sport : /spôrt/ noun

an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

I started cheerleading at a young age. My experience has and will stick with me forever. When you're a cheerleader, it becomes your life. You dedicate your time and body to the sport. We aren’t just cheerleaders, we are athletes. We don’t just stand on the sidelines for entertainment to cheer for our team, we stand there to support our team.

When you assume cheerleading isn’t a sport you are actually offending millions of people around the globe. Men and women everyday pour their hearts into their jumps, tumbling, and motions to be the person that other teams, little ones, and parents can look up to and be proud of. But there is more to cheer than team spirit.

What you don’t know is we also have our own ‘games’. We compete against other teams; just like any other sport. We use our eyes to focus, our mouths to cheer, our strength, and dedication to do what we love for our school, and fans.

Sports teams have coaches and athletic trainer’s, right? Well, so does cheerleading. We have to have the same athletic abilities as other sports, so why not classify it as one? Because we wear skirts? Tennis girls wear skirts. Because we spirit for our team? What do you think the fans do? Think about it, just because we move our arms and scream for our team makes us a ‘fan zone’ instead of a cheerleader team; which we actually are called.

Speaking of team; every team is a family. They work hard together, push each other, and help each other work towards our goals. Without that, what is sportsmanship or even leadership? Cheerleading showed me how to be a leader, how to work together as a team, and how to become a family. We all fight, but at the end of the day we love each other. Every sport has those feelings towards one another.

Honestly, we work hard. We workout just like every sport in training. It takes human physical ability to do any kind of sport. We practice each routine and stunt over and over to perfect it for competition or football games. Cheerleaders need to be recognized as the ones who spread the word about their school. We cheer on our school to show pride, and to share that all of us athletes are capable of doing anything.

Not only are we trying to dedicate ourselves to our school, we have competitions in different places that we as a team work very hard for. Competitions aren’t easy, you get nervous right before each stunt sequence, you push your strength farther than you probably should, and those jumps we do aren’t easy at all, but practice makes perfect. The point of competition is to show other schools what we as a team can do, just like any other sport.

Instead of making fun of a cheerleader for screaming their head off, and risking their life to be in the air, thank them for showing their school spirit. Thank them for working hard to show you how great they are, like everyone else.

Let’s move the Cheerleading squad off the fan zone and into the sports section!