Student Athletes: Is Cheerleading A Sport?

With 7.8 million student athletes, some are bound to get injured. On average 2 million student athletes are injured each year. Although there are regulations in place, athletes compete to be the best that they are able and push the boundaries of the regulations, and they still end up injured. The NCAA looks over college athletics and controls the regulations that athletes are obliged to follow. Without regulations, sports would be “a-wall”, athletes would become even more injured, that might be why cheerleading is the most dangerous sport for females, and on average 26,786 cheerleaders are injured each year. The NCAA does not count cheerleading as a “sport” which means that they do not govern the cheerleading rules and regulations. If the NCAA

According to the court “cheerleading does not meet the physical contact aspect” (Melissa), but in 1874, tennis became a sport, so my question is “Where is the physical contact in that sport?” If they’re going to rule that tennis is a sport, which does not meet ALL the criteria, then they should rule that cheerleading IS a sport because it actually does. The court also ruled cheerleading not a sport because the main purpose was not competitions. There is a difference between competition squads and sideline squads, although some schools have the same squad for both. The main point of competition squads is to compete in the AACCA competitions set up by the state. When many people think of cheerleading, they think of sideline cheerleaders who are standing there doing cheers every now and then, trying to get the crowd's energy up, so one aspect of cheerleading is not officially meeting the criteria, but the second that a stunt is put up and a 120 pound girl is hurled in the air, then ALL the criteria is met. Just because one part of a sport doesn’t meet all aspects of a “sport” doesn’t make it not a sport. An example is, hockey, the goalie in hockey game doesn’t do much except for catching a puck once or twice a game. I have personally seen a goalie during a game lounge on the net. Is hockey no longer a sport because one important role of the certain “sport” is not officially meeting ALL criteria to

Usually the NCAA would take control of the regulation of the traditional sport to create a safer environment for the cheerleaders. Since the court has already ruled cheerleading is not a sport, the NCAA has two governing bodies that have been asking that certain forms of cheerleading be classified as an emerging sport. Which basically says that “it is a women's sport recognized by the NCAA that is intended to help schools provide more athletics opportunities for women and more sport-sponsorship options for the institutions, and also help that sport achieve the NCAA championship status (NCAA)”. “For a sport to be considered for the NCAA emerging sports for women’s list, 20 or more varsity teams and or competitive club/teams must currently exists on college campuses and the sport organization must submit a detailed proposal including possible general competition rules, suggested NCAA regulations and the sport format,” stated the NCAA on the topic of emerging sports. As of 2016, the NCAA has not confirmed cheerleading as an “emerging sport”, yet the committee, the student and athletes are still fighting for