Behind the Scenes Cheerleader

Let’s Go Rams! R-A-M-S, Let’s Go RAMS! Cheerleading teams typically have a mascot or symbol for their team. In competition cheerleading, the cheer part of the routine generally chants about their mascot. The basic setup of a cheer routine consists of a cheer, a partner stunt, a basket toss, a pyramid, a dance, jumps, and tumbling. Each stunt group has four main parts: the flyer (girl on top), the main base (main person holding foot), the side base (other person holding foot) and the back spot (supports back of flyer). In case you didn’t know, a partner stunt is a stunt that is executed with your own stunt group only. A basket toss is where the flyer steps on the bases hands, is thrown up in the air to do a cool trick, and then is caught in a cradle position. A pyramid is where multiple stunt groups come together to perform a cool trick/stunt. Most cheerleading competitions are scored based on multiple skills by judges. The places are first, second and third, and if you get a high enough score, you advance into the next competition.

Competition cheerleading is such a competitive sport. I love going to all my competitions because not only is it fun to perform, but it is fun to watch the skill of other teams as well. How are skills of each cheer team separated you ask? There are separate divisions: white is the easiest level, blue is the hardest level, and red is the in between level. I competed in the blue level, and although there was hard competition, it was a great experience to get a feel for what sort of teams we will be up against in the future. Throughout my competition experience in CJF I have learned to always challenge yourself no matter the difficulty, because the outcome will be much greater than than the time and effort you put into it.

~Samantha

“A New Olympic Sport?”

After the past 2012 Summer Olympics, rumors have been said that cheerleading would be in the 2016 Olympic Games. A lot of people are saying that it’s just another sport of the Olympics that doesn’t have to be added. But, some say it would be cool to see another sport similar to gymnastics in the summer games. With this sport added to the Olympics, the entire world will be able to see how competitive and tough this sport is. It is what all non-believers need to see before they judge something they know so little about.

I do believe that cheerleading should be added to the Olympic Games as of 2016. I agree that it will show the world how competitive cheerleading is. When I say cheerleading, don’t just mean chanting cheers at football and basketball games. I’m talking about traveling all of the country, even the world, and to wow the crowd. As a competitive cheerleader, the sport has gotten too many bad reviews saying how it is not a sport. If you can compete worldwide, meet all new people, win college scholarships, and not to mention, have fun, than it is a sport. Why people overlook those aspects? I don’t have an answer.

~Jocelyn Theriault

The Ongoing Conflict: Cheerleading, is it a sport or not?

Athletes lift weights, but cheerleaders lift athletes, so why isn’t it considered a sport? Athletic experts have argued for ages about whether or not cheerleading is a sport. Some people believe cheerleading calls for vigorous strength, and constant activity; others believe it is a silly hobby. Aisha Harris states, “The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals has upheld a 2010 ruling against Quinnipiac University, which found that cheerleading is not a varsity sport under Title IX. The issue arose in 2009 when the university replaced the women’s volleyball team with competitive cheerleading, which the U.S. District Court found to be an inadequate swap.” They believe that since cheerleading is not an olympic event, it should not be considered a sport. Also, experts think there is already a sport just like cheerleading which calls for women of strength and flexibility…gymnastics. Cheerleading not only meets, but surpasses the athletic element of being a sport, therefore, it is mind boggling as to why experts will not agree to officially call it one.

As time goes on, the physical requirements of being a part of a cheerleading team increases. Participants need the strength to lift other athletes higher than their heads, the flexibility to do all sorts of tumbling, and the mentality to work as a team remembering every movement on its exact count while working your hardest to please the on-looking fans or judges. Experts say it is not a sport because it is all about pleasing your audience, looking as flirty and pretty as possible with the makeup you wear and the short skirts over spandex. Even though the stereotypical statement points out that cheerleaders try to look better than other athletes while performing, it doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of work they are exerting to stay in position and on count. Cheerleading takes time, effort, and commitment. Whoever thinks learning how to do a round-off, back handspring, back tuck is easy…they should try it themselves, maybe that would give them an idea of the work required to be a cheerleader. Nobody knows what goes on behind the scenes when entire pyramids start to collapse, and everybody to work as a team to keep it up without showing worry, unease, or a slight glimpse of struggle. If experts think most sports should have an element of physical contact, believe me, there is enough of it in cheerleading. People do not realize the amount of scrapes, bruises, bloody noses, and concussions participants go through to get to the end of their routine. Cheerleaders are full of strength, flexibility, grace, and charm; if somebody asks why I think cheerleading is a sport, I’ll show them my routine and tell them to fill my position the next time around.

 ~Alexis Yamin

Is Competitive Cheerleading a sport?

