Lawrence Herkimer's Contribution To Sport

Cheerleading started as a male endeavor in 1898, when a University of Minnesota football fan led the crowd in verse in support of their team. It was not until World War II, when men shipped out to war, that women took over. Then cheerleaders came to represent the American ideal of femininity: wholesome apple pie with washboard stomachs, perfect teeth, and flawless complexions. Stereotypes cast them as blond, petite, and impossibly perky. “From its humble beginning cheerleading has blossomed into a competitive athletic activity with a serious image problem” (Forman 52). But today’s post-feminist youth have put a new, diverse face on cheerleading. Cheerleading in America is no longer a matter of waving pom-poms, a cute smile and being overly

Just like anything else, cheerleading has quite a history behind it. From the first chants at Princeton University to one of today’s most popular National pastimes, cheerleading has come a long way the past ten decades. In ancient times spectators cheered for runners in races held during the first ever Olympic Games in ancient Greece. In the 1860's students in Great Britain began cheering at competitive sporting events and soon the idea spread to the United States.

Cheerleading is a sport that many people don’t support in a way that they support the popular sports in most schools, like football and basketball. Cheering can open many doors and create an ample amount of job opportunities. By cheering you can also receive full ride athletic scholarships from many schools. A cute skirt and pompoms is not the only thing you have to work for when it comes to cheering. Just as any other sport you have to have a certain grade point average to try out for your cheerleading team and also you are held accountable for maintaining your grade point average with also being held accountable for remembering cheers, games day dates and events that you will have to attend with your team. Cheer teaches you many things other than being able to tumble and shout! As a cheerleader, you learn to encourage anyone that needs that boost of encouragement, we learn how to work together with other people. Your cheer team members will become your family!

One component cheerleaders also must have is flexibility. “Flexibility is the range of motion in a joint or group of joints or the ability to move joints effectively through a complete range of motion. Flexibility training includes stretching exercises to lengthen the muscles” (VeryWell). Flexibility must be present in order for flyers (the girls that are lifted into the air) to pull positions in midair, for the whole team to perform various jumps, and also helps in tumbling, which is a very important skill to have when participating in competitive cheerleading. “Tumbling is a form of gymnastics that requires athletes to use their bodies to flip, twist, roll and jump” (OmniCheer). Tumbling can take years to develop and isn’t an easy skill at all. Some girls work their whole life to just master simpler areas of tumbling and only the best of the best can do some of the hardest tumbling, which incorporates twists while flipping in midair. The last skill that cheerleaders must have is coordination. There is a lot of dancing whenever it comes to cheerleading. Dancing can be considered easy but not when it must be sharp and synchronized with all of the other teammates, along with adding in facial expressions, which appeal to the judges. These aspects take loads of time to perfect and some of these skills take years to even begin learning how to do.

Before we told our daughters that they could be anyone, or anything they wanted to be, we told them that they could only be what was acceptable for women to be, and that they could only do things that were considered "ladylike." It was at this time, when the nation was frenzied with the business of war, that the women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League decided that they could do and be whatever it was that they chose. These women broke free of the limitations that their family and society had set for them, and publicly broke into what had been an exclusively male sport up until that time.

“Modern cheerleading has evolved into a sport that is more akin to mixed martial arts, where legs and arms are constantly flailing and at any moment a participant is risking a violent shot to the head” (Cheerleading- the Forgotten Sport).

In the article “THE SECONDARY SCHOOL CHEERLEADER AND RITUALIZED SEXUAL EXPLOITATION,” I learned many things. The first surprising thing was the cheerleading started off as mainly a boy sport and now you don’t see nearly as many boys as you do girls involved with cheerleading and I think that is partly because in today’s society boys get made fun of for being a cheerleader. (Bennett) Another major thing that bothers me about cheerleading is that many girls get into cheering for the wrong reason, let’s just say that a lot of it is popularity. All in all there is so much you can argue on either side for cheerleading and hopefully schools are starting to see how cheerleading has changed into something other than rooting on your team, or competing for a national title.

