I think this is the hardest thing to wrap our heads around BECAUSE it is so simple to us (the people knowledgable and in the thick of it). So you have to decide what is important to you and what really matters. Being called a sport? Lumping all the types of 'cheerleading' (the sport and non sport alike) together? When you lump everything under one giant category you open yourself to lawyer and legal wiggle room.
Be prepared, this is about to get deep. Stop reading if you don't your head to hurt.
For our discussion today we need to know one fact from your old 8th grade geometry class. Quadrilaterals are ANY 4 sided geometric figures. Picture examples of this:
http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/q/qu/quadrilateral_hierarchy.png
We are going to have a different court case. The quadrilateral making team at Rutgers has for years been making quadrilaterals in there spare time. They are wanting to change and say they are now a square making team to get benefits and federal money. They at the last minute switch from making any type of quadrilateral to just rectangles. Extremely close to squares, but there are a few things keeping the rectangles they make from being true squares. The geometry team at Rutgers gets mad and brings up a court case.
John Entanglement is called to court as an expert on quadrilaterals. He says that all quadrilaterals are not squares. In fact, most quadrilaterals are not squares. Quadrilaterals have 4 sides, yes. But a square? Certainly not. And if we classify ALL quadrilaterals as squares we are going to open a pandoras box. Sure rectangles would become squares (which isn't too big a deal) but also trapazoids, rhombuses, parallelograms, and the dreaded trapezium!
John Entanglement doesn't want to hurt squares, but to help squares achieve and be all the geometry they can be he cannot call ALL quadrilaterals squares.
The allstar quadrilateral making team from Marietta, GA only makes squares. They are excellent square makers (and fine looking human beings and very attractive and nice and even smell good). They know that all they do is make squares. They meet all the legal definitions to be squares, except the name of what they do is still quadrilateral. They are trying to figure out if they rename what they do to separate themselves so that they can stand out as JUST square makers.
Right now being called a sport by Varsity or Title IX or any school is a legal thing. Legally Varsity (ie Jeff Webb) testified as an expert on Cheerleading and said Cheerleading as a whole is not a sport. If he said that Allstar Cheerleading is not a sport (which it is) I blame the fact that we still call ourselves Cheerleading as the problem.
WE ARE NOT COMPETING CHEERLEADING because cheerleading is 'not' a sport.
WHAT WE DO IS A SPORT
McLovin, you mentioned 'competitive cheer'.
There are ground bound cheerleading teams in Ohio. I am not sure what exactly is legal, but you can tell they don't stunt, pyramid, and basket. Is that competitive cheerleading?
Video for help:
Is that competitive cheerleading? Is THAT a sport?
WHY is the name so important? Because being classified as a sport is a legal definition at this point. We know what we do is a sport. But if you want it classified as such we gotta suck it up and do what is needed to be a sport.
HElllllllooo Sport Cheer. The square of cheerleading.