 

Competitive cheer is not an official sport. It is considered    a championship sport. People have been pushing for competitive cheer to become a sport but it hasn’t happened. It is divided by age groups: tiny, mini, youth, junior, and senior. It is also divided up by levels 1-6. It may look easy, but it’s not.

In my opinion, competitive cheer should be a sport. You work hard, build strength, and lift people! A sport is “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.” In competitive cheer you use physical exertion, and skill consisting of flips and flexibility  which not many people can do. Also you compete against other teams. So why can’t competitive cheerleading be a sport?

~Iliana Samsel

Is Dance a Sport?

Many people don’t think dancing is hard at all. Everyone just assumes the only difficult sports are football, soccer, softball, baseball, lacrosse, basketball, etc. The typical sports. No one ever thinks about cheerleading or dance. And if they do, they think it’s very easy. Well it’s really not. Dance takes stamina, strength, determination, and endurance. Recently, two new TV shows involving ballet premiered- “Breaking Pointe” and “Bunheads”. Maybe finally people will start to realize what really goes on backstage! Most people really don’t know.  They see the performance and have no idea how much work went into it. Even in the show “So You Think You Can Dance” shows how much of people’s lives are put into this sport and how much time it takes! Most studios have rehearsals everyday for at least 2 hours. Nonstop workouts is basically what dance is, except we don’t grunt and sweat- we make it look effortless. Even doing that takes a lot of effort, not showing the pain and how tired we actually are.

There are many kinds of dance- Ballet, tap, modern. lyrical, jazz, hip hop, etc. They’re all very different. Ballet takes strength and stamina- jumping continuously for a 5 minute piece of music isn’t what I would call easy! Neither is standing right on your toes in pointe shoes! Tap requires character and precision- getting all those sounds out at the right time is difficult! The other styles are also very different from each other! I have been dancing for 11 years, and I’m really passionate about it. It bothers me when people think dancers aren’t athletes because we don’t “win” because it’s not a game. Well, I consider myself a winner, by accomplishing my goals and I get to do what I love to do. Dance is all about technique, remembering steps, performing with facial expressions, and performing for others to make them happy! We are as strong as the typical football player, if not stronger. If you don’t know about us, then find out. We’re proud of what we do! So my answer is yes, dance is a sport and we are athletes!

~Kendra Hall

Cheerleading: A step above the rest

Most of you know what cheerleading is. Or you think you know what it is. You’ve already formed your opinions of how they’re just mean girls in short skirts, but it’s more than that. If you have ever gone to a real cheerleading competition you know that it actually takes skill. But you probably don’t know this: cheerleading is the second MOST dangerous sport in the world, next to rugby. For a cheerleader to hear this it’s like well, no duh, but you’re probably like, yeah how is sitting on a sideline saying “Go Team!” going to kill you? Well think about when you’re in a basket toss and your bases throw you 10-12 feet in the air and your spots decide not to catch you and you fall to the ground straight on your neck it’s not going to feel good. Check out the picture above, imagine falling backwards from this wouldn’t be too much fun. That would leave more than a couple scratches. It may sound stupid, like why would they not catch you, what are they doing? But you would be surprised at how often it happens. And as a flyer (girl being thrown) you gotta love being dropped!

So I hope you have been convinced of cheerleadings difficulty a little bit. Now I ask you, in your opinion is cheerleading a sport? If you just answered that question no, well don’t even go there! I somewhat agree that next to football and basketball cheerleading isn’t totally a sport but competition cheerleading is is just as much of a sport as anything else. At a cheerleading competition you show up and perform the routine that has been practiced for months and then watch the other teams. After that there are awards where they present trophies and prizes to the winners. Doesn’t that sound like a lot of other sports? So what truly makes it so different from every other sport. I believe one reason is just because it’s mostly a female sport and since people think women are inferior to men, cheerleading isn’t as professional and challenging. Maybe that is just my opinion but I don’t see any other reason for it not to be a sport. I once heard this old saying “Athletes lift weights, cheerleaders lift athletes.” This just proves how great cheerleading is and how much skill level it takes. So now do you think cheerleading is a sport?

~Kendal Frazier

Not an Actual Sport

According to most people, cheer-leading isn’t considered an actual sport. But, this thought doesn’t occur to cheer-leaders as they believe that it most definitely is a sport. The definition of a sport is “an individual or group competitive activity involving physical exertion or skill, governed by rules, and sometimes engaged in professionally.” To some, cheer-leading has all of these characteristics. To others, cheer-leading doesn’t match up to the definition. It’s all a matter of opinion.

