Is cheerleading a sport? I ask myself this question all the time when I think about sports because even though I think it’s a sport that doesn’t mean the rest of the world does. 

“Cheer is a sport not a musical,” said a cheerleader that goes to WMS.  Although, the anonymous student explained, “Yes, only competition cheer because you actually do stunts, but on the sidelines you’re mostly just yelling cheers.”  They explained that they thinks competition cheer is harder than regular cheer because they do “stunts and tumbling.”

One sport that gets compared with cheer is football.  Some people believe they are equally as difficult or one is harder than the other.  An anonymous student said, “Football because you have to tackle people and run across a field with heavy gear on.”  Comparatively, another student said, “For cheer, you have to be flexible, do flips and tricks, and have a loud voice.”  Others just think that both are equally difficult.  

Cheerleading is filled with a myriad of details and hard tasks as in tumbling, stunts, and remembering the dances all while very fast music is playing in the background of it all.  Also, every time a cheerleader goes to competitions they need to try and hit their routine. The cheer term “hit” means to have a great run-through of your routine with no mistakes.  One student explained, “Stunting requires a small group of girls to be completely in sync with each other to lift another teammate and support her weight fully. All of this happening in an infusion with other small groups and in sync with music and/or cheer.  The flyers have to have complete trust with their bases to make every attempt to catch them if something goes wrong.”

Critiquing is something some cheerleaders sadly have to deal with, so that is a reason why someone might not join or tryout for the cheer team. If someone were to take away a cheer team because they thought it wasn’t a sport an anonymous student said, “I would feel bad because they are getting something taken away from them that they enjoy.”

I think cheer is considered a sport.  Also, by looking at the information, more people seem to be leaning towards believing that cheer should be considered a sport.  Hopefully, more people can see how much hard work and time it takes to be a cheerleader just like the time and hard work it takes to do any other sport.