Stand Cheerleading Essay

Cheerleading started as a male endeavor in 1898, when a University of Minnesota football fan led the crowd in verse in support of their team. It was not until World War II, when men shipped out to war, that women took over. Then cheerleaders came to represent the American ideal of femininity: wholesome apple pie with washboard stomachs, perfect teeth, and flawless complexions. Stereotypes cast them as blond, petite, and impossibly perky. “From its humble beginning cheerleading has blossomed into a competitive athletic activity with a serious image problem” (Forman 52). But today’s post-feminist youth have put a new, diverse face on cheerleading. Cheerleading in America is no longer a matter of waving pom-poms, a cute smile and being overly

Because of the physical demand, skill set needed, and the rules set to tumble, stunt, and jump, competitive cheerleading should be considered an official sport. Yet cheerleading has rules, guidelines, training, and many other things other sports also include. It also is definitely a physical and contact sport which has caused countless injuries throughout the years of the sports existance. But, most people only know cheerleading as sideline (school) cheerleading and have not had a glimpse into the world of competitive (All Star) cheerleading.

The competitive sport of cheerleading is not all about jumping up and down and yelling “Go team, go!”. It’s about using your strength to perform a variety of skills that form together to make a routine. These routines are performed by many teams to be judged during competitions. Practice is required to do well at competitions. In order to become a cheerleader, you need to have tumbling skills, endurance, and flexibility.

When most people think of cheerleading, they think of the spirit squads that attempt to pump up the local crowd at high school basketball and football games. People are not aware of what these athletes are doing when they are not in front of these crowds. Strangers to cheerleaders who do not follow the sport extensively do not know the exact involvement of the athletes in this sport, at all ages. Cheerleading requires athleticism like all other sports as you must be in shape and at a great fitness level to be involved in most circumstances. Cheerleaders have to know what they’re doing at all times; while knowing what everyone else on the team is doing as well, which involves a high level of mental preparation. Cheerleading, high school or

My dedication, commitment, and enthusiasm for cheerleading set me apart from the other applicants, along with my diversity with different types of cheerleading. I have 15 years of cheer experience at the all-star, junior high, high school, and at the collegiate level. I feel like this makes me a very well rounded leader because I have cheered with many different personalities and worked with coaches at each of these levels. As an all-star cheerleader, my coach selected me to perform an individual routine, I was a captain of my junior high cheer team, and was able to work closely with my high school cheer coach to help run practice after an jury my junior year. I hope that if I were to be selected to represent Hendrix College Cheerleading’s

Not all cheerleaders are created equal, they do not perform the same or work as hard. Any All-Star cheerleader will tell you that high school cheerleading is not nearly as hard as All-Star Cheerleading, but why is that? Cheerleading is a mix of chanting, dancing, tumbling, and stunting. Each level of cheerleading has its limits and regulations. To understand why exactly All-Star girls believe they put in so much more work, one must look into the differences between their coaching, training, limits, and requirements to see who really is on the top of the pyramid when it comes to cheerleading.

Cheerleading is simply entertainment for viewers and is a social club for its participants. “Sports Beat - The Sport of Cheerleading: It’s a lot More than Just Pompoms and Smiles,” points out that a main benefit of cheerleading is the ability to “easily transition into the entertainment industry” (Hatton C-04). This statement supports our belief that cheerleading should not be considered a sport. Cheer-leading, the leading of cheers at sporting events is not a sport. Entertainment, versus athleticism, is more of what cheerleading is. Team supporters are present at games/events to raise school spirit and encourage cheering. Cheerleading generally requires a competition to be in progress, so the cheerleading itself can occur. This is not an activity which can take place alone.

Competition is a key component of sports. “For something to truly be considered a sport, it must involve competition against others.” Says Varsity.com. This is all for competitive cheerleading. They do dangerous things like throwing people in the air and lots of tumbling.

