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If not for cheerleading, it would be that much more difficult to suss out who the popular girls are in high school. (Also, Charlie Sheen would have to find a new sexual fetish.)Add that to the fact cheerleaders wear skimpy outfits and perform feats of flexibility and bouncing, and we can all agree that cheerleaders have given the world so very much.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we turn to our friends at With Leather, who report that a federal court in Connecticut is deliberating whether cheerleading is a sport. If so, it fulfills Quinnipiac University's Title IX requirement of offering the same number of male and female athletic scholarships.
The argument for cheerleading being a sport is that it requires athleticism, and cheerleading competitions are broadcast on ESPN. Then again, ESPN also carries bass fishing. (Also, athleticism is a requirement in some of your better porn.)
So what do you think -- should cheerleading become an official court-sanctioned sport?
| Yes -- and a sexy, sexy sport it is | |
|---|---|
| No -- when cheerleading is competitive, it's a pageant | |
| No -- but I hope the court rules it's a sport, because Title IX is dumb |
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Monday 21 June
By SanDiego
Having a competitive teenage cheerleader I assure you they are athletes. What a shame people are too narrow minded to see how far cheerleading has come and how different competitive cheer is from the rah-rah dancer types involved in professional sports. They are apples and oranges people.
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Monday 21 June
By C
You own a cheerleader? Cool, where can I buy some? Cheerleading is so lame that most schools don't even call them cheerleaders anymore! It's the dance squad, or spirit squad, or some other made up crap. Cheerleading doesn't do anything for the sport it is supporting. They stand on the sidelines and yell rehearsed crap that the audience then repeats. A tape recorder could accomplish the same thing. Cheerleading is as much as sport as pro wrestling.
Thursday 20 January
By vanessa
omg yes im a competitive cheerleader and it really is a hard sport. i really dont get it why people dont think that it isnt a sprot when it totally is!!!
Tuesday 22 June
By stafferty
Cheerleading is not a sprot because you can't have a cheerleading "Pick up game" like you can with real sports. The person who "wins" a cheerleading competition is based solely on a judges decision, unlike american football, basketball, boxing, soccer, baseball, hockey, swimming, and track and feild activities. These sports have a definative winner when there is no referee or judge around.
Cheerleading, gymnastics, ice dancing, diving and other athletic activities like these are just that, athletic activities. I know that You cannot have a five on five "cheer-off" without an impartial judge. I know these take talents, and I accept that I cannot do them, but that does not make them sports.
While I am at it, Nascar is not a sport either, because it is too dependant on equipment. Kobe Bryant could still beat you in one on one in a pair of Timberland boots. Phil Michelson wll still have a sub-zero handicap with an set of old steel clubs. Lawerence Taylor could break Thigpen's leg agains if her was wearing the old Leather Helmet. However Tony Stewart will never be able to win the Daytona 500 in a Pinto. Just because they do not have a/c opr power steering in the cars does not make it a sport.
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Tuesday 22 June
By cp
Cheerleading is very much a sport. The definition of a sport does not include that you must be able to play a pick up game of it, or that it can't be primarily judge based. It is "Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively." Is cheering phsical? Check. Is there a set of rules or customs? Check. Are there competitions? Check.
Also, how many times have people gotten angry over a bad call by a ref. and claim that it cost the team the game. Seems to me that other sports are judged as well.
Tuesday 22 June
By Katie
I have to say that cheerleading is a sport. I have been competitive cheerleader for about a year through my university and it is the hardest sport I have ever been apart of. I played soccer when I was younger, a little volleyball, and a competitive horseback rider also.
Practices for cheerleading are exhasting and run all year long, even if school is not in session. And eventhough I have been apart of this sport for a while, I still wake up the morning after practices extremly sore and with many bruises from the contact of dangerous stunts.
Even though the university requires that the team be at some school functions, we do more than just dance around and do cheers. We do stunts that tend to be dangerous and treat it as a practice. Even though the school requires us to be at events more than any other sports team on campus, they will not recognize us as a sport. We do not want to be a sport to get money from the school, we already pay for all of our own uniforms gear, and competition fees. As a team, we just want some of the perks the sports, like priority registration for classes.
I challenge anyone who belives that cheerleading is not a sport to come to one of my teams practices to see if they can make it through.
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Wednesday 23 June
By Mike
Cheerleading is not a sport.
Cheerleading competitions cannot be decided without a judge under any circumstances. Sports like basketball, american foot ball, real football (soccer), baseball, rugby, hockey, golf, boxing (If actually allowed to go the distance and not done by decision, which I do not believe in), MMA, and track are typically either completely independent of officials or minimally affected by them 99% of the time. We might get one blatently bad call that blatently affect the outcome of the game once every two weeks in professional sports, when there are 2430 MLB baseball games a regular season alone(162 games a season per team times 30 teams divided by 2 teas per game), this has an amazing degree of accuracy. However judge decisions account for EVERY win/loss in competitive cheerleading.
