Cheerleading is a sport that involves short routines that combine dance, gymnastics, and stunting. “Cheerleading’s roots are closely tied to American football’s” (Varsity). The sport started out as a way to boost school spirit, which helped improve team performance. Over time cheerleading has become an All-Star sport of its own (EpicSports).
Cheerleading originated at a football game in 1869 between Princeton University and Rutgers University when students were helping getting the crowd rowdy. By the late 1880’s, Princeton formed an all-male pep club (Varsity). Thomas Peebles, a graduate from Princeton, took the cheers to the University of Minnesota and introduced the idea of chanting to a crowd of spectators (EpicSports). Football and fight songs were becoming extremely popular. At the University of Minnesota, a medical student named Johnny Campbell formed a group to energize both the team and the crowd to help give them more confidence (Varsity). He led an organized cheer at a football game between Princeton and Minnesota University; as a result, many consider him to be the first actual“Cheerleader” (EpicSports). “Johnny picked up a megaphone and rallied the team to victory with the first organized cheer: ‘Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-U-Mah! Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Minn-e-so-tah!’ (Varsity). Although it did not change their luck during the game, it created a lasting trend and an entirely new sport. Cheerleading only continued to grow in sophistication and popularity from there.
Not until the 1920’s were women allowed to cheerlead at the University of Minnesota. “And that’s because there weren’t many intercollegiate sports available to them at the time” which is why college let them as compensation for lack of sports...
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...lub, to an extreme sport showcasing the talent of both males and females of all ages. Practicing is the most important aspect in cheerleading. Many teams practice almost every day of the week for two to three hours to create the perfect routine. These competitive teams train for countless hour to pull off a two minute and thirty second routine filled with high-flying stunts, powerful tumbling, and impressive teamwork. In many sports, athletes have a lot of time to redeem themselves if they are having a hard time getting the win; however, cheerleaders the athletes only have two minutes and thirty seconds to show the judges what they’ve got. Cheerleading for school is very different from competitive cheerleading. Those who represent their high school or college, cheer for the athletes to win. Those who cheer competitively, are part of the team working for the win.
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
Unlike gymnastics, you must rely only on yourself to do what you need to do to win. Relying on the rest of your team, cheerleading is a much harder team sport. Gymnastics does have a team score but it only takes the top three scores form each event for the team score. Gymnast must perform wonderful but if they do not then they are the ones to blame. Cheerleading, the most team oriented team sport, relies on multiple people to get one job done.
They would do very simple routines to make the crowed pumped up and they also just wanted to look pretty for the crowd but now it’s more far from that. A lot of things have changed, there are many types of cheerleading. People say that cheerleading cannot be a sport because the cheerleaders just want to show off their body and because anyone could dance in front of crowds and cheer them up but that is not true. It takes a lot to be a cheerleader, not everyone could do flips, gymnastics and all of the maneuvers that cheerleaders
Scholastic cheerleading are through the school. They cheer for other sports and focus of school spirit (Ninemire). Sometimes they compete but not all squads do. Cheers called 'dis cheers" are often seen as competition for scholastic cheerleaders. Typically, there are two squads, varsity and junior varsity. As representatives of the school, they are involved in many school activities. Scholastic cheerleaders host pep rallies and anything else to raise school spirit for games. General cheers, stunts, and routines are all apart of scholastic cheer duties.
Being a cheerleader means setting an example. Cheerleaders conduct themselves in a respectable way and are very proud so that they can be good leaders on and off the sidelines. We are proud to represent our school and proud to be cheerleaders. We are the epitome of school spirit and we lead the other students in our school to be more spirited and show what it means so be enthusiastic in school. We lead the crowd and of course, we lead the cheering!
I know that cheerleading is a sport. Have you ever got asked if you think that cheerleading is a sport or not. That is what I am going to tell you today. Cheerleading is just like football and basketball it is a game where you compete and get points. But with cheerleading it is not about throwing the ball accost a field or making a basket. It is about how well it is performed. To do good they have to prates a lot and they also have to have a lot of upper body mussel.
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.
Competitive cheerleading is where a team has exactly two minutes and thirty seconds to present a routine that incorporates jumping, stunting, tumbling, and dancing choreographed to music. Teams consist of anywhere from 5-36 boys and girls who compete against other teams that have a similar level of ability as well as number of athletes. Teams compete against other teams at a competition just like a match, meet, or game. Competitions can be at the regional, state, national, or world level (Yes, this means that there are competitive cheer teams all over the world). At the competition, experts use a point system to judge the routines based off the difficulty and execution of each skill performed (What is Competitive Cheerleading?). This type of judging is similar to that of gymnastics. There is then an awards ceremony where the judges total up the scor...
Cheerleading is a controversial topic when it comes to being classified as a sport. Cheerleading has been around one hundred plus years. Cheerleading was not always as developed as it is today— just like many other sports into today’s culture. Some of today 's celebrities, such as George Bush, started their glory days being a cheerleader. The definition of cheerleading is in the name itself-- to lead cheers. There are different types of cheerleading such as spirit basketball, spirit football, high school competition, and competitive club cheerleading. All of which have different skill levels and qualifications. Most high schools offer many different types of cheerleading and not all classify as a sport in some people 's eyes. Spirit cheerleading
Some states have accepted competitive cheerleading as a varsity sport, but cheerleaders still have to fight for recognition as an athlete because of stereotypical views. Fellow athletes do not see why it should be considered a sport because “it is not as demanding as other sports” ("Competitive Cheerleading Fights"). The definition of an athlete is “a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina” ("Omni Cheer Blog"). As an athlete students must demonstrate their skills in front of a crowd. As a matter of fact competitive cheerleaders meet all the requirements to be considered athletes, so why do they have to continue fighting for recognition as athletes?
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.
In Amy Moritz’s article, “Cheerleading: Not Just for Sidelines Anymore,” also explains this by saying, “For decades, female athletes were relegated to the sidelines - physically and metaphorically speaking. The cheerleader, the girl who looked pretty and cheered for the boys, became a symbol for many women's sports activists and second-wave feminists of the place athletically inclined females occupied in the sport world” (660). This quote from Moritz proves that the students and administration in my high school didn’t come up with these stereotypes by themselves and it also explains how cheerleaders are stereotyped as girls who only cheer for the skirt and for attention from males. This quote ties into my thesis because these examples are how the students and administration in my high school think of us. The Lake High School Cheerleading team is breaking this stereotype by cheering competitively. In this competitive routine, we have to tumble, dance, cheer, jump and sometimes stunt to music for two minutes and 30 seconds straight without stopping. To be able to do this, we condition daily, go to private tumbling classes to improve our tumbling skills individually and as a squad, and we also practice many times during the week to perfect the routine. It takes great athletic ability to be able to perform a
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.
Cheerleading first started in the 1800s. Cheerleading was an all boy sport at the beginning. It wasn’t until 1883; Great Britain started the trend of cheering and chanting in unison at sport games. The games included football, basketball, soccer, and etc... The first official cheer wasn’t