One thing many people fail to realize is that cheerleading is not just cheering for the football team. Members must also practice and train for competitions. Competitions can be compared to an inter-school game.
Teams must prepare a routine that is around 3 minutes long. During this span of time, the team must dance, cheer, stunt (throwing, lifting and catching others), jump and tumble.
If one thing goes wrong in the routine, more likely than not, your team loses. There is no coming back from a fall; one mistake and your season is over.
According to The Woman’s Sports Foundation, the official definition of a sport is a physical activity that involves propelling a mass through space or overcoming the resistance of a mass and a contest or competition against or with an opponent, which is governed by rules that explicitly define the time, space and purpose of the contest and the conditions under which a winner is declared.
Cheerleading follows all of the above guidelines. Cheerleaders throw people and compete; teams have strict rules to follow, competitions are held against other schools and judges evaluate the skills of teams.
It is important to recognize cheeerleading as a sport. Earlier this year the Oakland Raiders’ cheerleading team sued for underpay. One of the cheerleaders reported she got paid less than five dollars an hour, far below the minimum wage of nine dollars in California.
Competitive cheerleading is hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever gotten myself tangled up in. Practice is inside a non-air conditioned warehouse with coaches yelling, cursing and throwing things, and hours of conditioning.
Athletes must memorize stunts, dances, jumps, tumbling and any extra motions that the choreographer puts into the routine.
Cheerleaders must memorize what count everything is performed on. Very rarely is something made up on the spot, unlike many other sports in which the outcome of the results rely on the quick thinking of the players.
It angers me when someone tells me cheerleading isn’t a sport. It’s like taking everything I’ve worked for and throwing it into a dumpster. The trophies lined up on shelves at the gym, all the banners displayed proudly on the gym walls, the jackets that we won at national championships—these all mean nothing to so many people.
Just because you don’t see what’s going on behind the many smiling faces and pom-poms, don’t assume cheerleaders don’t work hard.