I also admit I can not do many of the things that cheerleaders do. It takes a lot of coordination and training that I do not have. However, if you are willing to call cheerleading a sport, than we should start broadcasting "So You Think You Can Dance" on ESPN. It is equally atheletic, takes the same amount of training and flexibilty, but is completely decided by judges. If you consider cheerleading to be a sport, you must also consider ballroom dancing, syncronized swimming, and reality show dance competitions to be sports.
Wednesday 23 June
By Eric
Katie, I can't play a sax or trumpet either, that doesn't make band a sport. As a matter of fact, "cheer leading" is more like band then it is a real sport.
Tuesday 22 June
By Fred
Some cheerleaders may be athletes but that does not make cheerleading a sport. They are not competing against another team to win and in the rare case that they do compete against teams a lot of times they just have to pay to get there so no cheerleading is not a sport.
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Wednesday 23 June
By DrPezz
Cheer should not be a sport but not because of people's perceptions of it and not because of any lack of athleticism or grace.
The limits that would be placed on the activity if it became a sport would irreparably harm the activity itself. Right now, cheer teams can compete outside of a single, time limited season. This allows for the cohesion and incorporation of elements (dance, cheer, stunt, etc.).
Really, this debate at the judicial level is less over whether it's a sport and more about the university being able to eliminate volleyball and count cheer (because it is cheaper and has more competitors) to satisfy Title IX requirements. The argument itself is dishonest from the start.
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Saturday 03 July
By Karley
Cheerleading is a Sport, Technically AND Realistically.
A rare case that they compete? ha! I’ve been on teams that are specifically are for competing! and even baseball teams have to pay to go to some tournaments, so why does it matter that you have to pay? So learn something about the sport before you go stating your opinion and backing it up with false facts.
Stunting, Dancing, & Tumbling are all part of cheerleading. So why is dancing so widely accepted as a sport and cheerleading can't be? It’s THREE sports in one plus perfection and spirit. over 1.5 million ***athletes*** in America do competitive cheerleading? But it’s not a sport?
Cheerleading is more like band than a sport? How so? Does band require anyy athletic ability? C’mon, stop exaggerating.
Judging barely has any affect on MLB? pleaseee. So the ref calling a pitch a strike or ball has no affect? haa. referees decisions can win or lose a game.
Does the fact that it has to be judged make it not a sport? All sports are judged. Is that the definition of a sport? NO! and, by the definition of a "sport", cheerleading meets all the requirements.
What about basketball and football, no one ever goes out of bounds or gets penalties? uhmm. yeah actually, they do, and much more than every two weeks, more like every game.
So why isn't Cheerleading a sport? It’s just as physical as any other sport, if not more. It’s a competition for winning just like any other sport. If cheering isn't a sport, what makes basketball a SPORT what makes baseball a SPORT? Not as much judging? no, they both have alottt of judging.
Please stop being so narrow minded. Cheerleading is a sport. There’s a lot more to cheerleading than you might think. Go to a practice or competition and I’m sure you’ll change your mind.
ESPN admits it’s a sport. You should too,
A Cheerleader[:
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Monday 12 July
By Justin
Dancing's not a sport, either. Tumbling and stunting aren't sports, so the fact that they are part of cheerleading does nothing to validate your claim.
Cheerleading is like band in that its primary function at all institutions is to support a sport like football or basketball. Sure, there are cheerleading competitions or "Battle of the Bands" but these are just as much sporting events as a talent show or beauty pageant would be.
Cheerleading is a physically demanding activity, to be sure. Let me repeat that, as people seem to assume that anyone who takes the "cheerleading is not a sport" stance believes the activity to be easy: cheerleading is a physically demanding activity. I could not perform a majority of the movements that cheerleaders perform. I also can't speak Latin but that doesn't mean speaking a dead foreign language is suddenly a sport, either.
However, there are major aspects of cheerleading that contradict the standard definition of a sport: cheering has no defined season, no true governing organization (two versions of organizations that have filled the role have been associated with Varsity Brands, Inc., a for-profit company that sells cheerleading gear and hosts up to 60 "national championships" a year), the competing sides are never on the playing surface at the same time, and it does not feature competition as its primary goal (in many if not all cases, cheerleading programs would not exist were it not for other sports). On top of that, even when cheerleading does enter the competition format, the winner is always decided exclusively by judges. Any activity where the winner is completely determined by someone not on the playing surface is not a sport (sorry ice dancing/skating, diving, and gymnastics). Yes, many of these judged sports take copious amounts of talent and athleticism but they're still not sports.
Umpires and referees can absolutely have an effect on moments or sequences in sports like baseball, soccer, or football but the bulk of meaningful plays in all of those sports are carried out by the players without any official involvement: if a player hits a home run or scores a goal -- no matter how biased a ref/umpire may be -- he or she cannot disregard or diminish the fact that a home run or goal is worth exactly one point on the scoreboard. In a judged competition like cheerleading or ice skating, a judge's ruling can be completely subjective when it comes to awarding points (even the most crooked of NBA referees cannot rule a jumpshot to only be worth one point).
