You see the over-sized bows and tight skirts - and immediately disqualify cheerleading as a sport.

Cheerleaders don't need cleats to prevent them from a fall.

They don't need helmets to brace their faces from limp body parts.

And they sure as hell do not need anyone telling them they're not athletic.

For girls AND BOYS everywhere, I have come to find that there is a little bit of a strange pride and concurrent stigma attached to being a cheerleader. It seems that these mixed emotions people have come from ignorance. All I can I hope is to relieve that ignorance.

I was once the most ignorant of them all.

Okay, so when I was a freshman in high school, I was a soccer player. A pretty serious soccer player, in fact. I played outside of school and for my high school, and I loved it.

Cheerleaders were my favorite kind of girls to laugh at. I though it was ridiculous that while they were trying to be “athletic,” they had lipstick and eyeliner on. I was a dancer in addition to playing soccer, but I knew dance was an art - cheer confused me. As just another student on a huge campus, I did not see what the cheerleaders did during their (what I thought to be very unnecessary) five practices a week. I saw them stand in the sun and cheer on the freshman football boys at their games, and that was about it, apart from a few appearances at pep rallies. When we would have a conversation with people regarding whether or not cheer was a sport, I would laugh and always say, “No way." It all seemed like one big joke to me... until I transferred high schools my junior year.

Ironically enough, the only girls I knew at this new high school (two girls total) were on the cheer team. They pushed me to try out and I decided I would, for in my mind it was just fun and games. At try-outs, they had us learn a few cheers, which was fairly easy for me, and then all of a sudden I see girls being launched into the air, and defying gravity on a mat. I was in awe. I thought for sure there would be no chance of me making this team, but by some default I made it on!

The second I saw my name on the email notifying me I had been chosen, an internal war was commenced in my stomach. On one side, I had already contacted the soccer coach at my new high school, and he seemed overjoyed to have me; I knew I could not fully commit to both. Not to mention, I always thought cheer was stupid, and cheer girls were mean, but why did millions of girls across the nation still choose to participate in it every day? I had played soccer my whole life, and felt I would be ridiculous for choosing cheer. But on the other side, cheer was very new to me, and it had me fully intrigued.

So I signed up.

Cheer practice was much harder than soccer had ever been for me. Soccer had become natural, I ran a few laps, did some conditioning, did some drills and played a scrimmage. But cheer? On day one I learned the proper technique to lift a girl, with my arms fully extended, above my head. On day two I tried flipping backwards (did not happen) and day three... well, day three I couldn't feel any of my ligaments. Cheer worked muscles I did not know existed.

In addition to the physical strain, the team effort presented in cheerleading is unlike any sport I’ve encountered prior. With an all-girl cheer team, under every stunt there are three girls, plus a flyer. Every single one of these girls has to work together, fluidly, to protect the safety of the flyer and the bases under her. Not to mention, to make the stunt hit consistently. Cheerleaders work for hours to hit tricks that seem to give some people heart attacks (including myself in the beginning). Most cheerleaders support their football and basketball teams during the fall and winter, but as spring approaches it becomes competition season.

Competitive cheerleading is NO joke. All these flips, stunts and jumps are put to the test on a much grander scale. Cheerleaders take their talents all the way to an international level. Every second of the usually three-minute routine matters, and when it's done, so are you.

Cheerleaders do not lift weights, they lift humans.

Cheerleaders do not use a ball, it would get in the way of their tumbling.

Cheerleaders do not run for cardio, they jump and hit the splits in the air.

The stigma wrapped around cheerleading is a misconception.

The pride however, is earned.

The next time you try to say cheer isn't a sport, please check again.