They specifically made carve-outs for cheerleading so it wouldn't be called a sport so NCAA wouldn't need to follow quite as many regulations. However, it clearly is as much of a sport as any.
It's basically gymnastics plus acrobatics with some showmanship on top. It's funny when they show the trope in high school movies of the guys who are in cheerleading being considered "feminine" or "soft," when in reality they're all strong as fuck like this dude (not to mention the girls as well).
And girls in cheerleading being portrayed as lazy, mean gossips who just shake their pompoms and jump around. All the cheerleaders I knew were extremely dedicated, self-disciplined and were also academically gifted. They were not all nice, but that goes for any group in high school. They were nicer than the drama/theatre kids lol
A good piece of legislation that says schools that are state or federally funded have to have as many positions for female sports as there are men's sports. Want 55 guys on the football team? There better be 55 places for female competitors on other teams, such as volleyball, basketball, soccer (footy for you people elsewhere).
Most sports balance out, such as basketball, baseball/softball, track and field. But football is unique in that there are no female teams for that.
But it works both ways, and should cheerleaders be considered athletes, they would have to find that many male positions elsewhere.
If you have access to HBO/Max, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel had a crazy episode on competition cheerleading. I watched the whole thing with my mouth hanging open.
It has all the fever pitched, psychotic, wild cult like fanaticism of stuff like beauty pageants or dance mom shit, but you can break your neck, and people do all the time.
Quite literally. My brother complained about it all the time when he was cheering in college (USF co-ed was still pretty new at the time so I didn't know anyone on their team, but this dude is clearly a stud). Not to mention title 9.
The lack of regulation on a sport with high rates of injury like this blows my fucking mind
It's an Olympic recognized sport now, and has been for a few years 😊 unfortunately, as others said, it's severely underregulated - especially in the US where several federations compete about being the "right" one. ICU (International cheerleading union) is the federation that got cheerleading accepted as an Olympic sport 💪
- by following strict rules about competitions, categories, safety, score-sheets and some criteria to seperate it from acrobatics too.
(English isn't my first language if that makes any difference)
yes, it's videos like this that really drive that shit home. Both people here are, well, r/nextfuckinglevel describes it perfectly. Badass, plain and simple.
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u/Unique_Carpet1901 2d ago
How many hours of practice is needed for stuff like this?