Morgan Eisenhart

Grant
UWRT 1102
April 9, 2015
Cheerleading; a Sport
A topic that has become a popular controversy is how is cheerleading a sport? Most
people do not think it is a sport because they have the idea that it is girls standing on the side
lines of football or basketball games. I am trying to break that mean, popular, cheerleading
stereotype at society and Hollywood have created about cheerleading. The reader will learn facts
on the history of cheerleading and how it first started and has become a worldwide sport for any
athlete. The reasons as to why cheerleading is a sport is because it has a point system resulting in
a winner just like every sport. It has been declared by ESPN the most dangerous sport,
surpassing football in injuries (Drehs 2004). Most people cannot walk off the street and just
automatically be good at a sport, the same applies to cheerleading it takes long hours, hard work,
and dedication to learn the technique to be successful in this sport.
When cheerleading first started it was men cheering on other men in football and/or
basketball. It all started in the late 1800s when the UK created a trend of chanting together at
sporting events. A student, Johnny Campbell, at the University of Minnesota was the first person
to create a team and create cheers to lead the crowd (iSport 2015). Campbell from that point on
was considered the first real cheerleader. Before it got the name cheerleading it was called a
Yell Squad each team had only six males Texas A&M joined in 1905 and they created The
Cheerleading State (iSport 2015). Texas is still known for being a cheerleading state with
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thousands of gyms located there. In the 1920s when the men went off to was in World War II the
women are the ones who took over the Yell Squads and started to include tumbling, stunting,
and other materials like pom-poms and megaphones. With girls now cheering the uniforms
started out as long skirts with logoed sweaters. (iSport 2015)
Cheerleading began to grow, making the athlete have more advanced skills, and
becoming more competitive. Lawrence Herkimer, a retired cheerleader, created the National
Cheerleaders Association (NCA) to hold clinics to teach other cheerleaders proper stunting,
cheers, chants, and safety tips. A fun fact about Herkimer is he created a jump called the
Herkie, which is a jump still used by school and All Star cheerleaders to this day. (iSport 2015)
Since there was only collegiate cheerleading at the time NCA inspired the younger
generation to be a part of this sport through NCA clinics. Eventually high schools and girls even
younger wanted in on this sport Pop Warner, a U.S. non-profit youth organization, allowed
younger athletes without school affiliations to join cheerleading teams. Girls as young as five
began to cheer and had the option to continue with the sport through their college days. (iSport
2015). For these young athletes they would cheer for pee-wee football association. As time went
on CBS and ESPN televised Collegiate and high school cheerleading which was huge event for
cheerleaders across the nation. NCA today now hosts the largest All Star completive
cheerleading competition n in Dallas Texas every year. NCA also has the largest colligate
competition every year held in Daytona, Florida. Along with UCA, another cheerleading
program, hold a competition every year for collegiate and high schools teams in Orlando, FL for
a national championship.
All Star or competitive cheerleading started becoming popular in the 1980s for the
athletes who wanted to be outside the school setting to preform mastered skills in choreographed
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routines. Each team and level has their own set of rules to abide by when going to a competition
All Star cheerleading is one of the fastest growing sports and organization called USASF held
the first ever Worlds All-star competition (Worlds) in 2004 solidifying non-affiliated
cheerleading as a legitimate force within the cheering community (iSport 2015). Worlds was not
just held for American teams but for all star programs around the country from Canada, Europe,
and even Asia how been invited to compete at Worlds. Outsiders of the cheerleading community
had hard time believing this as a sport and taking it seriously until in the late 1990s ESPN
decided cheerleading was a sport.
Cheerleading started as a male activity, but now includes both sexes, with a majority of it
being female. Society is now gaining a new respect for this sport due to documentaries showing
how cheerleading has evolved into the sport it is today. They are now filming large well known
competitions to show in movie theaters for cheerleaders all over the world to watch.
Many opposing arguments about competitive cheerleading are that there are not points so
how can there be a winner, if there is no point system, and its based on opinions. What most
people do not realize is that there are points and a final score for every team that competes
against each other. These fast paced routines consists of standing tumbling, running tumbling,
jumps, stunts, baskets, and a dance. Since I have been a cheerleading coach for three years and
an athlete for this sport for ten years these points systems have stayed the same since All Star
cheerleading has started. Each score is out of 100% when a team performs if each section. There
is a deduction sheet that has all the points that would be deducted if something happened during
a routine. If an athlete falls that is .25 off the score or it is a major fall it would be 1.00 points off
the score. With each team there is a raw score what is the amount of difficulty in a routine, which

