Cheerleading is a big part of high school and community culture. For many young girls, and sometimes boys, cheer is a way of life. Often pursued as a profession, cheerleading is a very serious sport. Like most sports cheerleading has different types and divisions. Scholastic cheerleading and All-Star cheerleading have many similarities and differences. Cheerleading similarities and differences include what they do, coaches, and appearance.
Scholastic cheerleading are through the school. They cheer for other sports and focus of school spirit (Ninemire). Sometimes they compete but not all squads do. Cheers called 'dis cheers" are often seen as competition for scholastic cheerleaders. Typically, there are two squads, varsity and junior varsity. As representatives of the school, they are involved in many school activities. Scholastic cheerleaders host pep rallies and anything else to raise school spirit for games. General cheers, stunts, and routines are all apart of scholastic cheer duties.
The performance seen by fans is usually full of pep and school spirit. Behind every routine there is someone that helped create or supervise it. For scholastic cheerleading there are not multiple coaches, usually two. One coach for varsity and the other coach's junior varsity. Coaches are staff members with some type of performance
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experiences. It is either a coach or an advisor that assist the team. They make decisions, ensure safety, and make sure performances are as they should be. Scholastic cheer appearance can sometimes be strict, because they are associated with a school.
School set regulations and the coach then make their own rules. An important part of the "cheer look" are, of course the uniform, cheer bows. Hair, nails, and make up are required to be natural on most squads. The uniform is school color except on special occasions, such as Breast Cancer Awareness month. White, athletic, cheer shoes are on every foot ("Cheerleading Uniform Decoration"). Pom-poms, different sizes and color for different squads, are a part of almost every routine. School that have a historically black culture can be seen with slouch
socks. On the other hand, All-Star cheerleading is of the same field with a slight flair. "All-Star cheerleaders are normally associated with a gym that teaches tumbling, gymnastics and cheerleading" (Ninemire). They do not cheer for sports. They do not do offense or defense cheers. Instead they use competition cheers. The main focus for All-Star is tumbling, dance, gymnastics, and stunts. All-Star specializes in competition and spend a lot of time practicing. For All-Star anyone who is qualified can be a coach. Being that so much happens within a routine one coach may not be able to do it all. Typically, in All-Star cheer there is a coach for every skill. The tumbling coach works with the tumblers which are the cheerleaders that flip, twist, roll, and jump. The stunt coach teaches and supervises stunt. The choreographer creates the routine and pulls everything together. All that hard work is completed by the All-Star look. At a competition the cheerleaders want to be seen, and that is exactly what happens. Big hair, full makeup, and custom bows will always be a part of "the look". The squad will have the same hairstyle for unity. The uniform can be any color and style. High school rules do not apply to All Star cheer so uniforms are shorter ("Cheerleading Uniform Decoration"). To complete the look, every cheerleader will have cheer shoes on their feet. Both types offer a great way to participate in sports. Both have a competitive side to them. What they do, coaches, and appearance are just part of what cheerleading is and is a great place for someone to start when confused on what cheerleading is.
For competitive cheer you have to athletic if you want to be good. The cheerleaders are non stop tumbling, stunting, jumping, or dancing for more than two minutes. They never have a break in the routine that is pushed to the max with all the difficulty you can make and all of the legal things you can do in a routine. The sport
Unlike gymnastics, you must rely only on yourself to do what you need to do to win. Relying on the rest of your team, cheerleading is a much harder team sport. Gymnastics does have a team score but it only takes the top three scores form each event for the team score. Gymnast must perform wonderful but if they do not then they are the ones to blame. Cheerleading, the most team oriented team sport, relies on multiple people to get one job done.
Ironically, cheerleaders get the name of a “snob” or a “brat”, however a cheerleaders job is to bring positivity and spirit to their school. To be conceited or a bully is the complete opposite of what a cheerleaders job is; which means their primary responsibility is to pump up the student body for the big game or to get others involved and support school functions. Aside from the stereotype that cheerleaders are snobby, another assumption is that cheerleaders only hang out with other cheerleaders, that they are very exclusive. In films, cheerleaders are seen as the girls that always sit at the same lunch table and no one else is allowed to sit with them, or the ones that walk the halls in the same cluster while they laugh and gossip about other girls. A cheerleader is taught to be inclusive and to get others engaged in activities throughout the school, and if cheerleaders are pushing others away by being exclusive they are not doing their
Being a cheerleader means setting an example. Cheerleaders conduct themselves in a respectable way and are very proud so that they can be good leaders on and off the sidelines. We are proud to represent our school and proud to be cheerleaders. We are the epitome of school spirit and we lead the other students in our school to be more spirited and show what it means so be enthusiastic in school. We lead the crowd and of course, we lead the cheering!
