The big controversial topic, “is cheerleading an actual sport?” The answer is yes and no. There’s a distinct difference between sideline and competitive cheer. Sideline peps up the crowd and entertains everyone with half time showings and dances, while competitive cheer is a complex series of tumbling, jumps, stunts, and pyramid. Many cheerleaders agree that sideline cheer is not a sport, while competitive cheer is.

According to the New York Times, cheerleading is the fastest-growing sport, yet more than half of Americans do not believe it be counted as one. Why is that? The most common misconception of cheerleading is that they wear mini-skirts, hold pom-poms, and dance around rooting on for their team, but a lot of the people who are hasty to judge things do not look further into it and see the difference of competitive cheer. Cheerleading is an evolving sport, as people are even pushing to put it in the Olympic games. Cheerleading is not your basic Bring it on  movie, but a rather more difficult version.

Competitive cheer requires complex acrobatic stunts and back-to-back series of back flips, twist and jumps. They’re scored on the quality of the skill, difficulty, synchronization, technique, and creativity of the routine. Each section is 10 points, so all together scores will hit the 100 point range. For any bobble or drop, deductions will be counted against the team.

According to the Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors, a sport is  “physical activity against/with an opponent, governed by rules and conditions under which a winner is declared, and primary purpose of the competition is a comparison of the relative skills of the participants.” As most would agree, according to regulations cheerleading is a sport; however, the International Sports Federation does not consider cheer a sport. Many states are pushing for this difficult activity to be a sport, including California, with cheer being one of the more popular activities for the state.

As football seems to be one of the most dangerous sports with all the hitting, tackling and taking down, they take precaution with gear and protective wear.Believe it or not Studies show that competitive cheer is actually one of most dangerous sports . Girls that go up in the air, or “fliers,” have to trust the person holding them, their “bases,” not to drop them and stop them from coming down hard. Other than the spring floor mat, cheerleaders have no protection, besides the trust in someone catching them.  A broken arm, leg, and wrist are all common injuries, but the worst and most occurring is a concussion. Many girls end their season in a blow to the head with such force to the ground, whether it’s in tumbling or being dropped from ten-feet in the air. Every stunt or tumbling pass requires a specific set of technique in order for the skill to hit. One small mishap can cause a serious injury for themselves or their teammates, especially if it’s landing on their neck in tumbling or dropping a stunt.

Some standout teams and all-star gyms come from all over America. For example, from California, Smoed is a team that have been four-peat (four time consecutive) world-winning champions. U.S. All Star Federation Worlds host every team around the world in the month of mid April. Our Maryland Twisters “Cobalt” team will face off with Smoed this year trying to prevent them from winning their 5th world championship in a row.

Smoed

All in all, according to the Olympic committee, cheer is not a sport, but is in the close process of becoming one as it may take a few years. Cheer is still a growing activity, giving out scholarships in college for it, people all over the world participate from youth to adulthood.