Federal Court Rules Cheerleading is NOT a sport. - MERGED THREADS

Parent Cafe
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<p>You should just look it up on You Tube…then you’d get it better than through my explanations. Gymnasts typically only do running tumbling on floor, though at the highest levels they do standing tumbling on beam. Gymnasts don’t ever lift their teammates in the air. In cheer, there are a number of jumps - toe touch, herkie, etc. that they do. Plus there is a dance element. </p>

<p>You have 15-36 folks on the floor at once. The timing must be perfect, or it all busts. In the stuts, they’ve basically got one try, on one beat of the song, to get their girl in the air and keep her there.</p>

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<p>I don’t see why baton-twirling could not also evolve into a “sport.” It is certainly athletic, so if rules are added and competitions arranged, then it would qualify.</p>

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It already is - see “rhythmic gymnastics”. it is an Olympic sport. This is essentially “advanced” baton twirling - you also throw around hoops, ribbons, ropes, and balls.</p>

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<p>No one seems to be engaging with the question I asked, so let me ask it a different way. (My ego doesn’t permit the conclusion, “They all think it’s a dumb question.”)</p>

<p>What are we trying to accomplish when we define what a “sport” is? And how gendered is the concept we’re trying to express?</p>

<p>For example, it looks like Scoring and its progeny *Winning{/i] are the sine qua non of everyone’s “sports” definition. There has to be a score. There has to be a winner and a loser. How come? </p>

<p>The most amazing athlete I know is my niece, who was a professional acrobat in circuses for 10+ years during and after college (with a year off for rehab). She spent the last three touring Europe with decent pay and benefits. A normal day for her involved 2-3 hours of rehersal, 2 hours of performance, and at least an additional 2-3 hours of working out (some of which was necessary to keep her body from looking misshapen, since rehersal and performance tended to use one side of her body much more than the other). She’s currently supporting herself as a yoga instructor.</p>

<p>Every single benefit one gets from sports, she got. Fitness, discipline, challenging herself, intricate teamwork, adventure, friends, lovers, injuries, scars, applause, pay. Except one: After she left track and gymnastics at 15 (she was too short to remain a competitive runner, and she never liked the atmosphere of gymnastics), she never again got to “win” or “lose” anything. No trophies. (Well, she was in a couple of movies, and has neat pictures of herself with various stars.) I understand that the absence of winning and losing means she was not engaged in a sport, but I don’t understand what positive social value we are supposed to derive from that. There are very few baseball players (not to mention bowlers) who are as fit and in touch with their bodies as she is.</p>

<p>I would like to call what she does sports. I would like to call what serious dancers do sports. I’m not sure I understand the continued relevance of the battle model for sports, where the champion(s) for one side has an artificial war with the other side’s champion(s) and everyone cares who wins. Why not have them all do yoga, and let them all try to improve themselves constantly, and push, and try new things?</p>

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<p>I’ve been telling all the destressed cheer folks who only heard the headline that what the court was trying to accomplish was to determine whether a university had followed the technicaliites of Title IX.</p>

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<p>Yeah, that’s right, but that answer just kicks the can down the road. How do you decide what the right technicalities are for following Title IX?</p>

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I’m skeptical. I Google Image’d champion cheer team, and what I see doesn’t suggest to me that appearance doesn’t matter. Or maybe it’s just that the makeup, hairstyles, and shiny costumes make them all look better. It’s one thing for people with certain body types to do better in certain sports–it’s another thing for their facial appearance to matter.</p>

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<p>I think this is a very good question (see! I may be a little slow, but I do listen to you, JHS). To me, begs the question of whether the end goal (not of Title IX specifically, but the end goal in general) is to encourage *sports<a href=“with%20the%20aforementioned%20winners,%20losers,%20competition,%20scoring,%20etc.”>/i</a> or to encourage physical movement. Because certainly that has implications for the world of physical education.</p>

<p>Part of what Title IX did was to enable those girls who indeed were or wished to be competitive in soccer, softball, etc. the opportunity to do those things – I too am old enough to remember the dearth of women’s sports, and I think those things are wonderful. However, it still left those who were either not naturally athletic or not intrinsically motivated by competition with others out of it, because I suppose the concept of sport is still defined in that (stereotypically male) way of win / lose.</p>

<p>I have observed physical education / gym class change a lot from “my day” – when the focus was on playing volleyball, softball, all kinds of team sports – to what I see today, where there is a lot more focus on people pushing themselves physically in the ways that they want to – sure, you can play volleyball or softball, but you can also jog, use an exercise bike, lift weights, take an aerobics class, do yoga / pilates, etc., where you get the same physical benefits but you don’t need to be competitive to do so (or if you compete, it’s just against your own self). </p>

<p>As the classic girl who could trip over my own shoelaces even if tied, I have applauded that redefinition of gym class from “learn how to participate in team sports” –> “learn how to physically move and enjoy doing so, so it becomes part of your ongoing lifestyle as an adult.” I wonder if what JHS is talking about is related to this in some way – as gym class has been redefined from sports to physical activity, what other redefinitions might occur?</p>

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<p>I can tell you that my soccer-playing daughter likes to win, hates to lose, and is much more intense if there is something on the line. Scrimmages and “friendlies” are much less interesting for her. She enjoys them, but it is not the same. It’s all about the competition. Most high-level female athletes I have come across are like this as well. So I don’t think the love of and desire for competition is intrinsically male. I’m guessing that the competitive cheerleaders in question on this thread would be much less interested in putting in the effort and time if the end result as just performing a routine for an audience.</p>