Don't confuse "going out of bounds" and "getting penalties" in football or basketball to be the same as the absolute judgement in cheerleading (or ice dancing, diving, and gymnastics, for that matter) -- "out of bounds" and penalties are RULES. If "rules" are all it takes for something to be considered a sport, then filing income taxes is now a sport also.
The most damning note: even competitive cheerleading is not recognized by the NCAA as a sport. There is no NCAA national championship for cheering.
Truthfully, the only reason this debate persists is because someone, years ago, instilled the notion that that which is considered a "sport" is superior to that which is considered an "activity" when there's no inherent hierarchy, there -- they're just two different classes of things distinguished not by difficulty or requisite talent but by the circumstances in which each exists. If we created a new term to distinguish sports that don't use a ball (boxing, running, track and field, swimming, etc.) from those that do, there would not be a big hullabaloo about whether or not one group was particularly more difficult than the other. The circumstances of each are just different. Things are different. Big whoop. Stop complaining about it.
Saturday 06 November
By 8454165415614555
Cheerleading is a very competitive sport. The guys who say its not a sport are crazy. All they think a cheerleader does is just wear a hot cheerleading uniform and cheer for the football players! CHEERLEADING IS A COMPETITIVE SPORT BECAUSE WE COMPETE IN CHEERLEADING COMPETITIONS AGAINST OTHER CHEERLEADERS! The only reason why people don't think that it is a sport is because they don't know what we actually do! Right now my cheer team is practicing for our cheerleading competition that we have in a couple of weeks. We have gotten hurt many times. WE DON'T JUST WEAR HOT UNIFORMS ; WE WORK LIKE ANY OTHER SPORT DOES TRYING TO BE THE BEST THAN ANYOTHERS. Do soccer players practice very hard and COMPETE AGAINST OTHER soccer players?! Yeah, they are a sport and so is CHEERLEADING! Cheerleaders practice very hard and compete against other cheerleaders in cheer competitions.
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Thursday 20 January
By vanessa
there are some football players on my school competitive team and before they joined they were all like cheerleading is definetely NOT sport, but when they actually joined and learned everything they became more into it then they are into football!!!! if you think cheerleading is not a sport, your CRAZY!!!!!!! we work HARDERR then football players, soccer players, baseball players, and basketball players!!! juss because we dont kick/dribble/hit balls that DOESNT MEAN THAT CHEERLEADING IS NOT A SPORT!!!!!! cheerleading takes as much energy as football or any other freaking sport so all you out there think that cheerleading is not a sport you got another thing coming for you!!!!!!! you just wait til cheerleading is finally considered a sport!!!! as a matter of fact cheerleading is in the top 5 most dangerous sports!!!!!! so BEAT THAT!!!!!!!!
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Wednesday 13 July
By James
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Friday 02 September
By Julia
I cheer. Practice is three times a week for two hours. We do as much as other sports do. We condition (sit ups, jumping jacks, push ups, weight training,) ect. Not to mention working on jumps and cheers. And then there's the time outside of formal practice. I recently lost a good part of my weekend going to a studio in the next town over for two hours each day preparing our competition routine. Our competition routine is about 5 minutes long, with at least 3 stunts, and a dance routine, plus a jump sequence.
Then there is fund raising. I canned for two hours the other night (from 6-8) out side some creepy ass liquor store. During which, some creepy teenage boys waited in a car near us for like 20 minutes till they eventually drove off. I'm 12. It scared the heck out of me. But I didn't let it bother me, because we need the money. Want to know why? Uniforms for competition are $250 each. That is NOT including warm up jackets and shoes, which are $50 each.And required. I also have a car wash coming up, which I will lose two days to. One planning for it, and one actually at the car wash. This is all on top of school, which starts in a week, and the other sports I play.
Your probably wondering by now, why do you have to fund raise so much? Because all the money for uniforms and such goes to the football players. They don't even need to pay for their uniforms. All the money goes to them. Because idiot man ruled that it's not a sport. I wonder if he's ever tried it. A week at practice would change anybodies mind.
Then there's stunting. Maybe some people don't know about stunting. I'm a back spot in stunting. That means I help lift the girl up, and help support her, and make sure her bases are not having to hold all of her weight. The girl we lift in the air is the flyer. The flyer, has to jump, switch positions, SPIN, while being held up.There are also times where we have to toss her like, 7 feet in the air, she has to do a jump while in the air, then we have to catch and continued, while remembering and reciting a cheer loudly. Sooooo easy, right? (Note my incredible amount of sarcasm)
Lots of people say cheerleaders are sluts, and for there "proof" they show pictures of cheerleaders for professional sport teams. That's not what it's like it the real world. In the real world, we don't wear belly shirts and short skirts. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure our uniforms for games are turtle necks this year.
Then there's the topic of sideline versus competitive, a lot of the time, squads do both. And both of them are work.
Cheering takes time, money, and lots of effort.
So is it a sport?
Yes.
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