<p>I expect this one could get heated. I’m excited to hear everybody’s opinions, but please be nice regardless… Just getting the word out and I think this is a good debate to have…</p>
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<p>Read more including the entire policy statement at the link below…</p>
<p>[AAP</a> Offers New Guidelines to Prevent Cheerleading Injuries](<a href=“Error | AAP”>Error | AAP)</p>
<p>Comment away!</p>
<p>I think cheerleading deserves to be considered a “sport” based on it’s own merits, phyiscal requirements, competitive nature, practices etc. </p>
<p>However, the very short blurb I heard on the radio implied that becoming an official “sport” would allow for safety rules to be uniformly applied which I see as very important. If it is regulated as an official sport you could control the number and frequency of practices as well as declaring certain stunts as dangerous and not permissible. I gather the way it is now a cheerleading coach can do anything she/he wants. Is that how it works now? Is regulation left to the school or school district?</p>
<p>The courts have ruled that it is not, at the collegiate level anyway, for Title IX purposes:</p>
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<p>[Appeals</a> court affirms cheerleading not a sport for Title IX - ESPN](<a href=“http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8245864/appeals-court-affirms-cheerleading-not-sport-title-ix]Appeals”>Appeals court affirms cheerleading not a sport for Title IX - ESPN)</p>
<p>IMO, no it is not. I think that if they want to make it a sport, they need to break it off and call it something else. They need to further establish it as a competitive activity rather than making it primarily a rah-rah pepper-upper with some competitions on the side. Does that make sense? </p>
<p>I agree with this: </p>
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<p>I think all after school activities school be counted under Title IX. But if you did that it would expose the fact that males are a distant second in receiving school funded extracurricular activities dollars. In order to adopt activity-neutral, gender-neutral policies, school funding priorities would have to change. But the feminists will never let that happen.</p>
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<p>Legally it does. It just isn’t applied, but that’s nothing new nor different.</p>
<p>At the college level, it appears they have what’s called “Acrobatics and Tumbling” which looks a lot like competitive cheerleading to me. It’s not sponsored by the NCAA nor is it widespread. I believe I read there are like 8 schools that compete currently. Oregon dominates. </p>
<p>Currently the NCAA does not recognize it as a sponsored sport although cheerleaders are expected to follow NCAA policies from what I’ve seen. In addition, only 29 high school state associations recognize cheerleading as a sport.</p>
<p>I’m personally not sure that the designation really matters with regards to safety. They can easily take the precautions needed regardless of what you call it.</p>
<p>I don’t have time to engage this morning, but the USASF is going through the process of requiring athletes to register with them, so they are moving quietly down the road.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. When I was in high school, the basketball cheerleaders had highly choreographed and acrobatic routines. The football cheerleaders showed up drunk and yelled a lot.</p>
<p>Adding a point system to something that was meant to be entertainment does not automatically make it a competetive sport in the vein of track or wrestling.</p>
<p>As many have noted, it can be, depending on how it is executed. At one end you have a group of people just yelling and waving their arms around a lot, while at the other end you have a difficult and precise exhibition of team acrobatics. For this latter group I have no problem calling it a sport - if we would call gymnastics a sport, why not this?</p>
<p>That having been said, from a regulatory standpoint I think it gets a lot murkier - Title IX has its own requirements, and signing up for a real schedule of competition is something that many cheerleaders are unwilling or unable to do.</p>
<p>Meant to lighten what can become a heated discussion—My neighbor says if there’s no defense, it’s not a sport! LOL!!</p>
<p>No, I don’t think cheerleading is a “sport.” Gymnastics yes, but cheerleading, no. But then there are other things that I would be in that category like rhythmic gymnastics and a few others. I agree that adding points to some activity does not make it a “sport.” If that were the case then band marching competitions would be “a sport” and I would hazard a guess that the guy hauling the tuba would or the foks marching with drums strapped to their thighs would say “it ain’t easy” and frankly the “mission” of the cheerleaders and the band is to get a crowd enthused about a game…a sport…so is it a sport to get fans enthused about another sport?</p>