I believe that cheer-leading, in fact, is a sport. A sport requires energy and passion, two things that cheerleaders definitely have.  Cheer-leading takes as much time, and effort to master as football or any other sport.  Cheerleaders practice daily to achieve their goals, as anyone does in any sport. Basketball, football, baseball, lacrosse, and hockey are as much of a sport as cheer-leading is. You are required to compete an put out energy for all of them.  It is hard for cheerleaders to hear cheer-leading is not a sport considering all the effort they put into it. You gotta believe me when I say: cheer-leading’s a sport.

~ Kari Eisenberg

What You Don’t Know…

Cheerleading. One of the most stereotyped sports in our country. The typical cheerleader is classified as a bully, mean girl, or popular girl.  Cheerleading is often not thought of as a sport as they just cheer for football, basketball, or the other “real sports”.  What you don’t know is that cheer-leading is one of the most dangerous college sports in our country.  There are other types of cheerleading too, such as All-star cheerleaders.  All-star cheerleading consist of hundreds of athletes, girls and boys, trusting there team and risking there lives for two minutes and 30 seconds on a spring floor.   During this time the athletes are running and throwing people in the air and doing complicated tumbling routines while thousands of people are watching and expecting you to land on your feet.

As you can see cheerleading requires strength, trust, and athletic ability. There are millions of push ups at practices if a flyer hits the floor,  laps to run, sore bodies ,broken bones, bruised ribs, scratches, scars all over from you falling,  catching someone, and not landing a tumbling pass.  Though cheerleading requires all these things most important is teamwork.  Respecting your teammates is a important aspect you need to succeed in this sport ,without it ; doing all this would not be possible.

-Avery York

Go Fight Win!

Some people may say that cheerleading is not a sport. I definitely disagree. I mean us cheerleaders put so much effort into making a routine to cheer football players on and it is just so rude for them to go and say it’s not a sport. Also it’s not like its something so simple that everyone can do and it’s not even impressive to watch. I don’t think anyone can say that this picture isn’t impressive:

Plus, stunting is so dangerous. It’s probably more dangerous than football, so guys should give girls a lot of credit for dealing with injuries and all the practice.

In a stunt, there are four positions; front spot,back spot, base and flyer. Stunting isn’t the only thing you do in cheerleading though. It also involves tumbling. Some tumbling tricks are; round off, back handspring, front handspring, back walkover and many more! Along with tumbling and stunting cheerleaders also learn dozens of cheers making it difficult at times to memorize all the motions.Also included with the gymnastics and dancing is that cheerleaders are being exposed to a team atmosphere. In cheerleading you really need to trust your teammates and work together. If not, you can get seriously hurt and its just not as fun. Because you are doing all of this in cheerleading it doesn’t make sense why people will consider it not a sport! You could say other sports are not sports because your not working as a team while at a match or meet. But every time cheerleaders get together they are working together and that makes a team and a sport!

~Lauren Votto

The Feeling of Cheerleading

For me cheerleading is more then a sport its the feeling of when you and your team get out on to the middle of the field and preform in front of all your friends and family on what you have been practicing over the past few weeks. The excitement that I get when I am getting ready to preform is unbearable and overwhelming with all of the eyes on me. It is such a great experience and I want everyone to be able to feel or at least  be able to know what is is like to get out on a huge football field and preform your routine in front of allot of people.

Cheerleading is very important to me and I really try my best to do well in every game or practice that my team has together. To succeed in cheerleading you need to stretch when ever you have free time, review your cheers, and go over the routine with a friend to make sure you know what you have to do. For cheerleading you also need to pay close attention to what the counts you go on are so that you don’t get hurt in front of all the people watching  and mess up the whole routine. Its also important that if you are stunting in a group that everyone is  focused and not laughing or talking while the flier is in the air  because a couple times in practice or a game the people who stand under the flier holding her feet the bases will be talking and that could cause them to move and the flier to come falling down on top of them. Its also extremely important to stay on counts. A helpful way to do this is to count in your head instead of relying on the coaches to do it for you. If your group goes off counts it could cause you to do different things at different times, then the rest of the stunt groups. Another  thing about cheerleading is the tumbling. It is always a good idea to warm up your tumbling before you do it in your routine.  Sometimes when girls don’t warm up first there is a big possibility of pulling a muscle and hurting yourself when you go to do it for the first time. You should also clear your mind and try to relax right before your rushing to get to your spot out on the field. Many people say if you think about something to much you wont do it right and possibly get hurt. One last thing that all of the coaches say to us is to never stop during a performance, get back up when you fall down, and always keep a smile on your face.

As you could see there are ups and downs for being a cheerleader but as I said before you could get allot of exercise out of the practices and games and its great to be with all your friends having a god time cheering together as a team!

~Morgan Kranyak