OT Yes, Cheerleading Is A Sport

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Off Topic
Mar 26, 2011
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Hey y'all! I had to write a 5 page Position Essay and I wrote on the topic that cheerleading was a sport.
I know several of other people have done this, but I just wanted some feedback on it.
It's long, so if you can get through it, comments or suggestions would be fantastic.
THANK YOU:) PS- Sorry that its jumbled!!


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Ms. Thomas
English 1102
28 February 2012
Yes, Cheerleading is a Sport
Imagine bright lights, screaming fans, and a huge ESPN camera in one arena with a huge trophy at stake. No, it’s not a football championship. It’s the UCA College Nationals. This is where all a team’s hard work pays off as they step on the mat to perform their routine of two minutes and thirty seconds. Tumbling, stunting, and performing, teams try their very best to impress the judges and receive as much points as possible, hoping to be placed number one in their division.
The UCA College Nationals is just one of the prestigious competitions that cheerleaders have the opportunity to compete in. UCA is one of the top cheerleading associations that holds competitions that house thousands of athletes and fans in one place. “Like boxing, competitions are run by rival sanctioning bodies. The biggest, under the auspices of Varsity Spirit, is the Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA), whose competitions are staples on ESPN. Twelve broadcasts in 2001 were watched by an average of 445,000 households, about the same audience drawn by billiards” (Brady). This is where the sport is at its finest. If you were to ask any member of one of the hundreds of teams competing, they would agree that cheerleading is a sport. However, society today still categorizes cheerleading as an activity and does not recognize the sport aspects of the industry. They refuse to look past the sideline cheers of “Let’s go Team!”, and overlook the hard work and dedication that the athletes put in to their routines and performances.
Truth is, there are two very different types of cheerleaders. There are the traditional sideline cheerleaders who cheer on other teams for support, and then there are the competitive cheerleaders, who perform in front of audiences and judges to receive their own first place title. Competitive cheerleaders are just as much athletes as cross-country runners or gymnasts! Cheerleading is even expanding and growing into more than just a hobby. Erik Brady agrees when he writes in his article in USA Today, “The world of cheer no longer means sideline squads that exist solely to support other teams” (Brady). Cheerleading has grown extensively in the past twenty years. It now has its own magazines and web forums, such as Fierceboard or Inside Cheerleading. People join All-star cheerleading teams, which are just like travel club soccer or softball teams. The difference is that the hobby of cheerleading isn’t getting recognized for the sport that it is.
Though it is agreed that sideline cheerleaders are not athletes, organizations and teams can not seem to get competitive cheerleading passed as a sport. In fact, Quinnipiac University was unable to gain their cheerleaders the sport status that they desired. A Connecticut judge passed Title XI stating that cheerleading was an activity, not a school sport, excluding them from varsity scholarships and athletic funds.
Many schools have found a way to get around this ruling, such as the University of Maryland. They divided the sideline and competitive cheerleaders into two different teams. By doing this, they then turned the competitive cheer team into a varsity sport, allowing them to receive the athletic funds and scholarships that the University provides for all varsity sports. ““It is a sport if you are competing,” athletic director [AD] Debbie Yow said. “This is not the spirit squad. The spirit squad is busy cheering for our teams and encouraging them. The varsity cheerleading team is competing like all other sports. They are recruiting like all other sports. They are alike”” (Siegel). Since courts continue to dismiss cheerleading as an activity, schools have come to find other ways to make cheerleading closer in the sport status.
The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators was formed as a non-profit educational organization for the spread of safe cheerleading and credentialed coaches. They found that competitive cheerleading did not pass the key elements that the Women’s Sports Foundation required to be considered a sport. To solve this issue, they put cheerleading into its’ own category as an “athletic activity”. As an “athletic activity”, cheerleaders can be involved in the benefits provided by the school. They no longer are only a voluntary support group known as the spirit squad. In its own category, cheerleading is able to gain its own respect and receive “Some states are now officially recognizing cheerleaders as "student athletes", which provides opportunities for academic honors and even coverage under the athletic catastrophic insurance policy carried by the school or state athletics or activities association. They are allowing reasonable participation in competitive events” (Perez).