is included the hardest skills possible for that specific level. If the teams raw score is low that
will affect their overall 100% score bumping team down places when it is time for awards.
There are some aspects of cheerleading that I do not consider a sport, for example just
cheering for a football game or any type of games because there is no competition, their purpose
is to support the schools team. All Star cheerleading is solely based on competing against other
All Star programs For an activity to truly be considered a sport, it must involve competition
against others (Selke 2013). Each competition is grouped by age and skill level so that it is fair
to the athletes competing against each team in organized matches, just like any other sport like
March Madness and the Super Bowl (Selke 2013).
For any sport to succeed there has to be a coach guiding and making sure the athletes are
safe and using proper technique. Just like any sport if the basics are not mastered it makes it
difficult to build on to an athletes skill. The coaches have to be knowledgeable in stunting and
tumbling to spot out anything that could potential hurt an athlete or others. Coaching does not
stop at practice but they help these athletes learn team work, sportsmanship, and to build the
confidence of each athlete.
Cheerleading may seem like a very easy, feminine, sideline sport. But on the contrary, its
considered one of the most dangerous sports. The bodily contact that occurs while stunting has
produced more injuries than even in traditional male sports such as football, lacrosse, and
hockey. Facial, spinal, shoulder, and hand injuries are the most common injuries for stunting in
cheerleading. For example when stunting the flyer, the person who gets picked up, can fall and
hit the ground if not caught properly. This results in head injuries like concussions. Bases, the
people who pick the flyer up, can get kicked in the face from their flyers dont squeeze their legs
together when dismounting. If the bases do not watch the flyer as she/he dismounts someone
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could get an elbowed in the face. Jamming or breaking a finger is the most common due to bases
hands being in constant contact with the flyers feet fingers can get stuck causing it to jam or
break.
Additionally lower lumbar, pelvic, knee, clavicle and ankle injuries are rampant in
tumbling during cheerleading. A hand stand is the most important basic skill to acquire for
tumbling or any gymnastic skills. If an athlete has not mastered this skill it means they cannot
hold their own body weight to tumble and do back hand springs to eventually doing layout full
twists. In All Stars athletes use a spring floor, the springs help absorb the impact of the landing,
to help prevent ankle sprains or breaks. Unlike collegiate cheer they are on a dead floor which
has no springs causing a higher risk of ankle sprains or breaks. When an athlete is tumbling and
lands wrong ankles normally turns into a sprain or break. The next common injury when
tumbling is when landing with straight legs instead of knees bent to absorb the landing the
meniscus, which is in the knee, gets torn.
Practice, to must cheerleaders it is a love/hate relationship. The amount of hours each
cheerleader puts into practice is equivalent to a part time job. Performing a routine take an
abundant amount of stamina, try imagining sprinting for 2:30 while carrying someone at the
same time, just saying it makes me feel exhausted. A coach, Mollie Vehling, from the UCLAs
cheerleading team stated You can't just go out there and act stupid. It's a dangerous activity. And
there's absolutely no way that if you did it for one day you wouldn't come back saying it's a
sport. This sport inquires strength and balance giving cheerleaders respect of being athletes for a
sport.
No matter what, there will always be augments about cheerleading not being a sport
because they arent informed or they cant get past how the uniform looks. A uniform can be
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changed to get rid of that stereotype that society created. In conclusion society should look past
that one flaw and concentrate on how cheerleading has evolved as a whole. Cheerleading is a
competitive sport, maybe even more than some sports today. It doesnt take just physical strength
to lift girls up and to tumble, but it includes mental strength too. The mental strength comes from
pushing back the fears and fighting for a routine that each athlete spent countless hours
perfecting. When these athletes are at practice working on this routine injuries can occur for
example sprains, breaks, cuts, and bruises making it a dangerous sport. Which is why
cheerleading should be taken seriously when being consider as a sport.

Works Cited
Drehs, Wayne. "ESPN.com: Page 2 : Athletes Are Cheerleaders, Too." ESPN.com: Page 2 :
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Athletes Are Cheerleaders, Too. ESPN, 14 Mar. 2004. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.
ISport. "History of Cheerleading | ISport.com." History of Cheerleading | ISport.com. ISport,
2015. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Selke, Lori A. "Reasons Why Cheerleading Is a Sport." LIVESTRONG.COM.
LIVESTRONG.COM, 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.