By Isabella Carrillo
Cheerleading is a sport where girls and boys come together to perform and compete to win against others. It's not just about cheering for football teams on the sidelines.
People around the world view cheerleading as just cheering for the football team at a football game, but not all cheerleaders do. Besides them cheering on teams, there is a whole other side to the sport that most people don't see. In the article, “Why cheerleading is a sport” by Courtney Higgins, Abigail Hancsin, Kadie McNally and Rebecca Matthews it states, “To be considered a sport, an activity must involve physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Cheerleading involves throwing, catching, spinning, and flipping, which all involve physical exertion.” This shows that cheerleaders are athletes and that cheer is a sport.
Just like any other sport, cheer takes a lot of dedication and hard work. To most people, a 2-minute and 30-second routine sounds easy, but it is not. Routines consist of jumps, tumbling, and stunts, which is when they throw people in the air. These athletes spend lots of time conditioning to build up their stamina to perform this routine, and they spend days as a team working together to perfect their routine and fix any little mistakes they have.
Cheer is all about your mental and physical strength. Although cheer sounds like other sports, it's much different because cheerleaders only have one chance to go out and perform their routine in front of judges. In football, if your team is down in the first half, you still have another half of the game to get back out and make up for your mistakes. But in cheer, they have one chance to go out and show the judges what they have put all their hard work and time into and perform their routine perfectly and with no mistakes because having one mistake can cost your entire routine.
In cheerleading, there are different levels and categories they can compete in. For example, there is the high school, college, and all-star cheer level, but everything goes based on their skills. It's different, but they all go based on the same score sheet. In cheerleading, everything matters and must be perfect in order to get the most points on the score sheet. The score sheet is divided into four parts and includes using the proper technique for each skill, synchronization, spacing, and your team's energy level. When performing, you want to catch the judge's attention and impress them with your routine. Routines will not always be perfect, so you need to catch their attention, leave a lasting impression on them, and perform correctly.
In the article “Why cheerleading is a sport,” the girls say, “A perfect routine won’t guarantee a victory, either. You can’t go out on the floor and say, “If we throw a good pass and make a touchdown, we can win.” After you step off the mat, victory is in the judges’ hands. All judges have their own personal preferences, so if they are in a bad mood or if they just don’t like your routine on a particular day, then your chances to win are low.” This explains how hard cheerleading can be because it's all up to the judges whether or not they like how your routine looks and how it was performed. You want to stand out from all the other teams and show how your routine is different from others. It's a very competitive sport because all judges are different, and impressing them could be challenging.
I believe that once you have tried the sport or even watched a performance, your mindset on cheer could be changed or how you feel about the sport because you will see the skills these athletes perform, and it's not all just about cheering on the football team. The skills they perform are not as easy as they look. These athletes put everything into these routines and it takes a lot of practice to do all of these skills in two minutes and 30 seconds without stopping.