In other cases involving the status of cheerleading as a sport, courts continue to rule it as just an activity. However, courts are now recognizing the danger and injuries that the athletes go through. “In a 2009 case, a Wisconsin court ruled that cheer is “a recreational activity that includes physical contact between persons in a sport involving amateur teams.” The legal significance here was that cheer can be as dangerous as a contact sport, which certainly makes cheer sound like athletics” (Easterbrook).
To say that cheerleading is “dangerous” is not enough. Competitive cheerleaders break bones and tear ligaments more often than any other athletes! “In fact, competitive cheerleaders have a higher rate and severity of injury than football players. Let me repeat that, cheerleaders get hurt more often playing their sport than football players do” (Travis). They risk their lives as they flip against gravity and get thrown up in the air, trusting their bases and fellow teammates to catch them. Cheerleaders have died as a result of hitting concrete from landing the wrong way on a tumbling skill or not getting caught correctly in a stunt. Ask any orthopedic or bone doctor about the danger of cheerleading. They will tell you that cheerleading is the most dangerous sport. And yes, they will say sport.
Some critics believe that cheerleading is not a sport due to its scoring system. They believe that the cheerleading score system is unfair. Within the score sheets that the judges hold, teams are scored for performance, execution, and difficulty on the skills that they attempt in each category. Their scores are compiled and added to receive a total score. Any mess-ups, such as a touchdown in tumbling or fall in a stunt count as a deduction and are subtracted from the total score based on the degree of the mistake. The critics state that this scoring is what considers them an activity and not a true sport, since teams do not go directly head to head against each other. However, this critique is unjust. Gymnasts, figure-skaters, and divers all follow this kind of scoring system. The scores are even used in the Olympics, and these activities are considered Olympic Sports. To point out cheerleading with “unfair ways of judging” is completely absurd.
The hardest part of the argument of cheerleading being a sport is that competitive cheerleaders work harder and train at more intense levels than any other sport. Cheerleaders must be at their prime fitness to perform to the best of their ability. Within their routine of two minutes and thirty seconds, they use more energy than a football player would within a whole game. They train for hours in and outside of practice, conditioning their bodies to tip top shape. Many of them must lift girls their own size or more! Cheerleading, which was derived from gymnastics, requires even more stamina than a gymnastics routine. A cheerleader must tumble like a top gymnast, dance like a champion, and be as strong as a football player. In Clay Travis’ article, he writes “The body control, precision, and athleticism required to execute a competitive cheer routine is, according to my wife who has done both sports at high levels and knows much better than me, "more difficult than what's required of a floor exercise routine in gymnastics. You have to be in better physical condition to do the competitive cheering” (Travis). Cheerleading consists of more than just tumbling. In a cheer routine, you must tumble, lift people, dance, smile, and run around with your arms glued to your sides. It is nonstop and requires each cheerleader to be in extensive shape.
When people say that cheerleading isn’t a sport, they are being stubborn and ignorant to the true strength, flexibility, and talent that cheerleaders must have to perform. Cheerleaders jump with their legs passed their arms in a perfect T-motion. They flip and twist at the same time, landing on their feet. They throw people in the air and hold them for more than 10-15 seconds. Flyers can pull their legs behind their heads and flip over people, trusting that someone will be there to catch them.
It has come to the point where cheerleaders resent the sideline aspect of their so-called fellow cheerleaders. Competitive cheerleading isn’t even close to what people see at a football game. In fact, it’s a football game on steroids. Cheerleading is one of the most intense activities known to man, involving extensive conditioning and body control. Top teams draw thousands of fans to watch their two minute and thirty second routine of madness. To the athletes that partake in cheerleading, it is a sport not matter what judges or critics say. Cheerleading is their life and their world. It’s a sport in their world, whether you join it or not.
 
They won't consider Cheerleading a sport because it involves a round of Judges. It's been declared that anything that involves judges judging isn't a sport, but a competitive activity. I know I hate it as much as you do!
So they catagorized Cheerleading (All divisions), Gymnastics (All divisions), Syncronized Swimming, Diving, and anything else that involve a panel of judges as a competitive activity. Now if only the sport of cheerleading can a way to earse the use of judges...
 
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