What is your definition of a sport? A game played with a ball? Or an activity the NCAA says is a sport? The dictionary defines a sport as: an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.
I was a cheerleader for four years, and I have coached cheerleading for a year. Ask any cheerleader and they will tell you that the sport of cheerleading does involve physical exertion and skill.
Try to go out there and throw a girl seven feet in the air, or be that girl and get thrown in the air to do a double flip. Don't tell me that doesn't take skill! Cheerleaders work just as hard as any other athlete out there (except golfers) and train just as much.
Cheerleading is much more than just standing on the sideline and looking hot…even though we do that, too. Cheerleading includes chants, cheers, routines, jumps, tumbling, gymnastics, partner stunts and pyramid building. It takes a lot of hard work to learn a cheer or routine, put it together with 15 people and get everyone to work in sync with one another. Not to mention the tumbling and gymnastics they do! The day you can go out there and do a round-off back handspring back tuck with ease, then you can tell me we don't work hard.
Cheerleaders do get hurt. The sport of cheerleading would be equivalent to juggling porcupines. If you can do that without getting hurt then you can say cheerleading is not dangerous. Over 50 percent of serious injuries that occur in female athletes are due to the sport of cheerleading. Throwing girls up in the air, doing flips and jumping off the ground, that's going to cause some injuries!
On top of all our hard work and energy we put into everything else, we still have to stay enthused and pep up the crowd and do it with a smile on our face. Yes, sometimes are uniforms are a tiny bit small but we're girls…we have to look good at whatever we do.
-Rachel Pelzel
Be the first to comment on this article!