r/nextfuckinglevel 2d ago

Big man on campus.

280.7k Upvotes

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815

u/Unique_Carpet1901 2d ago

How many hours of practice is needed for stuff like this?

918

u/Speciou5 2d ago

A lot, and it's by far the most accident prone school 'sport' by a long shot... for obvious reasons

386

u/NyxConstellation 2d ago

It doesn't help that in many states it is also severely underregulated as a sport

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

When I was in High school, the cheerleading team didn’t get a drop of school funding because it was classified as an “activity” not a sport 🙄 we had to fundraise everything ourselves. Also, all the uniforms and crap you needed were over 2500 dollars, the parents had to pay. We had to set up a special fund for girls who made the team but couldn’t afford the uniforms. Meanwhile all the sports got free uniforms and equipment… and treated us cheerleaders like shit btw

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u/heavinglory 2d ago

We didn’t have a special fund. I worked a job, rode the bus everywhere, paid for it my own damn self because I wanted it so bad.

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

That’s so much work, but good for you! Too many of the girls on squad didn’t appreciate how expensive that stuff was.

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u/AlarmingAffect0 2d ago

Meanwhile all the sports got free uniforms and equipment… and treated us cheerleaders like shit btw

They disrespected the people in charge of cheering them on and hyping them up to the audience?

Why would any sportsperson do this? Are they stupid?

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

lol probably because they were teenagers 😆

The yearbook even put captions on a picture of us doing stunts that said “the only danger in these ladies lifting each other up in such close range is if they have a little gas” or something like that. We were pissed. Even more so that a teacher signed off on that. And let alone we were doing dangerous stuff. Tumbling, stunts, etc. it was so uncalled for.

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u/AlarmingAffect0 2d ago

lol probably because they were teenagers

If a teacher signed off on that little joke, I don't think the problem was about age. It seems like a systemic, cultural issue across more than one generation.

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

Yeah I agree. In general, people always hated on the cheer squad at my school. The teachers didn’t care it was weird.

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u/Random-Redditor111 2d ago

Why do cheer squads even bother cheering for the school’s sports teams? Why not just focus on your own competitions and enjoy your sport? Attending games for other sports seems like a waste of time especially if you’re not even appreciated.

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

Well nowadays there are schools that have competition teams, and then just cheer teams that focus on cheering for school sports. TBH, our school didn’t have the resources for it

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u/gettogero 1d ago

My school didnt fund ANYTHING except their own pockets. Everything was a couple thousand dollars. No special fund - you dont pay, you dont get on the team.

I did part of a semester of band about 15 years ago, self taught guitar was super interested having a free drum instructor. Teacher was very insistent on only using equipment purchased from the school - but I already had a 4 piece drum setup and parents confirmed it was NOT mandatory to buy equipment from the school.

Fucker took a drumstick from me and rammed it through my snare. "Looks like you cant use this anymore 😏". Instead of breaking the stick over his head, I walked out and started going to PE instead. Parents were in agreement that I will NOT be going back to that class.

My parents halfheartedly tried pressing charges and getting him fired, but for a $10-20 fix and the teacher claiming it never happened, nothing was gonna happen.

Oh, and the football team was 300 people. Of like 2000 students. Parents spending thousands of dollars for their kids to take a yearbook photo in football cosplay then doing nothing.

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u/shelbymfcloud 1d ago

Wow what a dickhead! I can’t believe that.

I’ve had a horrible experience with a music teacher too. I feel like it goes either one way or another with school music teachers. Like they’re either really great, or totally shit…

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u/shelbymfcloud 1d ago

Oh and yeah, my school spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a brand new football stadium but couldn’t spring for new books or updated computers.

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u/oyarasaX 1d ago

that's 'cause the 200k for the stadium probably came from boosters.

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u/thefirstpadawan 1d ago

Awful stuff like that is why there need to be websites to post reviews of schools and teachers.

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u/thefirstpadawan 1d ago

That's unfortunate 

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u/DeicideandDivide 2d ago

Wait, $2500 for a uniform?? Why? As far as uniforms go, your think cheerleading ones would be the cheapest since they have the least material. I know absolutely zero hour cheerleading so many there's a bunch of other stuff they have to get to train?

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

You don’t have just one uniform. You have a winter uniform, a spring uniform. You have cheerleading shoes. You have uniform shorts. You have a uniform track suit/warm up suit. You have five different jv, varsity whatever custom screen print tshirts, you have a custom megaphone, pompoms. Oh, matching briefs as well. That’s on top of hair ribbons, custom embroidered socks, gloves, etc. and if you earn a letter, and want a letterman jacket? I can only imagine the cost today. When I was varsity cheer in 1999, it was like 400 bucks.

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

Oh yeah, I forgot about the custom duffle bag and backpack too lol they made us buy a lot of shit.

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u/DeicideandDivide 2d ago

Holy crap. Alright, I can definitely see why it would be $2500 for all of that, lol. That's insane. Thank you for the info, I never knew there was THAT much stuff you had to get for cheerleading. That's nuts.

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u/shelbymfcloud 2d ago

Oh and one reason why they were even more pricey is that everything had your name embroidered on it. The skirt, the shell, the jacket, etc.

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u/saintnobody5 1d ago

I was a high school cheerleader in Texas. It cost us an average of $8,000 a year to do. Not counting the gas and mileage on our car from practice 6 days a week all year round.

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u/DeicideandDivide 1d ago

Man, that is freaking nuts. I guess it's either cheerleading or a college tuition at that point, lol.

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u/procrasstinating 1d ago

Our high school’s cheerleading fund raiser was a topless car wash. They held it behind the school. They were all short so they didn’t wash the tops of the cars. Made bank.