As a competition cheerleading veteran and national championship title holder, I take the sport of cheerleading very seriously. Quite the opposite of my personal views, Louisiana Sports Gym, a local competition and recreational cheerleading gym, turns it into a complete and utter joke. Competition cheerleading is hardly ever recognized as a legal sport in Louisiana and LA Sports is adding to its reasons why. When a competitive cheer gym pops up in a rural town like Houma, it takes much effort and dedication to make the business succeed. Louisiana Sports Gym revolves their company around being unique and unlike any other establishment in the area. Unfortunately, this is a disadvantage and will ultimately ruin the company and quite possibly the sport for locals who attend. This business not only is a waste of space, but also is a poor excuse for an organization. The gym’s management lacks pride and is significantly noticed throughout the gym. The lack of responsibility and dignity is reflected in the building’s upkeep, the financial turnover, the lack of space, and the employee morale.
As I pull into the minute parking lot of Louisiana Sports Gym, I noticed a tiny building resembling a machine shop surrounded by overgrown grass and abandoned lots. My first impression of the outside caused me to fear what wreckage I would soon find inside. I took my first steps through the building and I noticed a small lobby area unfit for the crowd that occupied it. There was one small, black couch, two dining room type chairs, and a rocking chair awkwardly arranged near two overly priced vending machines. There were dark, brown dirt smudges that stood out on what was supposed to be plain beige walls. The lobby had a small office filled...
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...ir technique and freak out during the activity and could potentially injure themselves. “This happened on three occasions in the past week,” one worker claims. Most of the teachers did a superb job at coping with their restricted area by being aware of their surroundings and acting accordingly, but there was one who could care less. This worker, similar to the lady in the lobby, has had three children injure themselves on her watch and they had to be rushed to the emergency room.
Louisiana Sports Gym is absolutely careless when dealing with student’s safety, financial improvement, and building maintenance, which will ultimately ruin this business and bury it underneath its competition. LA Sports Gym should be boycotted by the cheerleading population because your motivation will be deterred and your cheerleading career will only result in a negative outcome.
The Rockstar Athletics All-Star Cheer Gym is one of the most important communities I have been affiliated with throughout my lifetime. Rockstar Athletics touches many cities with children, mainly young girls, within 15-45 minutes of the gym's location. Rockstar Athletics has held countless number of clinics for all ages and the cheer gym as a whole has attended multiple parades in cities surrounding the home gym in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The gym also attends multiple competitions around the United States, my favorite The Summit in Orlando, Florida. Our team received a select bid for the first time in the coaches 15 year history this past spring and were honored to represent our
Last year, during one of my high school’s football games, a couple of students approached my friend and I. “Why do we need cheerleaders?”, “Don’t you think you guys are sort of distracting the football players?”, were the questions directed towards us. Because of my timid freshman self, I was unable to answer their question at the time. Why exactly did Cheerleaders matter? As the year went on, I couldn’t help but notice the drastic effects the
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 the US not classifying cheerleading as a sport are in the wrong. For several reasons, all school districts should recognize cheerleading as a sport.
New routines, stunts, and gymnastic aspects are constantly being discovered and mastered by cheerleaders every day. Eventually the number of injuries will rise and it will become evident to all that something should have been done. It is time to make this sport official before more injuries happen.
The New York Times states 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 a hobby but cheerleaders that compete at a competitive level are in fact athletes because it meets the standards of what a sport is, which includes rules and regulations, and overcoming air resistance.
Cheerleading has all the elements to be a sport, being a physical activity, competes against other team for entertainment purposes. I have given differences and similarities as I compared cheerleading to other well-known sports. Show them some respect, it’s time you become more accepting to the obvious, that cheerleading is a sport.
