For the last twelve years of my life I practiced four days a week for two hours.. “Sorry, I have practice,” was the slogan to my existence. Having aches and pains from the soles of my feet to the joints of my wrist was the norm for my body. Puffing out my newly straightened hairstyle, as sweat dripped down my neck to my back no longer fazed me.
I can not remember a time when I didn’t have a weekend where I was getting ready for a competition with my teammates. Wearing only the brightest of white shoes and socks, sparkly makeup ,that almost never shows up on me because of the melanin in my skin, and having our hair in a high ponytail, teased to the max because “The higher the hair, the closer to heaven,”.
My team and I would perform for 2 minutes and 30 seconds in front of 6 judges whose faces we could not see because of the blinding lights. Every time we stepped on the mat we would give it our all. But we would always get points deducted not matter how perfect we thought we performed. Incorrect form while landing tumbling, points off. Fake nails, points off. Wild unnatural hair color, points off. Every competition had these same expectations.
The Cheerleading Worlds are like The NBA Championships, World Series and Super Bowl of Cheerleading. Worlds is where only the best of the best teams from over 40 different countries are be invited to compete at the televised competition at the Wide World of Sports Complex in Disneyworld, Florida. There, the winning team would get the title of being world champions and fitted for a new sparkly shimmering silver champion ring, as basketball, football, and baseball player are.
I have seen earrings rip through ear lobes, bones break the skin, multiple concussions, busted lips, broken fingers and bloody noses, not caused by fist fights, but by cheerleading. Cheerleading is considered the second most dangerous sport behind football. I have been in a stadium full of thousands of cheerleaders and spectators. There are hundreds of conversations going on and booming music underneath those conversations. Twenty cheerleaders were on one floor flipping, tumbling and jumping simultaneously. Suddenly, we hear a scream of torturing pain, loud enough to be heard over eleven amplifiers. As I look onto the mat through the madness, I spotted a cheerleader is sitting down holding her leg that has been snapped in half, and is now just dangling in the air. Why? Because she landed wrong on a double full twist, which she had surely thrown over a thousand times. This clearly shows how cheerleading is just as dangerous and rigorous as an other sport.
Cheerleaders can throw full-grown humans ten feet into the air and catch them on their way down. I am guessing that is slightly harder than throwing a twelve-pound football. We can throw tumbling across the floor doing multiple back springs, and whips at the speed of a sprint runner and ending with double twist fulls looking similar to a falling helicopter seed of a maple tree. Basketball and football players have 4 separate quarters to win the game. We only have one try, two minutes and thirty seconds to show if we deserve to win.
For the last twelve years of my life I have never thought of myself as less than an athlete. So why is that other sports fans look at us like we aren’t? Why isn’t Varsity cheerleading covered as a sport under National Collegiate Athletic Association rules and regulations? How can cheerleaders be professional like athletes, trained and conditioned like athletes, hardworking and dedicated like athletes, a uniformed team like athletes, yet still not consider athletes? At every game cheerleaders stand on the sidelines and cheer on our teams no matter what the scores looks like because we believe in our players. I wish that one day cheerleaders will get the support of others to further our athletic skills and finally get the respect that all athletes deserve.
For the last twelve years of my life I have practiced four days a week for two hours. “Sorry, I have practice,” was the slogan to my existence. Having aches and pains from the soles of my feet to the joints of my wrist was the norm for my body. At competitions we wear only the brightest of white shoes and socks, sparkly makeup, that almost never shows up on me because of the melanin in my skin, and having our hair in a high ponytail, teased to the max because “The higher the hair, the closer to heaven,”. My team and I would perform for 2 minutes and 30 seconds in front of 6 judges whose faces we could not see because of the blinding lights. Every time we stepped on the mat we would give it our all, even knowing we would get points deducted not matter how perfect we thought we performed.
We throw full-grown humans ten feet into the air and catch them on their way down. I have seen earrings rip through ear lobes, bones through skin, busted lips, broken fingers and bloody noses, not caused by nothing less than cheerleading.
The general public has simple and inaccurate idea of cheerleaders. Cheerleaders cheer for athletes. And according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, cheerleaders aren’t athletes, because cheerleading is not a sport. At every game cheerleaders stand on the sidelines and cheer on our team no matter what the scores looks like because we believe in our players.What is my dream, to be treated the same and given the title I deserve.