“Cheerleading, a sport? Yeah, okay..like that will ever be considered a sport.” That’s the reaction most people get whenever you say the word “cheer”. Most people think that all you do is jump up and down while yelling for football players to run to the in-zone and score a touchdown. How hard can that be? I mean anyone can do that…right? WRONG. That’s definitely not all we do.

A cheerleader’s schedule consists of getting to the school at about 6:30 am, practicing until 8:30 sometimes 9am, enduring school all day, then going home and studying for hours. That’s just on a weekday. Game days are different. Those consist of getting to the school for practice at 6am, then go to class all day, but before school ends you have a pep rally where you stunt, tumble, chant, and perform a routine, then go eat before the game. After this, its game time! Be on the field an hour before the game starts to set up megaphones, and hang up signs we spent all weekend painting. Sometimes we are the first ones to the get to school and the last ones to leave. It can be difficult at times, but always manageable.

Cheerleading is actually an extremely dangerous sport and was actually named one of the most dangerous sports besides football. Speaking from experience, earlier this year I was hit in the head by a girl I was stunting. I received a major concussion that caused me memory loss and a few weeks out of school. Another girl on my squad tore her ACL this past summer. Needless to say, cheer hurts. But the joy of the “non-sport” beats every injury. Now, to all you non-believers, do you still think cheer is not a sport?