Cheerleading began for me at the age of twelve. In the past I had played soccer, basketball, softball, did ballet. Basically every activity my mom could possibly put me in. All of those activities were okay, but cheerleading became something that was special to me. I first began cheering in middle school for the Hazelwood West Junior Wildcats. I cheered on the team throughout middle school literally dedicating all of my free time to cheerleading. I lived, ate, and dreamed cheer. I went on to continue cheering throughout my high school career, cheering for all Hazelwood West athletics, including: soccer, football, basketball, and wrestling. I was a hardcore dedicated athlete, and I had spirit like no other. From

Cheerleading is more than cheering on the sidelines at a football game or bringing the crowd to their feet. Cheerleaders do not have to run around three bases or skate their way to a puck, but they do, however, lift their teammates, jump, dance, tumble, and perform. There was a point in my life where I would eat, sleep, and breathe cheerleading. It is debated whether cheerleading would be considered a sport. Nevertheless, cheerleading has been a passion of mine for most of my childhood, and these experiences made me the person I am today. Before cheerleading, I was incredibly shy, be bullied in school, and did not have many friends.

Ray Chapman is known as the only MLB player to die from an injury. He was hit by a pitch and eventually died in the club house (“One pitch” par. 1). Today, all MLB athletes are required to wear helmets when batting, to protect them from severe injuries. Sports in the 1920s were the start of a new concept. It was a new idea to people that changed a lot in society and their views on sports.

In the 1960’s not only did almost every high schools have cheer squads but most colleges had squads too. NFL teams began making cheer teams in 1960’s too.The first NFL cheer team was in Texas and known as The Dallas Cowboys. It was quite vicious to make that NFL cheer team! . “There was a mother in Texas who tried to hire a hitman to kill a rival cheerleader, so her daughter could be on the squad.” In 1965 was when the first pom- poms were actually made. They were called Pom- pons not pom-Poms as they are here in 2017. Cheerleaders were pretty successful in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s and 80’s cheerleaders started getting more competitive and they added stunts and competitive

I cheered from 5th grade through my senior year yes believe me when I tell you it was hard, it had drama and everyone complained they wanted to quit at least once some did not me though. I was the person who always had extra everything and could tell what was wrong with a stunt without ever being able to do them myself. “The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators is nonprofit educational organization that promotes cheerleading safety and education for their coaches” (cheerleading as a sport-AACCA). The U.S. Department of Civil Right Title IX this helps with discrimination in education and activities for both sexes the article was revised in April of 2015. “The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a membership driven organization dedicated to safe guarding the well-being of student athletes on the filed in school and in life” (About NCAA). The article I used above was written by Michelle Brutlag Hosick their associate director of public and media communications. ESPN Entertainment and Sports programing Network keeps up with all sports and up incoming sports. Lastly I used the TRC Arch Database Academic Search Elite under EBSCO Host for my source Education week and their source writer Bryan Toporek. The School I used as a reference Quinnipiac University in Connecticut manipulated the roster by deflating the men’s and inflating the women’s and they used to under report, so U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill thought they were getting

He held the first summer cheerleader training camps which grew into the National Cheerleading Association ("Cheerleading" 2). From there, Herkimer oversaw the growth of cheerleading into high schools and the National Football League, and pioneered the use of spirit sticks, dance routines, and his signature jump, the "herkie" ("Being" 1). College cheerleading championships were first broadcast nationally in 1978 which greatly aided the cheerleader's ascent into icon status. From there, competitive cheerleading took off leading to the establishment of all-star gyms, independent of any school or team affiliation. As for the cheerleading industry, Varsity Spirit Corporation now monopolizes the market on all things cheerleading: camps, competitions, uniforms, and more. Although the purposes of cheerleading squads now vary, the essential qualities of a cheerleader rarely do.

“When someone tells you to think of a sport I’m sure the first thing that comes to mind is football, or basketball, or maybe baseball. But what about cheerleading? When you think of cheerleading do you just think of it as an activity that consists of chants on the sidelines with big pom-poms, or do you think of it as a sport with extreme stunting such as tumbling, mounting, and tossing? The question of whether or not cheerleading is or should be recognized as an official sport has been debated since 1997 and still makes its way to court every few years. Throughout this research paper I will explore the question of what defines a sport and whether or not cheerleading should be considered one.”

For more than a century, hockey historians have found that precisely tracing the sports origin is not only a difficult task but, a virtual impossibility. Therefore I can only try to deduce for myself, from the records, claims, and accounts, which are available to me, when, where, and by whom the first ice hockey was played. I’ll also discuss the early problems and obstacles that the NHL encountered. Plus I will also tell a little bit about early equipment, along with early game play and ice conditions that players encountered. Lastly, the Stanley Cup, which is the most prized and oldest sports award of the NHL. It has been won many times, by many different teams. Ice hockey is traceable to games played on fields as far back as nearly 2500