By Olivia Brensinger ‘27
The bright lights, roaring crowd, cool fall air, and the cheerleaders putting on a show, are all major components that make a good Friday night football game. Cheerleaders spend their practices putting in hard work to be on the track every Friday supporting their team, but don’t get the recognition they deserve. Being on the team for the past three years and seeing first hand the true athleticism it takes to be a cheerleader, I believe that cheer should be considered a sport.
According to the Women’s Sports foundation, there are four main requirements that an activity must meet to be considered a sport. The first requirement is: “A physical activity that involves propelling a mass through space or overcoming the resistance of a mass.” In cheerleading, this would be stunting. Stunting takes a lot of strength, trust, and practice.
The next three revolve around the competition aspect: “A contest or competition against or with an opponent, it is governed by rules that explicitly define the time, space, and purpose of the contest, and the conditions under which a winner is declared, and the acknowledged primary purpose of the competition is a comparison of the relative skills of the participants.” Even though some sideline or football cheer teams don’t do competitions, there is a type of cheerleading where that is your entire focus. These are called “allstar” or “competitive cheer.” So, cheerleading meets all of the requirements that the Women’s Sports Foundation provides.
On the other hand, there are also many sports organizations that do not consider cheerleading to be a sport. ESPN states, “Sports teams exist to compete, not to perform and entertain or support another group that competes. In the cheer-as-sport conversation, this is the most important element to understand.” While the main and original focus of cheerleading is to support, perform, and entertain, the cheer world is growing. In the 1980s all star cheer was created and, like I stated before, their main focus is competition. More recently, in 2011, STUNT was created. USA cheer states that, “STUNT is one of the fastest growing female sports in the country.” STUNT is a competitive version of cheer that focuses on partner stunts, tumbling, and jumping, sort of like allstar but with smaller teams of around 16 athletes.
In conclusion, I believe that cheerleaders deserve more recognition for their athleticism and dedication. Cheer isn’t just a fun, after school activity, it’s a sport where athletes work hard and push themselves to the limit.