AMA: Cheerleading is a sport

I can't see cheer getting a lot of traction. It's seems to be a solely American "sport."

Can yoi imagine the Iranian cheer team?

 

There were cheerleaders on chrome-plated trucks during the Atlanta opening ceremony, and I remember the concept had to be heavily explained to foreign audiences.

 

Any time you see a British video lampooning the States, a cheerleader is almost invariably involved.

 

I covered the Utah HS state championships once. The Ogden editor called me, apologized, offered me the stringer version of time and a half and threw in a Jazz side bar if I agreed. Why not. I just did rodeo the week before.

The place was sold out. Luckily, I had friends whose daughter was competing, so I sat with them. Had a nice visit, got a nice feature. I've had worse experiences.

But when the one team strutted in wearing Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader outfits -- well, a more modest version -- the entire place gasped as if "How are they getting away with in Utah..."

 

Angela and Jane are not cheerleaders: they are on the Dance Team. Yes, there is a difference.
By the way, they want to be a varsity sport too.

 

The College Athletes Who Are Allowed to Make Big Bucks: Cheerleaders

During the three years Jamie Andries spent as a member of the University of Oklahoma cheerleading team, she cheered at two Big 12 championship football games, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Rose Bowl and the 2016 Final Four.

And while the star football and basketball players in those games — including the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Baker Mayfield and the future N.B.A. guard Buddy Hield — were forbidden to make money from their athletic fame beyond what the university provided to cover their attendance, Andries was receiving thousands of dollars through sponsorship deals with Crocs, L’Oréal, American Eagle and Lokai.

“Coming to OU for college was a big milestone for me but it has given me so many amazing opportunities like being able to cheer for the Sooners,” Andries said in an Instagram post in February 2016 that shows her wearing her cheer uniform and holding up her left wrist to display two Lokai bracelets. “This month I support @livelokai and the Alzheimer’s Association.”

The lucrative opportunities for Andries came because of her fame and a social media following in the cheerleading world — she is one of the top “cheerlebrities,” as such stars are known — and because the N.C.A.A. and its universities do not regulate cheerleading in the same ways they do other sports.

 

Among the most entertaining intramural battles in the prep sports scene is cheerleading parents vs. dance team parents.

And its corollary, competitive cheer parents vs. sideline cheer parents.

 

Right up there with "swim league parents vs. tennis league parents" in the obnoxious rankings.

 

Probably also comparable to synchronous swimming parents vs. competitive swimming parents, with the winners taking on the water polo parents.

 

Female sub-regional: Field hockey parents vs. girls' lacrosse parents.

(With boys' lacrosse parents snorting from the sidelines that there's no difference.)

 

There's a key problem with the NYT story -- particularly the headline -- linked above. The NCAA doesn't consider cheerleading, competitive or sideline, to be a sport. It's inaccurate to say the NCAA regulates cheer differently from other sports. Your state high school association may disagree.

Swimming parents are the worst ever. It's a 24-7-365 sport, and the local media outlets might care for the two months of the high school season. Or even less.

That said, it's hard to cost their kids scholarships when they're so blatantly swimming slower in most high school races. The clock doesn't lie.

 

Competitive cheer actually is quite like a sport, there are performance goals, etc etc, the problem is that at most places, it has replaced and destroyed a legitimate sport, gymnastics.

Sideline cheer is chicks dancing in skimpy skirts and tight sweaters so the studly studs in football and basketball can feel tough.