The "surprising" Most Dangerous Sport For Kids

[Inspiration Leader]

The Surprising Most Dangerous Sports for Kids | Team Mom - Yahoo! Shine
I saw this article on Yahoo!, and I just wanted to hear your opinion on it..
Some of the comments on this are just ridiculous:P



(Sorry if this thread was already created, I didn't see anything about it!)

 

[thecheernerd]

If schools put an effort into making sure they are hiring qualified coaches and requiring safety certification and rules meeting attendance this would not be a problem. Too many unqualified people coaching skills they know nothing about! The school districts need to take responsibility in who they hire!

 

[BuegeSmalls]

The one guy has a point, people do practice wherever they want & without mats (like stunting and tumbling in your yard) and there are coaches that aren't certified, but I don't think cheerleading is out of control like he claims.

I know at my old high school (feels so weird to say that lol) teachers got listings about open coaching positions and then if nobody responds it's open to the public.

 

[MissBee]

That article means nothing, and here's why:
1. They state that cheer injuries have increased since 1980. Of course they have, the number of participants have increased since then! What I'd like to see is the percentage of participants with injuries in 1980 vs the percentage of participants with injuries in 2012. Since 1980 there have been major safety changes (limiting skills, requiring mats etc). So it'd be interesting to see that statistic.
2. I'd like to know what HS team is throwing their flyers 25-30 feet in the air. That's impressive.

 

[INeverStopCheering]

I would take that article with a grain of salt. Yes cheerleading is dangerous. Yes people get injured. You're a little late Melissa Breyer. That's what I always want to tell people. It's dangerous?! Oh my goodness I never would have guessed. Even for the people not participating, I feel like it's rather apparent that throwing people and doing backflips has the potential to cause injury.

But for this part:
"Kids are practicing all over the place without mats. They practice when they want to, do what they want to, and some coaches aren't certified and don't know what they're doing."

You can't deny that it's true. A problem, yes, but true. That's what I want people to know about, that this sport gets shortchanged by athletic departments who don't believe mats or training are an important enough expense

 

[yojaehs]

I think there is some merit to this article BECAUSE the number of incompetent coaches FAR outweigh the knowledgeable coaches therefore - increased injury. HOWEVER - Blame lays in the parents hands. Do your research and find knowledgeable coaches. If you wouldn't let your child stay at a random house down the street, why would you trust a stranger to flip your child upside down and trust them not to get injured?

 

[MissBee]

I would take that article with a grain of salt. Yes cheerleading is dangerous. Yes people get injured. You're a little late Melissa Breyer. That's what I always want to tell people. It's dangerous?! Oh my goodness I never would have guessed. Even for the people not participating, I feel like it's rather apparent that throwing people and doing backflips has the potential to cause injury.

But for this part:
"Kids are practicing all over the place without mats. They practice when they want to, do what they want to, and some coaches aren't certified and don't know what they're doing."

You can't deny that it's true. A problem, yes, but true. That's what I want people to know about, that this sport gets shortchanged by athletic departments who don't believe mats or training are an important enough expense

But aren't there kids outside practicing football or basketball, unsupervised? Yup. One of our little ones has a broken arm. From cheer? Nope, backyard football.

 

[Goosepatrick]

I struggle with this topic all together. On the one hand I've watched my daughter cheer for 10 years and by far it's very difficult and requires a lot of skill. I consider her an athlete.
However, there is so much about the sport that worries me. Lack of a governing body that ensures safety. Lack of qualified coaches as mentioned above. You don't have to be qualified to open a cheer gym and begin teaching kids. You think, well I did gymnastics, so how hard can this be? Well...very hard and you could hurt children.
There are a lot of injuries in cheer. Their bodies are growing and being put under a tremendous amount of stress. Kids are practicing more and more causing overuse injuries. Are they are pushing themselves (or parents are pushing them) to outperform the next person so they can get the big "scholarship"?

So why are these kids pushing so hard, why are we creating more and more dangerous situations without proper safety equipment, training or governance. Competing harder won't make it a sport and therefore not lead to more scholarships.
In football only 1.4% of athletes get offered a college scholarship and it's one of the better as the cost to participate is low. Girls Golf has the highest offering at 1.6% get scholarships, but at some of the highest cost (average of $11K/year).
Estimated 1.5M cheerleaders in All-star and high school, a little more than participate in football. Even if scholarships were more regularly available for this sport, only 1% of the athletes would receive one. And I know most girls who would receive one, are part of an organization that spends closer to $15K per year, not including medical bills.
After years of watching and loving every minute of it and my daughter going to college in a 18 months, I look at her cheer career differently.
I want her to enjoy the lessons learned by being a part of a team sport, be physically fit, because our orthopedic preaches you get fit to play sports you don't play sports to get fit :).
Sport or not..be smart, be safe and save!

 

[SharkDad]

The article had some generalities, but no one in the sport can ignore there are significant lapses in safety for youth in Rec, school and all sideline cheer.

There is no unified governing of these forms of cheer or the entire sport in general. Until this changes, kids are at a higher risk then they need to be.

 

[SmileyRyleigh]

If schools put an effort into making sure they are hiring qualified coaches and requiring safety certification and rules meeting attendance this would not be a problem. Too many unqualified people coaching skills they know nothing about! The school districts need to take responsibility in who they hire!

This is true. After my high school coach quit last year we had the administrative staff "coaching" us until we got 2 new coaches who know nothing about cheer and have never had anything to do with it. It is the most unorganized thing I have ever been a part of. We don't get out the mats for practice (we have 8 roll up mats) we don't stunt and when we do we onlyget out one mat. We don't practice tumbling but we are expected to tumble at all games. My old coach used to make us take mandatory tumbling classes and we looked better overall. I had to sit out last nights game and we honestly looked like a joke. It's rediculous and for every sport, not just cheerleading, I believe the coaches should have to go through a qualification course before they are allowed to coach. You wouldnt see a swim coach coaching the football team, would you?

 

[SmileyRyleigh]

DOuble post sorry

 

[emax13]

People would often be surprised at what activities are more dangerous than others. Did you know that hunting is safer than table tennis? That MMA is orders of magnitude safer than pro boxing? Attempts to overregulate and at times even ban certain sports while neglecting the need for safety in others is often based entirely on misconceptions. Which of course is obscene. People look at competitive cheerleading on the surface and "it is just girls and guys flipping around on the floor and jumping in the air, how dangerous can it be?" without any knowledge of what goes on beneath the surface.