<p>Well said, JHS!</p>
<p>I guess one thing that troubles me about competitive cheer is that it appears to me that the appearance of the girls matters significantly. This is pretty easy to see if you pick up one of the cheer magazines. I think this is something that sets it apart from most other sports–I can’t really think of any boys’ sport where this is the case, except maybe figure skating.</p>
<p>Hunt, that troubles me, too. And it troubles me about dance and theater as well – activities to which my kids devoted years and years of their lives, largely fleeing from sports culture. Nothing could be worse in this respect than ballet, a form of athletic activity I’ve loved all my life. Or basketball, for that matter – where the “appearance” that makes so much difference – height – is purely genetic, and not something that can be adjusted with a healthy diet and some makeup.</p>
<p>Maybe nothing is perfect. There’s a shocker! Or some things are perfect, but not everyone wants to play Ultimate Frisbee or European handball.</p>
<p>To JHS . . . love the philosophical tenor of your post. Let me throw in just a few more comments. </p>
<p>Like you, in real life, I would typically sneer at cheer. I used to tell my girls that cheerleading was only for girls who couldn’t play sports. But, Karma being the nasty little female dog that she is, this morning I sent Ordinaryd2 off to cheer camp. Like a lot of former gymnasts, she transitioned to cheer. Rarely does it work the other way. Ordinaryd1 transitioned to diving and dance.</p>
<p>Anyway, after years in the gym, I understand why judged sports get a lot of criticism. The scores seem arbitrary. A spectator sees a beautiful bar routine and a 7.8 pops up. Another one, that doesn’t look as good because of some bent knees, earns a 9.1. What? That girl who performed the beautiful bar routine probably wasn’t hitting her angles (angle of the shoulder to the bar), a much bigger deduction than a that for a minor form beak like a slightly bent knee on a skill. The problem is that “artistry” isn’t really part of the scoring, although many people believe it is. When a beautiful routine scores well, it’s because there are no form breaks. The scoring can look arbitrary. It’s not. The judges use a short hand to mark every move and every deduction. If scores are challenged, the judges just pull out their notes and show the coach where the athlete went wrong. </p>
<p>Right now, diving seems arbitrary to me, but it’s probably because I haven’t figured out the rules yet. I don’t believe there is an “artistry” deduction, just loss of points for breaks in form. I imagine many judged competitions, including competative cheer, are the same way. The scoring seems beyond comprehension until one really delves into the rule book. </p>
<p>However, when there are clear categories for things like “artistry” or “spirit,” and winners and losers can be decided on the basis of such things, one does question whether an activity should actually be called a sport. </p>
<p>This is where the NCAA guidelines, about an activity being primarily competative, become so important. Yes, there are competative cheer squads, but there are many more that stand on the sidelines and shout. If the activity is going to be a sport, get those other kids off the sidelines. Make the activity itself about competing. None of this, well SOME squads are competative. Nope, either the activity as a whole is primarily competative or it’s not. Right now, cheerleading, as a whole, is not. </p>
<p>And, as Hunt said, there’s a huge premium placed on physical appearance. Rules about physical appearance beyond “you have to wear a unifrom,” “get your hair out of your face,” or anything that has to do with safety (no baggy clothes that will get caught on the equipment) have absolutly no place in sport. They simply reinforce old stereotypes about women, especially. FWIW, cheer camp emails included instructions about hair and make-up. Poor Ordinaryd2 doesn’t have enough hair to pull back and put a ribbon in, and she doesn’t wear make-up. Gotta be one oddball on the squad, right?</p>
<p>Have any of you gone to You Tube to watch routines? That would give you a good idea of the elements of the competitive routines. If you search something like competitive cheer senior 4, you’ll get some representative routines.</p>
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Prepare yourself for the makeup issue when she returns.</p>
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<p>It took me three tries, but I figured out how to apply D’s red glitter eye shadow (!!!) so it would stay on and not crease. I’m stil a failure at the side french braid into the high pony tail. I will say that it’s hard to call yourself an athlete when you wear glitter eye shadow and hairbow of comic scale.</p>
<p>It seems to me that we’re zeroing in on what is the issue with competitive cheer. While it requires formidable physical skills, it still has a lot of elements of showmanship (and “spirit”) that enter into the judging. In some ways, it’s like a marching band competition–something that few would see as a sport.</p>
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<p>I would love to see a team compete without the glitter and bows, just to see if they’d really be judged down on “appearance.”</p>
<p>You could do a test, in which teams would compete in identical uniforms with no makeup in front of one set of judges, and fully made up in front of another set.</p>
<p>Just returned from a weekend lacrosse tournament with my daughter. Thanks, JHS, for post #61, which said what I had been thinking reading this thread. As the youngest of a family of daughters, I had a few opportunities to participate in sports (my older sisters had none). My daughters have many. Still, at our high school, the athletic director is the football coach, and can field 3 teams of football (9th grade, JV, Varsity) with no cuts. He has enough assistants, uniforms, and resources for this. Baseball is the same way. Meanwhile, girls’ soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, softball, etc has to cut girls who want to play. I do not believe that men want to participate more than women in sports. As the opportunities grow, the women are taking advantage of them. The change in our lifetimes has been dramatic.</p>
