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Any gURL who has ever been a cheerleader knows that it’s a lot more work than just jumping up and down and screaming — which is why two groups are asking the National Collegiate Athletic Association to recognize cheerleading as a sport.
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The New York Times reports that USA Cheer and the National Collegiate Athletics and Tumbling Association argue that cheering requires strength, coordination and everything else that goes along with other sports like football and soccer. The goal is to get colleges to start recognizing cheerleaders as athletes in order to give students athletic scholarships.
“Guess what?” Says Valerie Hagedorn, the head cheerleading coach at Adams State College in Colorado, “We don’t throw balls, we throw people. And we catch them.”
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Are you a cheerleader? Do you think cheerleading is a real sport? Have you ever gotten hurt while cheering? Share your stories and thoughts below.
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Technically, the definition of sports says that it has to be in a competitive challenge, so only COMPETITIVE cheer leading can be classified as a sport, not cheerleading at football or basketball games.
Cheering for games is not a sport. But like competitive cheerleading IS sport. :3
While I’ve never been a cheerleader I have seen professional cheer offs and can I just say it looks terrifying, difficult, and dangerous! I can’t imagine spraining my leg or knocking a tooth out but smiling through the pain (and blood). It also takes a lot of strength for, not only the boys, but the girls to lift each other up, with an entire human balancing on their shoulders.
It is a sport, a painful painful sport.
Cheer is a sport. At my school, half the varsity team had concussions one year. One girl broke both of her wrists. Just 2 hours of stunting&tumbling makes me sore for 3 days. We actually condition harder than any other sport at my school.
But it really depends on the intensity, not all cheerleaders work as hard as us. Just like how some people think of soccer as just kicking around a ball, but there’s a difference between that and what you see at the FIFA world cup.
Bre, would you consider swimming a sport? There’s no ball or running in that either.
All you people saying cheerleading is not a sport….soooo not true. I did it for 3 years and it was very physically gruelly. There was heavy lifting(considering i had to lift a girl 20 pounds heavier than me, merely because she “looked” lighter), running(laps everyday, and also running into tumbling moves), and yes there was dance but the cheer i was in focused more on tumbling and stunts. Cheerleading gave me flexibility, endurence, and a six-pack to boot! Unfortunately i had to quit because our coach abandoned us and without him we couldnt support the team financially. If it weren’t for that I would have definitely continued the SPORT of cheerleading(which is harder than any other sport ive been involved in which includes volleyball, basketball, tennis,soccer, and track)
I like to consider cheerleading as more dance then a sport. You do routines and dances and cheers, not plays and strategy. You need to have some strength and coordination, but you’re with a bunch more girls, so you really aren’t doing that much lifting. That’s just how I’ve always seen cheerleading. So no, not a sport.
michelle i am in cheerleading and there are boys in cheerleading toooo
You’ve never seen real cheerleading as I can see. They do gymnastics,they do stunts which means they need to be really strong to support de weights of others .
I don’t consider it a sport. I used to be a cheerleader and I barely broke a sweat whenever I was cheering…and that was around the time I started blimping out, too…
Where you “cheering” or cheerleading”? There is a BIG difference.
Nope. Not a sport. No ball. No running. Not a sport.
i’m sorry to say this but you don’t have to have a ball for it to be a ball for it to be a sport…..