ENGL
102-023
Definition
Essay11 September 11, 2013
Is Cheerleading a Sport?
Many
think cheerleading is nothing but throwing your hands in the arm making up
rhymes to cheer on a team. What most don’t understand is how much cheerleading
has evolved. Cheering on the sidelines of a football or basketball game is
an activity, however competitive cheerleading such as all stars and competition
teams should be a sport. A sport is defined as “an
activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team
competes against another or others for entertainment.” Under these very broad
terms cheerleading fits perfectly. Working thesis.
The
most common argument is that a real sport involves a game and physical contact.
Whether on a field or on a mat the best team always wins. In a football, unexpected things happen
sometimes and you need to make up for it, but you have time. With cheerleading
you have 2 minutes and 30 seconds to do your absolute best, with no mistakes.
There is no time for a second chance and, you just hope for the best. That
makes it more challenging and more pressure than any type of game. An article from the New York Times on
cheerleading injuries states, “For decades, they stood by safe and smiling, a
fixture on America’s sporting sidelines. But today’s young cheerleaders, who
perform tricks once reserved for trapeze artists, may be in more peril than any
female athletes in the country.” This acknowledges the level of difficulty it
takes to perform such tasks.
From
1982-2005 there have been 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high
school and college athletes, that range from head to spinal injuries that
sometimes result in death. The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injuries
research reported that more than half of these injuries were from cheerleading,
and all the other sports combined did not surpass cheerleading. This proved how
physically demanding the sport actually is There is no individual score sheet
and winner, unlike wrestling. A wrestler can win for himself but lose the meet,
where one cheerleader can not win or lose the champion title, its soley
dependent on working together to be the best in that one shot. Without one
person it directly effects the entire team. Every teammate must depend on each
other more than in any other sport because of people’s lives can be at risk.
Being throw ten feet into the air takes a lot of trust that the top girl will
not hit the ground. In order to perform the very best and be able to lift, jump
and dance for a rigorous two and a half minutes, you must be physically fit.
Just like any other sport it involves conditioning and getting in shape. Not
everyone is meant to be a cheerleader and there are some very demanding
qualifications. Today, cheerleading involves skills that require the strength
of football, the grace of dance and the agility of gymnastics. Complex
maneuvers are preformed that challenge the limits of the body.
Unfortunately
in 2009 a judge in Connecticut declared cheerleading is not a sport when
Quinnipiac University took out woman’s volleyball and replaced it with
competitive cheerleading. Angry members of the volleyball team took the matter
to court, and the judge ruled under the conditions of Title IX that
cheerleading did not qualify. Without knowing anything about cheerleading he
made an assumption that cheerleading was still to disorganized and messy to be
a part of the organization on Title IX. Because of this one incident
cheerleading is not recognized in the legal world as a sport.
The definition of a sport
according to The Women’s Sports
Foundation has narrowed the field down of what is considered a sport to these
elements that are commonly agreed upon to define a sport as: It must be a
physical activity which involves propelling a mass through space or overcoming
the resistance of mass, “Contesting” or competing against/with an opponent is
required, It must be governed by
rules that explicitly define the time, space, and purpose of the contest and
the conditions under which a winner is declared, and Acknowledgement that the
primary purpose of the competition is a comparison of the relative skills of
the participants. Cheerleading fits all of these rules but there is one more
qualification that states that the primary reason is competition verses other
teams or individuals within a competition structure comparable to other
‘athletic’ activities. Cheerleading’s primary purpose is to cheer on other
sports teams and provide school unity, and competition comes second. All-star
cheerleading however, is the only branch that is a sport because there is no
cheering on of other sports, strictly competition teams.
Since the first organized team in 1898, teams all over the
country have come a long way. Cheerleading is no longer known just as cheering
on football and sports teams, but as a dangerous and rigorous sport. Because
cheerleading was created and still has the reputation of its primary purpose
being to unite people on a particular sport, it can not be identified and
recognized as a sport such as soccer or baseball. It is an ongoing argument and
organizations are working towards changing the qualifications and having
exceptions for different types of cheerleading to get cheerleading the respect
and recognition it deserves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/sports/31cheerleader.html?ref=cheerleaders
http://www.titleix.info/History/History-Overview.aspx
http://www.titleix.info/History/History-Overview.aspx
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