It’s a time out, all of those Friday night lights, shining in your face as you toss your best friend into the air as she kicks and twists and lands right back in your arms. Football season, every high school cheerleaders favorite season. Down on the track, lined in perfect lines, they yell at the crowd, “Are you proud to be a Tiger?” and the immediate reaction from the football fans in unison was, “Yes we are!” Most people say they’re at the games for the attention during school, but if you’d take the time to ask the cheerleaders why they do what they do, you’d get the same answer that I got from my sister when I interviewed her. She took the time to explain to me why she became a cheerleader and then progressed into saying, “I stick with it …show more content…
As I got closer I could hear more yelling, I couldn’t make out what the words were exactly but I soon realized the girls were working on their routine. When I walked into the gym they were in the middle of a stunt, an arabesque-full down. One group was just standing shouting the words to the routine, “practice makes perfect, and practice we have done, making our outcome number one!” and watching the others as they threw and caught their girls, my guess was they fell before the sequence was finished and just didn’t try to rebuild the stunt. They continued through their pyramids and long tumbling and jumps were next. Greencastle High School cheerleaders were known for flawless jumps at competitions. No matter how many girls, who they were, or what the jumps were, judges always gave us ten out ten. This year, they didn’t disappoint. With a right, left, double toe-touch into a back handspring (or back tuck if they had one), they were sure to get that perfect ten again. They did one more stunt before heading to another jump sequence. The stunt was a full up to a heel-stretch. I honestly don’t even think us Marian girls would be able to do that. But they front walkover out of their stunt and moved to the new set of jumps, this one was a toe-touch, pike into another back handspring. They all fell …show more content…
I have about 15 or 16 bows ranging from solid colors to my high school competition bows to Starbucks bows to Disney’s Frozen. I believe a cheerleader’s bows represent who she is as a person as well as a cheerleader. My sister and I used to get bows for every competition or for a special holiday. My favorite bow happens to be my Prom of 2015 bow that my date asked me with. It’s my favorite because it has sparkles and it’s pink, but also because it has sentimental value of an amazing night. When I asked Piersten what her favorite bow was, she responded with, “The Frozen bows because we have matching ones and everyone else is jealous of us.” I have a pink bow that says “She’s my Anna” and Piersten’s says “She’s my Elsa” and we both have those on our cheer bags. If you can’t tell we’re sisters by looking at us, you should be able to tell with all of our matching bows on our bags. While I was at their cheer practice I did notice all of the girls had new bows I had never saw before. It looked like they all had bows that corresponded with their stunt group (in different colors) and with what they did in that stunt group (backspot, flyer, base, frontspot). Everyone had one and they were extremely
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
Cheerleading is a big part of high school and community culture. For many young girls, and sometimes boys, cheer is a way of life. Often pursued as a profession, cheerleading is a very serious sport. Like most sports cheerleading has different types and divisions. Scholastic cheerleading and All-Star cheerleading have many similarities and differences. Cheerleading similarities and differences include what they do, coaches, and appearance.
Ironically, cheerleaders get the name of a “snob” or a “brat”, however a cheerleaders job is to bring positivity and spirit to their school. To be conceited or a bully is the complete opposite of what a cheerleaders job is; which means their primary responsibility is to pump up the student body for the big game or to get others involved and support school functions. Aside from the stereotype that cheerleaders are snobby, another assumption is that cheerleaders only hang out with other cheerleaders, that they are very exclusive. In films, cheerleaders are seen as the girls that always sit at the same lunch table and no one else is allowed to sit with them, or the ones that walk the halls in the same cluster while they laugh and gossip about other girls. A cheerleader is taught to be inclusive and to get others engaged in activities throughout the school, and if cheerleaders are pushing others away by being exclusive they are not doing their
Cheerleading is fun! Of course we cheerlead because it’s fun! From cheer camp to laughing on the sidelines, cheerleading is always a good time, especially with your friends. The memories made my cheerleaders whether they be from practices, games, or spirit activities (like decorating for senior night or baking treats for football players) are memories that will be cherished for a cheerleaders lifetime. Cheering is such a positive and happy experience because we are always doing something fun or accomplishing something new, like learning our new pyramid or mastering our routine. I get to get dressed up in my uniform with my bow in my hair and my white, red-track stained cheer shoes and not only cheer on my favorite football team but run around and cheer and stunt with a team of fun-loving girls and bring my community
To stay on the JMU cheer team or to quit was a very hard decision that I had to make this past month. Knowing I had leadership responsibilities as a third year veteran on the team made this decision extremely difficult for me. I had to consider all the parties involved which consisted of myself, my teammates, and my coaches. Several factors fell into play when deciding what was best not only myself but for my team as well. The first and most important factor I had to consider was my physical health as I have back problems that requires annual back procedures in order to be able to cheer. A relatively new factor in my decision making progress was the hiring of the new JMU cheer coach, which was extremely difficult for the upperclassmen to adjust to. My last few personal factors that played a role in my decision consisted of getting a job and focusing more on my school work. Next I had to consider what was best for the cheer team. I knew as an upperclassmen I needed to support the cheer program to help keep it strong and consistent during the coaching transition. This was hard to do when several other upper classmen were quitting the team due to this change. I also knew I had a responsibility to teach the incoming freshman new skills the same way the juniors and seniors taught me when I was a freshman. Not only did my team need me but I also took into consideration the contract I signed when making the team my freshman year. After taking everything into consideration
Movies portray cheerleaders as the popular girls that everyone likes and aspires to be. But when reality hits at Salem High School, it’s a completely different story. Cheerleading was taken as a joke by the other athletes and even students. It was considered a hobby, but to me it was a passion and something I worked hard to be. Being on the cheer squad in high school was difficult to deal with in school because we were constantly being snubbed by the other athletes and students in our school ever since we were kids in junior high which should not happen because everyone has the right to do what they love and they should not be judged for it being different than everyone else. It was always us versus them up until my junior year of high school when we finally earned the respect of our peers.