Cheerleading is a sport that many people don’t support in a way that they support the popular sports in most schools, like football and basketball. Cheering can open many doors and create an ample amount of job opportunities. By cheering you can also receive full ride athletic scholarships from many schools. A cute skirt and pompoms is not the only thing you have to work for when it comes to cheering. Just as any other sport you have to have a certain grade point average to try out for your cheerleading team and also you are held accountable for maintaining your grade point average with also being held accountable for remembering cheers, games day dates and events that you will have to attend with your team. Cheer teaches you many things other than being able to tumble and shout! As a cheerleader, you learn to encourage anyone that needs that boost of encouragement, we learn how to work together with other people. Your cheer team members will become your family!

The media has created a stereotype for cheerleaders. The way that cheerleaders have been portrayed in the media has made cheerleading one of the most disrespected and underrated sports in the industry. The media has made cheerleaders out to be the unintelligent, mean girls, that no one likes. It has portrayed cheerleading itself to not even look the slightest bit like a sport. Most movies make it look like cheerleading is just jumping around and yelling at other sporting events. A good description of this stereotype is explained in an article from TVTropes as “From evil to slutty to dumb, any cheerleader in North American media can be expected to be portrayed as shallow and superficial, because popularity is her first and only concern.”. As a cheerleader, this is extremely frustrating. The growing cheerleading industry has been working hard to show the world what cheerleading really is about. Bring It On: In It to Win It is an interesting movie that actually portrays some of the real aspects of cheerleading.

When I was about five years old I started to do sideline cheerleading for the local superlights football team. I enjoyed it then, but as soon as I began to learn about allstar cheerleading, which is also known as competitive cheerleading, my viewpoint on sideline cheer completely changed. At seven years old my friend Molly and I decided that we wanted to tryout for competitive cheerleading. We ended up making the same team, Junior level 2. At the time we were in both sideline cheer and competitive cheer, but as soon as the first season was coming to an end we realized that we have fallen in love with competitive cheerleading and every aspect that comes with it. It was then that we decided to no longer do sideline cheer and to continue on with allstar cheer. The main difference between the two was the amount of tricks we were able to perform. In sideline cheer, it is more chanting for the team and to hype up the crowd. In allstar cheer, you do a two minute and thirty second routine full of tumbling, stunts, jumps, and a dance section. These two types often are confused and it is very frustrating to those who compete in cheer competitively and are constantly told that it is easy and that anyone could “cheer”. These are the people who do not know of competitive cheerleading and everything it stands for. Unfortunately, cheerleaders for professional sports do not help this stereotype. Professional cheerleaders for most teams are there to just look pretty and lead the team to

In order to be successful in cheerleading you have to have a strong body and mindset, because cheerleading takes physical and mental strength. Cheerleading is a yearlong sport so if an athlete survives for that long then that means the athlete is dedicated to his/her team. When the athletes finish the entire season they are acknowledged at a banquet. At the banquet the team talks about things in the past and they look back at everything that happened earlier in the season. The seniors of the team and everyone who is on that team for the last year get really emotional. Cheerleading is a tough sport to do but the experiences that they gain with their teammates make the it not so

Cheer was almost a 100 year old sport before women joined. Women enhanced the sport by adding tumbling and acrobatics (“Varsity”). Tumbling is a form of gymnastics where the gymnast will flip and twist with the risk of getting an injury. As the years passed, cheer became even more difficult. During the 1980’s, cheer had consisted of more difficult cheers and stunts within routines (“Cheerleading 101”).

From an outsiders perspective one may see brainless and beautiful robots, which scream and perform neat tricks. This is not the case from the inside; cheerleading is so much more than that. Many people are under the impression that cheerleading is not a sport. I am the voice of reasoning that will let you in, and I will show you that cheerleading, in fact, is a sport. Cheerleading requires much physical demand from the body just as any other sport would. Cheerleading, in general, is a team effort. There are many sides to cheerleading, which make it a versatile sport. When it comes to cheerleading there’s more to it than what meets the eye.

Cheer has been a part of my life since I was young because my mom is a cheer coach and she’s instilled in me that the best team that a cheerleader can be on is an All-Star team so you could win a Worlds ring. With that in mind, my goal is to make an All-Star team by the start of the 2018-2019 season by going to tumbling classes, going to sport training, and by working on my upper body strength. Going to tumbling classes will help me achieve my goal. The way it would help is because i would learn all of my required skills. I’ll also be able to choose which skills I would want to improve the most on like doing layouts or standing tucks.