Greatest Disappointments Like most athletes, I looked forward to competition day. Cheerleading is a rough sport getting thrown through the air like a catapult and trusting people to catch you and flipping in mid air hoping your body will land back on two feet. Injuries are expected because not everyone is perfect and mistakes happen, but I never thought it could be me. Yes, I consider myself an athlete. Cheerleading takes just as much time and effort just like any other sport. The only difference
Cheerleading is Not a Sport According to Joe Hatton, the author of the article, “Sports Beat - The sport of cheerleading: It’s more than just pompoms and smiles,” cheerleading is a sport because it requires strength, balance, and coordination. The major claim of the article is “cheerleading is a sport - plain and simple - and cheerleaders are true athletes” (Hatton C-04). The article offers the following arguments in support of the claim. Hatton claims because cheerleaders are athletes, cheerleading
It is often said that cheerleaders are just “flirts in skirts”, and that cheerleading should not be considered an official sport. Some people do not take into account all the time, hard work, and risks that go into cheering. Many people assume that cheering at a football or basketball game is easy, but they have no idea the amount of effort it takes to memorize over a dozen cheers with specific hand motions and footwork. Sideline cheering at games is not the only kind of cheering. There is also
that cheerleading is the fastest growing girls’ sport, yet more than half of Americans do not believe it is a sport. A sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature” (dictionary.com). Cheerleading at a competitive level is physically demanding and requires team work to be the best. The misconception of cheerleaders being weak, nonathletic crowd entertainers makes people believe cheerleaders are not athletes and that cheerleading is just
Because some cheerleading squads don’t compete, society thinks of it merely as a physical activity. Even though cheerleaders’ main purpose is to support other athletic activities, cheer squads whom compete, follow all physical criteria to be considered a sport. Cheerleaders put forth an incredible amount of determination. They practice tirelessly to show off their skills, with little or no recognition for their efforts. Cheerleading is a sport because it requires physical fitness, skill, dedication
Cheerleading has not always been a feminine sport. In the 1880’s, Princeton University created an all-male pep club to the football game against the University of Minnesota. Since then cheerleading has evolved profoundly. In the late 80’s Cheerleading competitions began with the help of the Universal Cheer Association. Cheerleading Competitions require a vast majority of time dedicated to practices and teammates. The process of creating a routine no longer than two-minutes and thirty-seconds, with
The history of cheerleading is connected to the development of sports in the United States and crowd participation at athletic events. In 1869, the first American football college game took place at Rutgers University against Princeton University in Piscataway, New Jersey. This was where cheerleading initially began. By the 1880s, the students at Princeton formed an all-male student “pep club” to lead chants and yells in order to support their team and create an exciting sports environment. To motivate
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
inspires an uproar from crowds who come to watch them compete. Works Cited "History of Cheerleading." Cheer Union Organization. Cheer Union, n.d. Web. 16 Feb 2014. . Maurer, Tracy Nelson. The Cheerleaders. 1st ed. Vero Beach, Florida: Rourke Publishing LLC, 2006. 4-8. Print. Maurer, Tracy Nelson. Competitive Cheerleading. 1st ed. Vero Beach, Florida: Rourke Publishing LLC, 2006. Print. Mozes, Alan. "As Cheerleading Evolves, Injuries Mount." Health.US News. N.p., 28 Jun 2013. Web. 16 Feb 2014. . Webster
and Skirts The Discourse Community that I am a part of is the Lake High School Cheerleading Team. I was on Varsity for all four years of high school for football and basketball seasons. We are not your typical high school cheerleading team however; we stunt, tumble, and compete. We break the status quo of being dumb blondes and we work hard to be the athletes that we are. The crisis of the Lake High School Cheerleading Team is the stereotypes that our high school students and administration makes
“Cheering will get you nowhere.” That is what I was told when I wanted to try out for cheerleading. Yet, I never really knew how much of an impact trying out for the cheerleading back in 7th grade could change me for the better. One moment of courage changed how I talk, interact with others, and how I handle situations. Before I tried out for my 7th grade cheerleading team I was an extremely unconfident, young girl. I did have friends and would talk to them a lot, but they were people I had been
sport. Trying to clarify this long debate on how cheerleading is a sport and how it is not is my biggest intention in this paper. Polls say that 60% of the voters think cheerleading is a sport and 35% think it is not (Varnavas), so the polls are already on my side. Cheerleading should be accepted as a sport and it is all up to the voters, depending on if the voters are into competitive cheerleading or non-competitive cheerleading. The birth of cheerleading was commenced with an all boys “pep club” that
mind; why? Why is it when googling “Sports that aren 't considered sports” Cheerleading comes up so often? Those were the many questions I had at the beginning of my search. I planned
Cheerleading is not considered a sport because we live in a country founded on sexism. Picture a cheerleader, what does she look like? What is she doing? More often than not, people will think of a snob nosed blondie who is doing nothing more than shaking her pom-poms, which is farther from the truth. Cheerleaders put in a lot of time, sweat, blood, injuries, and stress into perfecting the complex craft. This work is discredited every time some ignorant person says that they don’t feel that cheerleading
The roots of cheerleading are very closely tied to one of America’s favorite sports, football. The first ever intercollegiate football game was in 1869 between Rutgers University: New Jersey and Princeton University. By the early 1880s, one of Princeton’s graduate students (Thomas Peebles) had created the first official all-male pep squad. In 1898, during a game between University of Minnesota and Princeton, a guy named Johnny Campbell saw Princeton’s pep squad and put together his own group of people
Cheerleading made me in to the person I am today, put me on the right path, a path that I want to be on. Cheerleading taught me how to be strong leader because I would step up in front of others and lead the way for them to follow. I set good examples and think of myself as a great role model. Because of cheering
Over the years, many believe cheerleading should not be considered a sport but it should be. Consider cheerleading a sport will stop the lack of respect for those who disagree cheerleading is a sport. The problem with cheerleading not being a sport “means that there is no national governing agency that determines what type of safety training coaches need to have” (Delp). In fact, cheerleading claims to be the most dangerous activity to ever experience and without the proper safety training it will
While historically cheerleading has been viewed as a hobby, it has evolved from glorified fans yelling on the sidelines to hard working athletes competing for national titles, and it is time for it to be named an official sport. Cheerleading is usually correlated with the negative stigma of being conceited, unintelligent, and unathletic. In television shows, mass media, movies, and popular culture, cheerleaders are rarely shown as being smart or kind. In many instances, they are shown in revealing
Almost all of my life cheerleading was a pretty big thing in my life and cheering in high school was a dream of mine. As an 8th grader I was pretty confident that I was going to make the team; maybe not varsity but I thought for sure I would make JV. I was wrong. I started cheering at age five I felt like I was pretty good. I was tumbling at age eight and that’s when things went wrong I was going for my back hand spring and landed on my head I got a really bad concussion and now I don’t remember
forward into my bases’ hands and push off their shoulders, I feel a breeze against my cheeks. I am a cheerleader. Yes, I wear short skirts, high ponytails that swing side to side every time I walk, and smile until my mouth falls off my face. But cheerleading is much more than that, it actually requires a lot of athleticism! So weird right? People tend to think that it is very easy to go out on a field do a couple of jumps, throw people in the air, and do a routine that will only be performed once.