Friday nights in high school were one of my favorite times. . . Friday meant it was game day and it meant I got to cheer again. Now, in college, it's every Saturday afternoon, I get to do what I love time and time again. I'm also at every home men's basketball game cheering, and come spring time, I'll be on the mat competing somewhere. And despite everything I do, there's still the age old debate: is cheer a sport or not?
Now most people don't think so, and for the most part I can't blame them. Social media, especially movies and TV shows, have put a bad taste in people's mouths about cheerleaders. We're these girl who are a super clique, run the school, wear our uniforms everywhere and way too short, homecoming queen, not necessarily the sharpest tools in the box, are bitches and get with the hottest guys in the school. However, a large majority of that stuff isn't true on a regular basis.
Yes, in high school I wore my uniform to school on Fridays, but that was because it was game day and a way to advertise the game that night. Often times, people don't consider cheerleading a sport so we are already looked down upon and must fight to climb the social ladder. Granted if you're friends with the right people or good looking enough you may be near the top of the ladder anyway, but again that's not always the case. Also, our intelligence is often insulted. Nonetheless, a couple of my friends in high school and myself were in honors/AP classes at some point and I am in the honors college here at my school as well. And in college, we are required to maintain a certain GPA in order to participate in our sport, which is the same rule for all other sports.
I think most people also don't see cheer as a sport is because they just see the little things we do on the sidelines at football games. And I will give you that, football/basketball cheer isn't that much of a sport. But most people don't see our practices or our competitions, if they even know that we compete.
We willingly get thrown or throw people in the air and are trusted to flip and twist our bodies and catch them safely. Individually we throw our bodies across the floor in our tumbling passes. We push our bodies to the extreme and push through numerous aches and pains to hit that stunt one more time or throw a pass and pray that we land it or go through our entire routine full out. I have gotten numerous injuries from cheer over the past 12 years or so of my cheering career, the worst being a concussion this past spring. This season, only a month and a half in, I have already had 3 teammates get concussions. That's because we willingly put ourselves in harm's way to protect our teammate's body/life.
Each day, I wake up and not only go to classes and work every day, but I have to fight this stereotype. I try to be the best person I can be and most of the time people don't even know I'm a cheerleader. So please stop judging me, my teammates and my sport because all you believe is television and silly stereotypes. Come meet us on the mat and try for yourself before you judge us next time. Thanks.