<p>Competitive cheerleading is a sport in Florida high schools. The sport is designed to comply with the spirit of Title IX.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fhsaa.org/sports/competitive-cheerleading[/url]”>http://www.fhsaa.org/sports/competitive-cheerleading</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fhsaa.org/sites/default/files/fdoe_competitive_cheerleading_memo_2008.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fhsaa.org/sites/default/files/fdoe_competitive_cheerleading_memo_2008.pdf</a></p>
<p>I admire cheerleaders for their dedication, skill, and artistry, but right now it’s not really a sport. It’s status is similar to that of marching band. Both were founded as supplements to real sports, usually football and basketball (ever see cheerleaders or marching band at a track meet? Me neither). Both are still heavily connected to those sports but have developed their own separate competitions. And in both cases the talented and dedicated practitioners of these activities take them very seriously and spend long hours practicing and perfecting their performances. </p>
<p>If cheerleading severed its supplement-to-football identity and stood solely on its own, it could easily develop into a real sport - sort of a group gymnastics I guess. But many decades of tradition of having cheerleaders on the side-lines on Saturday afternoon stand in the way of that. As long as the cheerleaders’ mission is to cheer for other athletes they won’t be taken very seriously as a athletes themselves.</p>
<p>^^yes you expanded my thought better than I did. </p>
<p>As far as Title IX, it started with good intentions…I was in high school before there were women’s sports and I played on a boy’s team…I sat on the bus after the matches sweaty and stinky because there weren’t locker facilities and there were plenty of guys that didn’t make the team that wished I didn’t exist…but Title IX is stretched about as far as it needs to go in many directions and arranging activities to fit the sport classification is one stretch that I can’t get behind.</p>
<p>It’s a fine activity and simply not thinking of it as a sport doesn’t diminish it as a admirable activity.</p>
<p>The problem with cheerleading lies less as a sport in school and more in the competitive club teams which exist outside of the regulations of a school sport. This is an activity which is promoted by for profit organizations in which a large number of injuries–potentially catastrophic–are resulting. My daughter was one of them. Three years after a concussion she is still dealing with with the after effects. Parents are clueless to the risks. People are making money off children who are being seriously injured. Something needs to change whether it is considered a sport or not.</p>
<p>I think cheerleading should become an NCAA sport. Girls want to do it; it is a physical activity that is (can be) competitive and has (can have) rules. That is enough to be considered a sport. Our society needs to encourage more physical activity, including by rewarding it with recognition. I also think competitive dance should be an NCAA sport for the same reasons.</p>
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<p>toblin, do you just look for posts that allow you to whine about how much better women have it than men? It sure seems that way.</p>
<p>I have a different definition of sport. If a score is kept and that decides the winner then it is a sport. If judges have to make a call then it is not a sport - it is an activity. </p>
<p>So cheer leading is not a sport. Neither is boxing. Or diving. Or gymnastics. That’s not to say they don’t require athletic ability they certainly do and some more than most sports. But they are activities to me.</p>
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<p>Not sure I see the logic in this. When categorizing anything, there are always difficult cases on the margins. Both cheerleading and gymnastics involve subjective judgments on the quality of athletic effort.</p>
<p>Ask the questions this way. Golf is a sport, but are golfers athletes? Surely cheerleaders are much athletic than golfers. If golfers are athletes, what about pool players, or curlers? I’d find it hard to call a curler an athlete even though you get the same Olympic medal as a downhill racer.</p>
<p>Ballet is not a sport, yet ballet dancers have more athletic ability than many “true” athletes–certainly as much as gymnasts. In fact, there are ballet competitons similar to those in gymnastics.</p>
<p>You can twist your mind into knots trying to decide some of these.</p>
<p>I like where Iron maiden is going and it makes sense. If it’s measureable and doesn’t require a panel of judges it is a sport. It explains why gold is and rythmic dancing might not be. Why tennis is but diving might not be. It differentiates between competition which could be chess, or marching band or dance or aerial skiing and sport which requires something countable/measureable and is pretty much accomplished without impressionable choice. I haven’t thought it completely through but on the surface it’s something I’m going to think about.</p>