I believe that cheerleaders are a key element. The missing puzzle piece that fully completes a high school. Though many may ponder of the stereotypical affluent blonde with an egotistical aura, those should be informed that they aren’t even half-way correct. Cheerleaders are much more than how they appear in Hollywood movies or on daily TV dramas. I believe that cheerleaders are crucial, and work very hard to bring smiles onto people’s faces.
According to Brea Darnell, cheerleading is not a sport because of “the inability to compete against an opponent. One of the most important requirements of a sport [is] to compete against another opponent, not just cheer to support your team” (Daily Republic). Pom-poms and sideline chants are aspects of sideline cheerleading that lack in contributing to the definition of competitive cheerleading. Competitive cheerleading is a different side of cheerleading that consists of tumbling, jumping, and dancing, alongside a greater amount of contact activity in comparison to sideline cheerleading. Lori A. Selke, a writer for Livestrong.com, creates the argument that, “in order to gain and maintain those athletic qualities, a competitive cheerleader must train as hard as any other athlete… In addition to attending cheer practice to practice stunting, tumbling, and dancing, cheerleaders must also weight lift and work out several times a week” (Selke). The arrogation of cheerleading illuminates why it is a sport and not just an activity because of the overall devotion to the sport and time a cheerleader must generate to practicing, refining, and executing skills, similar to any other athlete in
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
Cheerleading is an important tool for promoting both genders’ self-esteem. In an article by Lee Purvey in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Giannia Kustra expressed how cheerleading helped her as a person to “become more outgoing” (Purvey). In high school, cheerleading gives students an opportunity to support their teams proudly, build teamwork, and improve character and work ethic (Bernstein). This new “business” helps to improve the spirit and morals of athletes and fans alike.
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 is simply a practice for the larger arena of life. Also, cheerleading can also be a way to get our squad to do better in school. 80% of our team has at least a B average.” She also goes onto add, “ We value friendship, hard work, education, and discipline. In our team, we are a family. When one of us is hurt, we are all hurt. We do everything together and we are proud to be one big bulldog family.” The coach continues to explain her experiences with the bonding process, “There was a solid bond, and a harmony that was deficient from a large portion of the groups I was on in my school days. I assumed that was only the way it was. We hadn 't arrived to be companions, we hadn 't arrived in light of the fact that we were a group, we arrived on the grounds that we were all team promoters. As a mentor, and as a commander of my grown-up gathering pledges group after secondary school, my point of view changed. I encountered that it isn 't about whether a gathering of individuals gel or not, it isn 't a take it or abandon it circumstance. There are measures you can take, simple exercises and amusements you can utilize, that can really have any kind of effect in how a group interfaces with each other, and how agreeable they feel coming into a practice or occasion, working with
Every minute of the day we are doing something, whether we recognize it or not. How we spend our time can determine where we go. If I waste my time I will look back and wonder where it all went. Through all the practices, games, and extra events, it seems I am wasting my valuable time on something not worthy of my time or making a bad investment of my time. If you asked me if cheerleading was my life my answer would be no, but I spend a lot of time going to practices, games, and events that it is difficult to believe otherwise. Many people, including my sister, would say I should be spending my time doing something more productive than wearing short skirts and throwing girls in the air. However, I believe that I continue to cheer because it is worthwhile in my life.
From an outsiders perspective one may see brainless and beautiful robots, which scream and perform neat tricks. This is not the case from the inside; cheerleading is so much more than that. Many people are under the impression that cheerleading is not a sport. I am the voice of reasoning that will let you in, and I will show you that cheerleading, in fact, is a sport. Cheerleading requires much physical demand from the body just as any other sport would. Cheerleading, in general, is a team effort. There are many sides to cheerleading, which make it a versatile sport. When it comes to cheerleading there’s more to it than what meets the eye.
A jolt of energy rushed through my body and hit my heart when they call me up to get the team trophy. Not fourth, third, or second, but first place for the third year in a row. Being a captain of a team is an amazing experience. You get to see your team physically, mentally, and emotionally prepare for competition. It's a lot of hard work, but if you try your hardest, make all the practices and have a passion for cheerleading its worth it. Every year we take a few weeks to build a competition routine, the out come is incredible, but the celebration is the best part.