Cheerleading.

The other day I was talking to someone who asked me, “Is cheerleading really a sport?” A good question however there’s a better answer. If you have ever been a cheerleader, which as you might guess I have not, you would know it’s more like a hybrid sport. A really hard hybrid sport.

Consider.

You have to be able to lift a human being over your head and make sure they can stand straight up on someone else’s hands or shoulders. We’ll call this human weightlifting. You have to be able to do back flips, cartwheels, and acrobatic moves---we’ll call this gymnastics. (Oh and you have to do this on many different surfaces.) You have to be able to work as a team in coordinating every move that happens when performing----we’ll call this teamwork. If you add it all up maybe it shouldn’t be called “cheerleading” but “weightgymnasteams.”

When I was in college one of my fraternity brothers was a cheerleader. If you are thinking he did it because he wanted to be around really attractive women, you are probably partially right. However he also did it because not only was he a black belt in karate, he loved the excitement of being part of a team. A team that played in front of the same huge crowds where the football, basketball and other sports teams played. In our fraternity everyone knew he was a cheerleader and no one would ever tell him to his face whether this was a sport or not. We knew better and we knew what he did was very athletic.

One of my daughters is a cheerleader; she is not affiliated with a particular team rather they only do competitions. No football or basketball team, just competitions. These young “women” are really strong gymnasts and are in excellent shape. Sure many of them are involved in soccer, softball and other team sports, but for sure they spend a disproportionate amount of time practicing their cheerleading routines. Why do they practice so much? If someone is not in the right place to catch a 100+ pound girl who is falling downward, the repercussions can be disastrous. Broken bones, sprained body parts and even death have occurred by a misstep.

I am sure there are some people reading this blog saying, “Is he kidding me?” Actually I am not. I really believe the amount of work these kids go through is just as rigorous at times as other sports. Sure when there is a football game happening on the field most eyes are fixed on the game. But when a play stops, the eyes turn to the cheerleaders---they are very much a part of the experience.

The photo above was taken at the Championship football game this weekend. If you look closely you will see one of the cheerleaders is falling backward. Call it a good photo, but I call it a better catch on behalf of her teammates. Instead of being injured, they were prepared in case something like this happened. As you can see a number of her teammates were prepared. What I love about this photo is her expression…the same one I would have if it had been me falling from that high above the ground.

Thanks for stopping by.