All-Star Article On Espnw Says Cheer Not A Sport

[cheersafety]

Can you justify a reason sideline needs to be able to do skills besides signs and yelling? I have a hard time selling the need for skills when our main job is crowd leading.


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I have not found one. Does anyone else know of one?

 

[Official OWECheer]

I have not found one. Does anyone else know of one?

Yes.



Skip to 0:55 and watch the whole cheer.

Now imagine that without stunts.

 

[SL&AM]

If they ground bound all school cheers, they should cut jumps too. It's not just the tumbling and stunting that is dangerous...all it takes is one wrong landing and you can snap your ankle. Worst yet, we better take out the dance teams while we're at it since leaps are just as dangerous.

 

[King]

If they ground bound all school cheers, they should cut jumps too. It's not just the tumbling and stunting that is dangerous...all it takes is one wrong landing and you can snap your ankle. Worst yet, we better take out the dance teams while we're at it since leaps are just as dangerous.

Are you saying dance moves are as dangerous as stunts?

 

[King]

Yes.



Skip to 0:55 and watch the whole cheer.

Now imagine that without stunts.

So we just justified shoulder sits and extensions.

Anything harder or tumbling we can't justify.

 

[njallday]

Yes.



Skip to 0:55 and watch the whole cheer.

Now imagine that without stunts.

i don't buy that stunts are NECESSARY for that cheer. this video was taken out ground level, directly in front of them.. so yes, to properly see what is happening, you need stunts. but the average sideline has the fans above the cheerleaders in bleachers or arena style seating. you can see them raising signs and poms with their feet safely on the ground.

 

[SL&AM]

Are you saying dance moves are as dangerous as stunts?

They can be depending on the dance team and what styles they perform. For example, if a dance team decides they want to do a contemporary dance they can do their own version of a pyramid (where a dancer climbs the backs of their fellow dancers like a staircase and then jumps off to be caught). That isn't including lifts, which when they go wrong, can cause just as much physical injury. There are also tumbling aspects in dance...aerials would be the most popular.

So yeah, dance and cheer...both dangerous.

 

[King]

They can be depending on the dance team and what styles they perform. For example, if a dance team decides they want to do a contemporary dance they can do their own version of a pyramid (where a dancer climbs the backs of their fellow dancers like a staircase and then jumps off to be caught). That isn't including lifts, which when they go wrong, can cause just as much physical injury. There are also tumbling aspects in dance...aerials would be the most popular.

So yeah, dance and cheer...both dangerous.

Is contemporary dancing done at games in support of a sports team?

 

[vannahlexis]

Isn't Michigan ground bound?


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Michigan cheer is considered a sport, and has a very successful competitive program.

It is up to the school on whether or not to ground bound them at games. My school's insurance policy didn't cover stunting at games but we were allowed to tumble.


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[JMW]

Can you justify a reason sideline needs to be able to do skills besides signs and yelling? I have a hard time selling the need for skills when our main job is crowd leading.


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Why does it have to be "necessary"?

Why isn't it enough that they're fun to watch, fun to do?

The entire sports industry is built on activities that have no other purpose than being fun to watch, fun to do (and good exercise, which cheerleading stunts & tumbling are as well). Why do we need more than that to justify our activity?
.


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[cheernerd5678]

Why does it have to be "necessary"?

Why isn't it enough that they're fun to watch, fun to do?

The entire sports industry is built on activities that have no other purpose than being fun to watch, fun to do (and good exercise, which cheerleading stunts & tumbling are as well). Why do we need more than that to justify our activity?
.


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None of us WANT schools to be ground bound... But we are asking because these are the questions schools are going to ask. They don't care if it's fun.... They care about the money. If cheer is a sport and going to require their funding for proper training, mats, etc, they'd rather take out stunting and save the money. It's not about "fun" for them.


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[King]

Why does it have to be "necessary"?

Why isn't it enough that they're fun to watch, fun to do?

The entire sports industry is built on activities that have no other purpose than being fun to watch, fun to do (and good exercise, which cheerleading stunts & tumbling are as well). Why do we need more than that to justify our activity?
.


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Because of risk, safety, and insurance.

If we want to be able to do these things (stunting tumbling and what not) they need to be supported appropriately. Would we ever let football practice without pads? Water? A trainer? Yet cheer teams do this all the time. If a sport is doing things in appropriately you have a multitude of ways to report them. Cheer usually falls under a marketing department.

 

[JMW]

Because of risk, safety, and insurance.

If we want to be able to do these things (stunting tumbling and what not) they need to be supported appropriately. Would we ever let football practice without pads? Water? A trainer? Yet cheer teams do this all the time. If a sport is doing things in appropriately you have a multitude of ways to report them. Cheer usually falls under a marketing department.

No, I get that. My point is, why do we have to prove that it's "necessary" in order to get the support? Football isn't "necessary", but they get support.


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[cheernerd5678]

No, I get that. My point is, why do we have to prove that it's "necessary" in order to get the support? Football isn't "necessary", but they get support.


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Schools see our job as "crowd leading".Football needs pads, they can justify the money for pads. The tackling is part of the sport and it's dangerous without it. If our job is crowd leading, what justifies the stunting and extra money it requires them to spend? Obviously cheerleaders would say that stunting is as important as tackling in football - but to outsiders, when our purpose is to crowd lead, it's not.


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[King]

No, I get that. My point is, why do we have to prove that it's "necessary" in order to get the support? Football isn't "necessary", but they get support.


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So that's kinda the whole argument.

There is good and bad to being a sport and good and bad to being an activity.

If we are an activity we are able to kinda do whatever we want how we want. Entire industries and livelihoods have been made on the non sport of cheer. An actual sport, Allstar, arose out of the activity. We regulate ourselves and it is immensely popular!

The issue is that, unlike dance or band, our rate of injuries is extremely high. One of the highest of all the sports (if you rank it like a sport). Notice we are never in a list of activities when talking about injuries, because frankly there isn't one (or a need for one). If the training to perform our skills wasn't so involved we wouldn't have people with full time jobs doing it, but also when people don't have the proper training lots of injuries can occur. You have a lousy basketball coach the team loses. You have a lousy cheer coach and someone can break their neck.

If we're a sport there are positives and negatives as well. The main positive is the standard required care to have a team goes up. As well a set way to report who is not complying with the requirements. The issues of safety and lack of training go down.

The negative is an entire industry could be rocked to its core. Money is made off the lack of training of high school coaches. Also the cost of cheerleading, believe it or not, is relatively low compared to sports. A big open room with 8k of mats to practice on. With no mats it's just a big room needed. Compare that to football or basketball. Lots of the expense of cheer is uniforms / apparel and proper training, not the equipment. Then factor in if we're a sport insurance becomes a standard requirement. Most places have little to no insurance on their cheerleaders. The cost increase could be so significant many schools would choose to ground bound a squad negating the need for such cost.

But as cheer gets more popular and the top end does ever harder and more difficult skills there are more and more injuries. All these points in bringing up I've had to discuss with my athletic department and what our value is. They bought into the entertainment thing, but we have an associate AD who is open to the idea. If they weren't open then we wouldn't be doing any skills. If a high profile situation or injury happens or someone were to write an article and these questions were to raise and the public discussed them we would expect to have to answer and defend why we should be an activity that is under supported instead of declaring is a sport or ground bounding us.


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