Court rules competitive cheer is not a sport

http://blogs.wSportsJournalists.com/law/2012/08/07/second-circuit-cheerleading-still-isnt-a-sport/

It was nothing more than a cheap way to pretend you're in compliance with Title IX . Some schools tried to mask it as "tumbling and acrobatics" or some such nonsense but that's not flying either.

I think Maryland dropped its program earlier this year, leaving maybe 4 or 5 left nationwide.

 

Can we now use this court case as precedent when angry cheer parents call us about coverage?

 

In a related development, cheer has been added as 2016 Olympic sport. The early favorites are the NBC gymnastics broadcasting crew.

 

Rowdy Gaines has been added to the U.S. team.

 

Gives Brandi Chastain another opportunity to rip her shirt off when the USA wins the cheer-off after the score is tied in regulation.

 

Not the gymnastics crew but on the Today Show this morning, Savannah Guthrie said, "It wouldn't be the Olympics without Jimmy Fallon." Uh, okay.

 

I guess hard work doesn't suffice as a legal argument.

 

The Second Circuit is costing these girls scholarships!

 

You guys can laugh all you want but my stepdaughter cheered for 5 years and she risked injury and worked just as hard as pretty much every boys team at her school other than football. The problem with cheer is (a) the name and (b) the appearances at football/basketball games. If they stuck to just the competitions -- for which they trained for hours -- they'd have a better shot at being considered a sport.

 

Intercollegiate competitive cheer teams must be separate from the normal cheerleading squad (no dual membership). They cannot perform at games like regular cheerleaders (who really are nothing more than a sideshow of eye-candy.) Yet they are still not considered a sport by the courts, or by 99.9 percent of all intercollegiate athletic departments in the country.

And please don't try to compare them to intercollegiate gymnasts, as those who promote competitive cheer often attempt to do. There is absolutely no comparison in the skill level and difficulty of routines.

 

The only reasons the "competitions" even exist is to provide the activity with the superficial structure of a sport to give them legal standing to get their fingers into athletic department budgets.

Years and years ago there was a high school sport in which girls so inclined could participate in organized competition in various activities including tumbling, vaulting, uneven bars, etc etc etc. It was called "gymnastics."

In the last couple of decades while "cheerleading" (and more and more, "dance team,") has grown exponentially as a "official varsity sport" in American high schools, gymnastics has pretty much completely faded away from the scene as a varsity high school sport.

If you happen to have any actual high school gymnastics teams in your area, ask the coaches what they think of cheerleading and dance team as varsity sports.

Odds are real good they won't give you many kind words, for the same reason high school basketball coaches are usually not too wild about the addition of volleyball or team handball as varsity sports, and high school football coaches are usually not too big on adding rugby to the schedule.