Commentary piece

Cheerleading is a tough sport

Most people think to be a cheerleader you go to football games, you're pretty, popular, wanting attention, and the list goes on. In reality that's not the truth at all, you have to be mentally and physically ready just like any other sport. There is competitive cheer and high school cheer teams and both are very stressful to be in. 

     Anyone in cheer will tell you that you have to be willing to give up your life to stay committed to this sport. You have practices everyday after school for high school cheer and three or more practices with competitive cheer plus competitions almost every weekend. Homework is also hard to do because I would stay up until 12:00-1:00 every

night trying to finish and I still don't get the grades I want. The car rides for competitions is the only time you have for your homework.

    What is the actual definition of a sport? A sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. I do think cheer is definitely a sport while others may disagree. Others will say “it’s not a sport because of the inability to compete against an opponent. It is solely dedicated to entertain and motivate the crowd during sports events.” That’s only half of cheer, they don’t know the competitive side of it.

    Cheer is very competitive and at competitions you will always see teams lose by .01 and that feeling sucks because it’s happened to me before. Other sports will lose by 7 or more points while cheer will lose by point something. You put all the hard work to lose by a pointed toe or a wrong motion.

    There is also reported the most injuries than any other sport, why is this? We throw girls in the air and we flip our body all other the place. One wrong grip or wrong move and you can be seriously injured.

     Full outs will always be the death of a cheerleader. A full out is doing your whole routine from beginning to end and giving it your all. Even though they are only 2 minutes and 30 seconds, that feels like the longest 2 minutes and 30 seconds of your life. You are out of breath and you feel like jello after wards. And if you don’t do good you do full outs back to back and girls will eventually throw up.

     If someone gets hurt in cheer there are no replacements like football or baseball. If you get hurt, you better push through and finish the full outs. There is also no halftime meaning we don’t get any breaks not one. Water breaks are only 1 minute if you get lucky. You are constantly doing something from the start of practice until the end and you never know when it’s going to end because coaches will keep you until however long they want.

    Conditioning. Yes even cheerleader’s condition, probably more than any other sport. We have practices just for conditioning and you don’t want to miss those practices because next time you won’t be able to walk. You need to have a big amount of cardio and endurance to finish each routine.