<p>I’m not a cheer fan, my D has some friends who do competitive cheer, I don’t really care if they make it a sport some places, but it would bother me to see it take the place of another sport. One of my D’s did some Irish dance, we dropped out when they reached the level where they had to wear fake hair. We would never make it in the world of dance or cheer!</p>
<p>The make-up and costumes are part of what I’m trying to come to terms with. I hate them both. I have never liked makeup at all (which is easier to do if you are a man). I wish my wife and daughter never wore any, but somehow they forget to ask my opinion. Make-up and sequins are completely anathema to anything I consider legitimate sport.</p>
<p>On the other hand, that’s a near-Dead White Male talking. I have to recognize that if you put a bunch of 14 year-old girls in a room and asked them to come up with the perfect game, it would almost certainly involve make-up and clothes. And, Lord knows, they judge each other’s appearance (and their own) constantly. I would love to make them stop, or at least encourage them to do it less and widen their standards. I’m not so sure that competitive cheer isn’t at least a step in the right direction for lots of them. Much, much better than competitive boy-attracting! (Sorry, I’m not going to let THAT into the Title IX tent no matter how much they plead.)</p>
<p>The point is that bringing appearance into the activity may be one of the bona fide female aspects of this particular sport. I don’t like it, but I’m not sure it’s OK for dads like me to insist that female athletes only act like Spartan boys.</p>
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The problem I have is when this aspect isn’t limited to the participants, buts extends beyond to limit <em>who</em> can participate.</p>
<p>If you can’t make the team, not because of your skills, but because you don’t have a certain “look” or body type, is this acceptable? It certainly wouldn’t be on the academic side.</p>
<p>I think I agree with your observations, JHS (love the “kitschy Dixieism” line). </p>
<p>For me, it’s less about the makeup / costume piece (I don’t object to ballerinas or actors wearing makeup or costumes, certainly) and more about the concept that the sport is about cheering for someone else to actually do the action. It’s certainly not in question that the girls may need to possess considerable athletic skills – but why it is just not a “team gymnastics” routine? I have a hard time getting beyond the fact that cheering is “let’s get you riled up to focus on them” —> with an arrow towards the boys who are playing football, or basketball, or whatever.</p>
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<p>I actually never thought about cheerleading as existing primarily for the benefit of another sport. (No cheerleaders in our fam, btw). I always considered it as entertainment for the crowd - the cheerleaders had their own team, practices and routines, and the games were just a venue to showcase their talents.</p>
<p>I am not involved in our local hs’s cheer team, but from the outside it feels like cheer really has evolved into its own legitimate sport, with the year’s work culminating around local and national cheer competitions.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with the make-up and hair, because anyone can participate in those things - it doesn’t discriminate.</p>
<p>As for body-type, most sports favor certain body-types, and there is an element of bias in selection in many sports. For example, when my D played club volleyball in 8th grade, at the parents’ meeting, the coach told us right out that he would rather take a 6 foot girl who had never played the game (because he can teach her the game), than a 5’2" girl who is a very good player.</p>
<p>Entertainment for the crowd who is gathered there to watch the other sport, though. Maybe I’m old-fashioned here. That’s just the sticking point for me. Though in all honesty maybe that applies to marching band as well. </p>
<p>How about baton-twirling? (I’m being totally serious here.)</p>
<p>Have y’all looked up any routines on You tube yet? They are not cheering for a team or a sport. It’s a 2 1/2 minute routine involving standing tumbling, running tumbling, dance, jumps, stunts and pyramids. While the HS competition routines may be showcased at a pep rally, they are not performed at games. They exisit only for competition purposes. My D says that cheer team workouts are much more strenuous than gymnstics team workouts were.</p>
<p>Think of the stunting alone. Sure, the younger girls may be lifting tiny girls. But at the collegiate level, you don’t have any 70 lbers and you have few that are 100 lbs…all that muscle weighs something and other girls lift the flyers on a regular basis (and live with constant bruises, nosebleeds and fat lips before the routines are perfect.)</p>
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<p>At the competitive level, appearance just doesn’t matter. There is a list of skills you have to be able to do - if you can do them, you’re on the team.</p>
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<p>So what distinguishes it from a team gymnastic routine? Is it the singing / chanting part of it?</p>
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<p>I’ve never seen team gymnastics. Do they lift each other? Do they do “cheer jumps?” </p>
<p>Interestingly, when the school cheer teams compete, they compete on mats on the floor, and there is a required element where the music stops and they actually cheer/chant (you try that while doing a back tuck or lifting a girl over your head.) The all-star teams compete on a floor like they use in floor for gymnastics and most don’t chant at all.</p>
<p>Based on the sheer athleticism, nothing seems to distinguish it from a team of gymnasts doing a joint routine together, except that it also involves clapping / singing / chanting, which is sort of my point. </p>
<p>Is the word “cheer” getting in the way for some of us (esp those Northerners who ostensibly share in some of JHS’ sensibilities)? </p>
<p>Is it more akin to a dance troupe performing a group dance, or a team of gymnasts performing a group routine? Where does the singing / chanting part fit in to all of this?</p>