History of Cheer
Cheer, a diverse and dangerous sport is a very foggy subject for many. The majority of the population would say cheer is just a group cheering on a sports team. Before being able to define what cheer is, one must first look at current day competitive cheer. How cheer gained its stereotypes lays in its history, and rapidly evolved into a completely different function. With cheer being the number one cause of sports injury for girls under twenty, twenty thousand deaths from stunting, and seventy percent of girls sports injuries in high school, the statistics raises an eyebrow as to just what cheerleaders are doing. Cheer went from chants, to stunt groups, to worlds championships in just a century.
Cheer was started in America at Princeton University in 1884 by men. The first cheer was put together to cheer on the varsity football team. The cheer went, “Rah, Rah, Ray! Tiger, Tiger, Sis, Sis, Sis! Boom, Boom, Boom! Aaaaah! Princeton, Princeton, Princeton!”, and soon the students on campus formed the "pep club" ( The Cheerleaders). Thomas Peebles, a graduate from Princeton, took the spirit of his pep club to Minnesota University in 1884 and formed a new club. For a rugby game, the pep club created "team yells" which the crowd started joining in on. Johnny Campbell picked up a megaphone and led the crowd in the uproar for the game, thus was the beginning of cheer. As cheer advanced, new skills were added to it such as choreography, tumbling, and stunting. Women were not permitted to be a part of pep clubs. This should not be a surprise; universities had only just started admitting female students at the time. A fight for the right to cheer was hardly supported by women because they lacked so many other right...
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...o go above and beyond their limits, and inspires an uproar from crowds who come to watch them compete.
Works Cited
"History of Cheerleading." Cheer Union Organization. Cheer Union, n.d. Web. 16 Feb 2014. .
Maurer, Tracy Nelson. The Cheerleaders. 1st ed. Vero Beach, Florida: Rourke Publishing LLC, 2006. 4-8. Print.
Maurer, Tracy Nelson. Competitive Cheerleading. 1st ed. Vero Beach, Florida: Rourke Publishing LLC, 2006. Print.
Mozes, Alan. "As Cheerleading Evolves, Injuries Mount." Health.US News. N.p., 28 Jun 2013. Web. 16 Feb 2014. .
Webster, Merriam. Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. New deluxe ed. San Diego, California: Thunder Bay Press, 2001. 352, 1884. Print.
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
Merriam Webster. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary of English. Ed. Frederick Mish. 11 th.
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
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!
Webster. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language. Clevland; New York: William Collins+World Publishing Company, 1977.
Some states have accepted competitive cheerleading as a varsity sport, but cheerleaders still have to fight for recognition as an athlete because of stereotypical views. Fellow athletes do not see why it should be considered a sport because “it is not as demanding as other sports” ("Competitive Cheerleading Fights"). The definition of an athlete is “a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina” ("Omni Cheer Blog"). As an athlete students must demonstrate their skills in front of a crowd. As a matter of fact competitive cheerleaders meet all the requirements to be considered athletes, so why do they have to continue fighting for recognition as athletes?
A study has found and proven that as a result of the amount of contact activity involved with cheerleading, “two thirds of very serious sports injuries suffered by girls in the United States” (Global Issues in Context). This inevitably highlights the rigors and risks cheerleaders endure as a result of their participation. In effect of cheerleading not being recognized as a sport and cheerleaders not being recognized as athletes, there is little awareness and support for the injuries cheerleaders encounter. Furthermore, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, “cheerleading is also among the top 20 sports with highest rate of head injuries” (Huffington Post). These head injuries include but are not limited to skull fractures, cervical spine injuries, brain injury, concussions, paralysis, and in severe cases, death. Nonetheless, as a result of cheerleading lacking recognition, injuries are typically underestimated despite their severity. It is important to consider the exertion a cheerleader must put in when completing a stunt. Being tossed or held in the air is the flyer who is then supported by two bases and a back spot. Despite being held up by a minimum of four people, one wrong move can result in the stunt collapsing, which can sometimes result in injury to both the
One reason that I know that cheerleading is a sport is because you need a lot of upper body mussel and you also need to know how to do all of the things that they are doing to perform.
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.
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.
New routines, stunts, and gymnastic aspects are constantly being discovered and mastered by cheerleaders every day. Eventually the number of injuries will rise and it will become evident to all that something should have been done. It is time to make this sport official before more injuries happen.
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.
Gutgold, Emi. "Cheerleading Is a Competitive Sport, Too." Morning Call. 17 Aug 2012: A.13. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
The New International Webster's Pocket Dictionary of the English Language. Naples, FL: Trident International, 2002. Print
Cheerleader: a person who is a member of a group (typically a group of young women) who shouts out special songs or chants to encourage the team and entertain the crowd during a game in sports like American football and basketball (Merriam-Webster). In the beginning, cheerleaders did what they were known to do. They lead cheers, with spirit and megaphones, for the crowd to follow. Then, as time went on, cheerleading evolved into co-ed teams, high-flying stunts, which brought about how cheerleaders are perceived today. In the past ten to fifteen years, cheerleading has grown with the number of people who participate and the quality of how they perform their skills. Cheerleading is a sport based on the physical and mental strength the athletes