Is cheerleading a sport? The majority of people I've asked this question to say no. Cheerleading is not thought of as a sport because there are not two teams competing at the same time with the objective of using an object to earn points. In cheerleading, there is not always an obvious outcome that the average spectator can see. Sometimes, the difference between 1st and 2nd place is just decimal points of deductions. Because of these reasons, sports fans argue that cheerleading should not be considered a sport.
From the eyes of a college cheerleader, this sport is very real. Even though there is no physical contact between my team and our competition, and there is no tangible object we are using to score points on scoreboard; cheerleading is my sport.
Cheerleading is extremely physical and even though we never make contact with the other teams, we are in constant physical contact with our own teammates. Maybe people who don't see cheerleading as a sport would disagree, but throwing a person into the air is slightly more difficult than throwing a ball into a net.
For 2 minutes and 30 seconds, competitive cheerleaders have one chance to hit a perfect routine that they have spent months in the gym practicing over and over and over again. If the routine is not clean or competitive, the team will face deductions when being scored as they preform. After all teams in a given division preform, the final scores are compared, and a winner is announced.
My pet peeve about cheerleading not being considered a sport is not that we are called a "club" at my school, Fitchburg State University. It is not that we have to completely fund-raise for ourselves in order to even have a space to practice (not even on-campus). It is not that we have to beg the school for money to be able to purchase uniforms that fit each cheerleader. It isn't even the fact that we are the so commonly overlooked. My biggest pet peeve about cheerleading not being considered a sport is that we never have an athletic trainer readily available in case someone gets injured, and we often do.
Cheerleading practices are about trying new skills in a safe environment so that we are able to eventually compete to our best ability. Knowing in the back of my mind that the only options I have if I get hurt is to call 911 or suck it up and keep going is never comforting. Throwing another person into the air, holding them steadily there, and then catching them as they come down, isn't always as simple as it sounds. There are always multiple risk factors where something could go wrong. If we had an athletic trainer available, our team would stay a lot safer and a lot healthier.
Cheerleading is so much more than pom-poms, pretty hair, make-up, and entertaining the crowd at football games. Unfortunately, every cheerleader knows all too well the discrimination of not being considered a true athlete for a real sport.
