High School Basketball tumbling

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Mar 29, 2010
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Is it legal to tumble on the wood floors at basketball games?

this is my first year HS cheering, but i've heard from many experienced HS cheerleaders that it is not legal and our first year ever coach (-.-) thinks it is legal.

I live in south carolina if the rules change per state.
 
Aside from fulls you are fine tumbling wise for the most part. Just make sure no one is throwing anything that looks shaky or questionable on wood floors (no froggy BHS or they will be back-head-springs....)
 
Straight from the AACCA website:

Specific Basketball/Indoor Court Restrictions
1.The following skills are prohibited at basketball and other athletic contests conducted on courts, except where the area is free of obstructions and non-cheer personnel, and all skills are performed on a matted surface.
a.Basket tosses, elevator/sponge tosses and other similar multi-based tosses.
b.Partner stunts in which the base uses only one arm to support the top person.
c.Released twists into or from stunts or pyramids.
d.Twisting tumbling skills.
 
haha in my state we compete on basketball floors .. tumbling, stunts and all

My frosh year of college I judged regionals....I was APPALLED that they were competing on hardwood. Worse? It was raining pretty hard that day, and the roof started leaking right on to the gym floor, right at half court. The solution? Put a trash can out to catch the water and the teams would just have to work around it!!!! I would have walked out if i hadn't ridden out with someone from the team who was also judging. WVSSAC is a hot mess.
 
This is very state dependent. AACCA is one of the primary associations for cheer coach safety certification but it DOES NOT regulate HS cheer. National Federation of High School Associations is the primary governing body for all HS sports (think NCAA) and provides cheer guidance to state HS associations from their Spirit Accociation recources.: http://www.nfhs.org/Activity3.aspx?id=308

State High School associations can be found here: http://www.nfhs.org/stateoff.aspx

Each state has it's own rules and some counties add to that. You need to check what the specific rules are for your area. Regardless of the rules, tumbling or stunting on a hard surface is not smart and has the risk of a serious injury even from basic skills.
 
My frosh year of college I judged regionals....I was APPALLED that they were competing on hardwood. Worse? It was raining pretty hard that day, and the roof started leaking right on to the gym floor, right at half court. The solution? Put a trash can out to catch the water and the teams would just have to work around it!!!! I would have walked out if i hadn't ridden out with someone from the team who was also judging. WVSSAC is a hot mess.

yeah the wvssac is a MESS.. I wouldn't even say hot! it's the worst when they wax the floor we practice on and everybody is slipping everywhere tumbling! I was taught basically all my tumbling on wood floor or just a flat mat, transitioning back and forth from spring (when we take tumbling classes) to wood is horrible.. i don't throw fulls on the spring floor during high school cheer season because it messes me up so bad, I just wait till after it's over and then do it for all-stars. I wish we competed on a mat .. maybe then we would have less strict stunting rules and less injuries!!
 
how would you get caught if it was illegal?

2 ways:
1. Someone takes a video or photo and reports it to the AACCA. Then they contact the school's athletic director about it and let them know the ramifications

2. Someone gets hurt. If someone gets hurt doing illegal tumbling on a hardwood floor, and the coach is AACCA certified..the AACCA will not stand behind that coach as they violated their regulations and went against their training. When that happens, it opens up the school and the coach personally for law suit. This typically means the coach is fired by the school, and potentially cheer is cut because they cost the school a couple million and it's horrible PR for the school (because you know something like this will end up in the news....the media LOVES to make cheer out to be this horrible blood bath of injuries).
 
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