<p>I think it is great that high school gym class has changed from “let’s pick teams and gang up on the nerds”. But riding an exercise bike isn’t likely to slake anyone’s competitive urges. (Although, come to think of it, I have seen rowers that you can hook up to the internet and “race” other people at other health clubs, proving, I guess, that we can turn anything into a competition.)</p>

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<p>At our HS, students who do a sport, marching band, cheer or drill team don’t take PE. So I doubt that there is anyone left in gym class that has competitive athletic urges.</p>

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<p>LOL! Perhaps you weren’t getting answers because we don’t have any good ones (I know I don’t). I guess it’s just an assumption of mine that sport differs from “regular” physical activity, no matter how rigorous, because there’s a winner and a loser - it is the very nature of sport. Never questioned it. Is that competitive drive a male trait and are we defining sport based on that male trait? No, I don’t think so, but my “evidence” for that assertion would all be anecdotal.</p>

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Heh, my D is always whining about this. She plays varsity soccer and considers PE to be pretty pointless when you are practicing for hours a day. But, she has to take it.</p>

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<p>I really don’t think facial appearance matters at all. I think that with the glitter eye shadow, heavy blush, red lipstick and giant bows, they all look sort of *freaky <a href=“certainly%20not%20model%20beautiful”>/I</a>. There are a few beautiful girls and a few homely girls and lots who are just average…but they can all tumble.</p>

<p>However, there* is *the phenomenon where many athletes are attractive. When I was watching the World Cup games, it seemed that 99% of the players were attractive and that about 80% of them could have been models. I’ve always assumed it was an evolutionary/survival of the fittest thing, where the best athletes are almost by definition, attractive.</p>

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My D would definitely not agree with you on this point. I think for her it was more like 20% were good-looking, and the rest were… not. Maybe we just get less picky as we get older. :)</p>

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<p>There was an article about this in the Washington Post–the opinion given there was that soccer players are attractive because they are extremely fit while having relatively normal body types (as opposed to football and basketball players).</p>

<p>That’s one reason I like baseball–you don’t really have to be good looking at all–or even fit-looking–to excel at that sport.</p>

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<p>I am imagining a dialog between legislators (or Platonic ideals of such) enacting Title IX:</p>

<p>“Let’s finally have athletic equality for girls!”</p>

<p>“Right on! Umm . . . do we have to let girls on the football team?”</p>

<p>“Uh . . . that seems wrong. Maybe have a girls’ football team?”</p>

<p>“Where are we going to find enough girls to have a girls’ football team?”</p>

<p>“Hmmm. Well, what we really want is . . . equality of athletic opportunity!”</p>

<p>“Equality of athletic opportunity! Righteous! And that will be easy, we’re almost there already!”</p>

<p>“We are? How so?”</p>

<p>“All we have to do is move the ballet program to the Athletic Department, and expand the cheerleading squad. Maybe have two, one for football and one for basketball. Voila! Equality of athletic opportunity!”</p>

<p>“Nononononono! Girls have to have a chance to play real sports! Sports! Not ballet! Not cheerleading!”</p>

<p>“What if girls don’t WANT to play real sports? They like to look pretty, right? Ladylike. Not all muscle-bound like some offensive lineman!”</p>

<p>“Believe me, give them a chance and girls will want to play real sports. Have you ever watched a field hockey game? Nasty! Thank heavens they have to keep those little sticks down, or they’d all look like ice hockey players. But we need to have girls who have real coaches, and who push themselves to the limit, and who learn the benefits of teamwork and sportsmanship. Or sportswomanship. Whatever. Discipline. Leadership. Competition. That’s what’s important in life!”</p>

<p>“You think ballet dancers don’t have discipline? Or competition? Have you ever met a ballet dancer?”</p>

<p>“Name me one CEO who was a ballerina. Having some witch scream at you in French and Russian for hours at a time isn’t coaching, and it doesn’t produce leadership. Men will only respect women when they know how to score goals!”</p>

<p>“OK, but . . . What if we had ballet MEETS? You know, with teams, and bleachers. And a panel of crazy Russians awarding points? Or pointes? And got Bobby Knight to be head coach, and give locker room speeches, yell at the judges, stuff like that? Is it a sport yet?”</p>

<p>"No, ballet is NOT a sport, no matter what you do. It’s art, and that’s COMPLETELY different. Obviously. Not every girl wants to be a ballerina. We need to let some of those ballerinas play soccer, or row crew. You know, thrill of victory, agony of defeat . . . . "</p>

<p>“I don’t want my daughter to get breast cancer because someone kicks her in the chest. And I really don’t want my daughter to turn into a you-know-what by spending all her time with THEM. Cheerleaders and ballerinas get boyfriends.”</p>

<p>And so forth.</p>

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<p>My favorite (and well-known, so it’s not just me being mean) counter-example:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DonMossi.jpg[/url]”>http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/DonMossi.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<em>snort</em></p>

<p>Too funny.</p>

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<p>If you really wanted to promote leadership, you’d have less coaching, not more.</p>

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<p>As an oldster, I’m tremendously grateful for the world of sports Title IX opened up for women, even if my daughter never wanted even to dip a toe in it. It would have been completely counterproductive to define ballet and cheerleading as sports 30 years ago, and I’m suspicious of them today, too. But widespread athletic opportunities for women have changed the meaning of ballet and cheerleading, too – and nothing shows it more than competitive cheer competitions. I doubt there’s any neutral set of principles in which to determine that cheer isn’t a sport. And I KNOW that there can’t be sports without clear winners and losers of clear matches, but honestly I don’t know what’s so great about that.</p>