“Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back... play for her.”- Mia Hamm. For many people sports are a way of life and their life is fulfilled by the hours spent improving to become a better athlete for which ever sport it may be. Reaching the goals that you strive for everyday to become a better second basemen, running back, setter, and even an overall cheerleader is what makes those hours of sweat and exhaustion worth while. A debate has been accumulated for years about whether or not cheerleading is a sport. But if we look closely at the facts then how can we look past the fact that cheerleaders send hours on end in the gym perfecting every aspect of the sport?


The reasons behind the people who believe that cheerleading is not a sport are that they still associate cheerleaders with side line cheers and leading the crowd at the home football games in chants. What most people are forgetting is that there is another side to the name “cheerleading”. Competitive cheerleading has become a international phenomenon. Competitive Cheerleading also involves gymnastics and dance along with a small 2 sentence cheer in the routine. Cheerleaders endure the physical activity as much and may be even more than any other "sport". Some of the physical activities that competitive cheerleaders amount to are intense gymnastic skills such as back hand springs, back tucks, punch fronts, fulls, layouts, pikes, and much more. Also cheerleaders have to be very flexible and have a good amount of muscle mass. For example, a flyer must be able to be flexible enough to pull their legs up into different positions to be able to perform a great deal of the stunting requirements. Some of the stunting requirements that a flyer may need to perform are scorpions, needles, and heel stretches. Bases are the people under the flyer that hold him or her in the air. These important people are the stability behind the stunt. Their ability to stay planted while having a person pulling their body into different positions takes a great deal of strength and balance. The definition of a sport on a national level an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.

Competitive cheerleading acquires all of these attributes to make the activity of cheerleading be considered a sport. Cheerleaders follow the rules of what a sport is defined as. Having been a cheerleader for most of my life, since the age of three and all the way up to I was 14 years old I can most certainly support the fact that cheerleaders are most definitely athletes. Competitive cheerleaders show the same drive, dedication, teamwork, and hard work that any other athlete performs.


Work Cited

"Cheerleading Is Not a Sport." LoveToKnow. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. "Cheerleading Is a Sport." Teen Ink. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.