“It’s the oldest story in the world. One day you’re 17 and planning for someday. And then quietly and without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life.” - One Tree Hill
I should be a member of the STEM Ravens cheer team. I would be a good edition to the team because I love my school, I exercise the LYP traits, and I have previous cheer experience. If I get on the team, I will show school spirit at games. Even if we don't have a game, school spirit is what keeps everyone going throughout the week. Without cheerleaders to boost spirit, the sports teams would not be doing as good as they are.
Competitive cheerleading is where a team has exactly two minutes and thirty seconds to present a routine that incorporates jumping, stunting, tumbling, and dancing choreographed to music. Teams consist of anywhere from 5-36 boys and girls who compete against other teams that have a similar level of ability as well as number of athletes. Teams compete against other teams at a competition just like a match, meet, or game. Competitions can be at the regional, state, national, or world level (Yes, this means that there are competitive cheer teams all over the world). At the competition, experts use a point system to judge the routines based off the difficulty and execution of each skill performed (What is Competitive Cheerleading?). This type of judging is similar to that of gymnastics. There is then an awards ceremony where the judges total up the scor...
Many think of cheerleading as just an activity which is nearly mindless. They do not recognize the hard work and skill that is crucial in becoming a first-class cheerleader. They believe that there is no ability or athleticism that is needed. They almost demean cheerleaders as unintelligent. They believe that cheerleaders are only out to look pretty and to entertain a crowd.
For example, they have practices every day after school to practice their routines and stunts (Remnick). They have to make posters for all sport teams, go to all of the sporting events, and support and volunteer for the community. Also, everything they do represents the school in some way, so they have to be on their best behavior all the time. Sometimes they even have to cheer for more than one sport at a time, so they will be cheering for a game every night of the week, and they are expected to get homework done and get to bed at a reasonable time for school the next morning. They are more busy than regular athletes, and sometimes cheerleading isn’t the only sport or activity the girls are involved in.
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.
Cheerleading is an important tool for promoting both genders’ self-esteem. In an article by Lee Purvey in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Giannia Kustra expressed how cheerleading helped her as a person to “become more outgoing” (Purvey). In high school, cheerleading gives students an opportunity to support their teams proudly, build teamwork, and improve character and work ethic (Bernstein). This new “business” helps to improve the spirit and morals of athletes and fans alike.
To stay on the JMU cheer team or to quit was a very hard decision that I had to make this past month. Knowing I had leadership responsibilities as a third year veteran on the team made this decision extremely difficult for me. I had to consider all the parties involved which consisted of myself, my teammates, and my coaches. Several factors fell into play when deciding what was best not only myself but for my team as well. The first and most important factor I had to consider was my physical health as I have back problems that requires annual back procedures in order to be able to cheer. A relatively new factor in my decision making progress was the hiring of the new JMU cheer coach, which was extremely difficult for the upperclassmen to adjust to. My last few personal factors that played a role in my decision consisted of getting a job and focusing more on my school work. Next I had to consider what was best for the cheer team. I knew as an upperclassmen I needed to support the cheer program to help keep it strong and consistent during the coaching transition. This was hard to do when several other upper classmen were quitting the team due to this change. I also knew I had a responsibility to teach the incoming freshman new skills the same way the juniors and seniors taught me when I was a freshman. Not only did my team need me but I also took into consideration the contract I signed when making the team my freshman year. After taking everything into consideration
Movies portray cheerleaders as the popular girls that everyone likes and aspires to be. But when reality hits at Salem High School, it’s a completely different story. Cheerleading was taken as a joke by the other athletes and even students. It was considered a hobby, but to me it was a passion and something I worked hard to be. Being on the cheer squad in high school was difficult to deal with in school because we were constantly being snubbed by the other athletes and students in our school ever since we were kids in junior high which should not happen because everyone has the right to do what they love and they should not be judged for it being different than everyone else. It was always us versus them up until my junior year of high school when we finally earned the respect of our peers.
The New York Times states that cheerleading is the fastest growing girls’ sport, yet more than half of Americans do not believe it is a sport. A sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature” (dictionary.com). Cheerleading at a competitive level is physically demanding and requires team work to be the best. The misconception of cheerleaders being weak, nonathletic crowd entertainers makes people believe cheerleaders are not athletes and that cheerleading is just a hobby but cheerleaders that compete at a competitive level are in fact athletes because it meets the standards of what a sport is, which includes rules and regulations, and overcoming air resistance.
Dance and cheerleading are very similar activities gaining popularity in our world today. Both activities are performed by high school teams, as well as independent teams. In addition, both of these activities offer a variety of performance options. Dance and cheerleading can be pursued on the competitive, recreational, and professional levels, which offer a wide array of choices for every performer. Whether performing for thousands of spectators at a NFL game, or performing for a few hundred people in a local dance recital, dance and cheerleading have their own collations and contrarieties.