (“Goal
A study has found and proven that as a result of the amount of contact activity involved with cheerleading, “two thirds of very serious sports injuries suffered by girls in the United States” (Global Issues in Context). This inevitably highlights the rigors and risks cheerleaders endure as a result of their participation. In effect of cheerleading not being recognized as a sport and cheerleaders not being recognized as athletes, there is little awareness and support for the injuries cheerleaders encounter. Furthermore, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, “cheerleading is also among the top 20 sports with highest rate of head injuries” (Huffington Post). These head injuries include but are not limited to skull fractures, cervical spine injuries, brain injury, concussions, paralysis, and in severe cases, death. Nonetheless, as a result of cheerleading lacking recognition, injuries are typically underestimated despite their severity. It is important to consider the exertion a cheerleader must put in when completing a stunt. Being tossed or held in the air is the flyer who is then supported by two bases and a back spot. Despite being held up by a minimum of four people, one wrong move can result in the stunt collapsing, which can sometimes result in injury to both the
While getting all this training cheerleaders get injured yet they don’t stop cheerleading because they don’t want to let their team down or they don’t want to ruin the routine. Doctors try to point out the fact that cheerleaders get hurt as much any other sport. Sometimes their injuries are worse than those of football players. In the article Is cheerleading a sport? The American medical association think so. Dr Samantha says “Cheerleading is a leading cause of catastrophic injury in female athlete at the high school and college level” (Rose). She is saying that Cheerleaders get hurt just like in any other sport. Some of the cheerleaders won’t even know they’re hurt or they’ll know but they won’t go to the doctors. they won’t stop competing until the competition is over. Cheerleaders don’t use any kind of protection unlike many of the other sports. So if they fall while trying to do a dangerous move they could get seriously hurt. These cheerleaders challenge the limit of their body to do all the maneuvers that they have to do. Knowing these, people still believe cheerleading is not a sport. Even when cheerleaders risk getting injured to be able to
There is two things in this world that you should be scared of. The first thing is spiders, and the second is a cheerleader who has just been told cheerleading is not a sport. There are approximately 400,000 individuals in the Unites States in this day and age that participate in high school cheerleading (www.varsity.com). If you ask, most of them would tell you that they work their butts off, and they would say that cheerleading is a sport. In some cases some cheerleaders are fighting for their right to be called athletes because their school districts tell them that they aren’t. By doing this the school districts are portraying the message that cheerleading is a joke, and that it isn’t a real sport. It sets stereotypes for cheerleaders, and they have to work to overcome those stereotypes everyday. The school districts all over US not classifying cheerleading as a sport are in the wrong. For several reasons, all school districts should recognize cheerleading
Every sport has a strategy to win. On a competitive cheerleading team there is indeed is a way to keep score, therefore a way to win. There are many different score categories that make up a total score such as difficulty, style, tumbling, stunting, dancing, and sharpness of motions. When a squad messes up or makes mistakes, judges can deduct points from the overall score to make it known that a mistake occurred. This is similar to a foul or a flag on a play. There is a maximum amount of points that you can receive, but earning a perfect score is very hard to do. In the cheerleading world, the point system that can be so close and differ so little from other teams. Scores can differ as little as a tenth of a point to one hundred points or more. There is a winner and a loser just like sports that are classified as a sport or the ones that are competed on in the Olympics. Colleges are very biased when it comes to giving out scholarships and classifying cheerleading as a sport. It is very hard to attend college on a cheerleading scholarship. Most colleges make cheerleaders pay out of pocket for being on a cheerleading team. The college squads still compete for national titles and high school cheerleading teams still compete for state titles just like any other sports team would. It is all political when it comes to college sports due to the statistics of colleges and how the athletic department divides their money. Sports that are recognized as
Cheerleading is one of America’s oldest activities. Cheerleading started in the late 1880’s by all-male “pep clubs.” During a football game in 1898, Johnny Campbell was the first “cheerleader” to grace the field by leading the crowd in a now popular University of Minnesota chant. Afterwards, squads began to start up in colleges throughout the country as “yell leaders.” Although cheerleading is a considered a female sport, women didn’t show up on cheer squads until 1923. Female cheerleading became more frequent due to World War Ⅱ (Purvey). Many famous people are known to have been a part of a cheer squad, including George W. Bush who was “head” cheerleader at Phillips Academy in 1968 (Tho...
Pike, toe touch, eagle spread, left herkie, right herkie, these are all forms of jumps in cheerleading. When doing these jumps the cheerleader jumps high up into the air bringing both legs up and out simultaneously in a specific shape or form, while pointing the toes. The jumps that cheerleaders perform can easily be compared to the dunking of a basketball player. All of these jumps require adequate leg, thigh, and abdominal muscle just as any basket ball player. Not only must cheerleaders jump, they also must kick. By this I do not mean a simple karate kick, I’m talking about something much more difficult. In order to perform a cheerleading kick one must be very flexible. Cheerleaders have to be able to maintain their upright body form while raising their foot from the ground to the highest point possible above their heads with the toes pointed, sharp and precise, without looking sloppy or stumbling. This requires flexibility, skill, stamina, and strength. Not only must cheerleaders be able to jump high and kick higher, they must be able to hold another’s body weight. The base person must li...
Hatton, Joe. “Sports Beat - The Sport of Cheerleading: It’s a lot More than Just
Just like any other athlete cheerleaders are athletic and physically fit. Craig Peters the author of Chapter 3: Spirit or Sport? discusses that The Women Sports Foundation considers a sport to “Involve propelling a mass through air or overcoming the resistance of a mass” (Peters). Although cheerleading is not played with a certain type of ball, they do in fact propel a mass in the air and overcome the resistance of air. Cheerleaders are propelling a body into the air and catching it and they move their body through the air, tumbling, overcoming air resistance. Being on a cheer squad is physically demanding participants need to be fit and strong. Unlike any other sport cheerleading is tossing and catching a dead weight of at least one hundred pounds. In any other sport the ball weighs less than a pound. Shalimar Azine, captain of the Stamford High School cheerleading team states, “You need a lot of strength when you are throwing a girl up in the air. It’s not like throwing a football” (Ruden). Not only is c...
Cheerleader: a person who is a member of a group (typically a group of young women) who shouts out special songs or chants to encourage the team and entertain the crowd during a game in sports like American football and basketball (Merriam-Webster). In the beginning, cheerleaders did what they were known to do. They lead cheers, with spirit and megaphones, for the crowd to follow. Then, as time went on, cheerleading evolved into co-ed teams, high-flying stunts, which brought about how cheerleaders are perceived today. In the past ten to fifteen years, cheerleading has grown with the number of people who participate and the quality of how they perform their skills. Cheerleading is a sport based on the physical and mental strength the athletes