Cheerleading is more than pom-poms, short skirts, and bows. Bill Pennington, an award-winning journalist, sportswriter, and author, articulates the need for aggressive training and a strengthening of regulations to minimize the number student-athletes injured subsequently to cheer activities. Pennington’s article, “As Cheerleaders Soar Higher, So does the Danger”, first published on March 31, 2007, in The New York Times. Incorporated in the article he describes cheer in this way, “For decades, they stood by safe and smiling, a fixture on America’s sidelines” (Pennington). This article appeared in the sports section of The New York Times and the distribution to readers included print as well as the internet. Although this newspaper targets the
...ver the many past years it has grown at extreme rates and now includes both male and female participants. While I showed that there are two types of cheerleading: sideline and competitive, I know that cheerleaders like me have appeared on ESPN for a fact. Modern cheerleading squads perform athletic technique at there best and often are showcased at competitions for titles and awards. This and many other factors help negate the arguments that deny cheerleading’s recognition as a sport. Cheerleading has changed so much in recent years that it has become a booming industry that continues to grow as participation increases over time. Finally, cheerleading is an activity with athleticism that far outweighs that of many other recognized sports, but requires the technique and strength that nationally accepted sports are praised for daily and deserves this same respect.
A common perception about a cheerleader is that their sole role in sports is to chant and encourage teams that are playing on the field from the sidelines or stands of a game. However, towards the end of the 20th century, cheerleaders have taken on more of an active role. Cheerleaders take part in competitions against other schools based on the skills they acquire throughout the season. States like Virginia, Michigan, and Georgia have officially recognized cheerleading as a sport and have included the activity as a part of each state’s respective league. However, there are many more states that have not yet considered cheerleading a sport. Cheerleading has two facets, competition and sideline. While competitive cheer may require more athleticism and skill than sideline cheer, one should consider cheerleading as a sport due to its need of athleticism and training, its role in stabilizing and promoting social norms, and the competitive nature between teams for the goal of winning.
Cheerleaders need skill along with athleticism now there is someone on the cheerleaders sides; Academy of Pediatrics fight for cheerleading to be considered a sport. “The goal is to reduce injuries among cheerleaders and to ensure the same attention to safety is paid to cheerleaders as to athletes in other sports” (S-P-O-R-T). “After all there are 3.7 Million cheerleaders reported at the age of 6 and up, why don 't they deserve the attention? Why don 't they deserve classification of a sport?” (S-P-O-R-T).
It was two hours before our anticipated game against Manitou Springs, the second ranked team in the state. As I walked through the brick arches I heard nothing but honking traffic from blocks away. I got an eerie feeling when I saw all the smoke coming out of industrial factories, and noticed that no one else was there; I felt like I was in a ghost town. Our team started to go on to the field that we would be playing on to observe the differences in it. As I walked through the gate leading to the field, I was awestruck. It seemed as though this field was the only place in this strange neighborhood privileged enough to receive light from the blazing sun; standing on the field made it seem as though the creepy town had disappeared. The feeling overwhelmed me as I saw the flawless grass outfield and th...
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 isn’t a sport especially compared to traditionally male oriented sports. Someone needs to talk about the misogynistic undertones of bashing cheerleading as a sport, while I might not be a woman that does not mean I cannot be a rational civilized
Maurer, Tracy Nelson. Competitive Cheerleading. 1st ed. Vero Beach, Florida: Rourke Publishing LLC, 2006. Print.
Automated doors slide open revealing a multitude of fitness machinery and flooding the air with the sound of weights clinking and the synchronized rhythmic stomping of twenty pairs of Nikes hitting the floor simultaneously in the step aerobics class; it’s time to get physical. On any given day, at any time, in gyms all across America the same scene is played out, (Guy). A handful of muscle bound jocks, serious about competitive weight lifting, can be seen spotting each other in the free weights area. Mirrors in the bathrooms, dressing rooms, and on the fitness center floor are consumed by pimped out prima donnas and jewelry adorned divas alike; preoccupied with primping and flexing their way to personal greatness/fitness. Normal, average, everyday people just trying to fit an hour or so workout into their busy schedule; they want to get in, get pumped, and go on with their day - these are the best types of gym dwellers.
Cheerleaders all share the same love, cheering; there is always excitement about being known as a cheerleader. Sometimes cheering can be a good and bad thing, but in the end it 's never a boring activity. With tons of people in the crowd, just staring at you waiting for what cheer you will call next, waiting to see who will mess up first, or who will say the wrong words. So many things going on at a football game, yet all you can do is stand there, look pretty, and smile.