The Upstart

By Kyle Seasly
East Grand Rapids High School

When the subject of cheerleading comes up, the Saturday night live sketch with Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri comes to mind, chanting purposely stupid cheers like “Who’s that Spartan in my Tepee?” and other ridiculous bantering. However it wasn’t so hilarious when Quinnipiac University tried to eliminate their Women’s volleyball team, and replace it with cheerleading. When they did so a federal judge ruled that cheerleading is not an adequate replacement. “Competitive cheer may, some time in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX,” Judge Stefan Underhill wrote. “Today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students.” Judge Underhill presents a good point. Cheerleading is a sport that has, in the past, simply been used to support boy’s programs, whether it has been football or basketball, and many do not even consider it a sport.
Most people conclude that cheerleaders simply cheer for other athletes. Many think they are not a self sustaining organization. For example, if the football team got cut, the cheerleaders would then have no one to cheer for. This leads to cheerleading being a “second class sport,” whereas Volleyball, everyone views with great respect. Volleyball is an Olympic; however one cannot say the same of cheerleading.
The sport is also not organized enough to be recognized by a federal judge. In a MIPA-MSU survey, 41 percent of student did not consider it a sport, whatsoever. That would be probably around what Curling would get in the United States. If cheerleading cannot even get a clear 2/3rds, among the most liberal group of people, students, then it does not deserve to be recognized as a competitive, and is therefore underdeveloped.
Cheerleading also is regarded as a kind of joke, especially in men. One student only said that cheerleading should only be considered a sport “if they’re hot.” A girl also referred to it as “rhythmic tittyshaking.” This sport is not taken seriously, even when cheerleaders were among their peers, and viewed as a joke to their male counterparts. So much for George W. Bush being a cheerleader.
However, some students say “Competitive cheer is intense.” So intense in fact, that it makes up for 65 percent of all injuries in high school athletics regarding women according to a University of North Carolina study. And only 3 percent are cheerleaders. A possible argument for it now appears, it is too dangerous to be a sport.
Cheerleading needs to grow as a real sport, where people can see that it is not simply a devise to make women cheer for men. They also must prove that cheerleading is a sport sought after, and it not simply an attempt to save school money, as it was in this case. Cheerleading has a bright future. It can still save its reputation of chauvinism by pushing for organization and proving it is worthwhile. Hopefully it will cause gasps, and someday be recognized as an official sport. Until then, cheer on.

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