Middle School Memory

I have done both high school and All-Star cheerleading. I know first hand how each practice goes, and I have gone through the competitions, training, games, and practices. The first big difference between the two levels of cheerleading is the practice and training. At a high school cheerleading practice, every practice is usually the same. The practice starts out with the everyone circling up and stretching and laughing, it’s not taken very serious. After we stretch, we would usually train for twenty minutes. Training involved seeing how many push ups, sit ups, and jumping jacks we could do in a minute. Then, we would run a single lap around the football field, but most of the cheerleaders would walk. After training was over we most likely would practice cheers and chants for thirty minutes, dances for thirty minutes, and then stunt if we were lucky. We rarely stunted for the simple

One thing I have a strong passion for in life is sports. My favorite one was volleyball. It taught me a lot about life and myself. My sophomore year I made varsity, but was upset when I sat the bench more than I played. However, I still pushed myself every practice and never gave up hope. This payed off because the next season I was a starter and a team captain. Being a student athlete has been an incremental part of who I have become in the future. I did not realize it at the time, but my participation in sports has affected my life in more ways than I thought. Consequently, sports have had a major influence on the career path I have chosen, and have also been a significant part of bringing my family together.

Cheerleading is one of the leading causes of catastrophic injuries in female athletes in high school and college levels, yet people still argue that it is not a sport and how “easy” it is. Reasons cheer is not labeled a sport yet is because all of the benefits that would need to be provided for cheer teams because of title IX, the primary purpose of cheer (not competing), and the fact that cheerleading would not exist if they labeled it a sport because then their primary purpose would be to compete, not lead on their school’s teams.

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.

Soccer led to days sitting in the park talking about our futures, bike rides to the beach, and nights of mischief. Around the same time I started playing and watching basketball. I remember watching Kobe Bryant play in the 2009 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics and thinking I want to try that move, hoist a trophy, have a crowd cheer for me. There has always been a sense of energy I got from playing in front of people which can be attributed to my competitiveness. Regardless, the only people that I cared about watching me were my parents. My father was always working and my mother also working among taking care of my younger sisters and I. That is until my championship game with the boys and girls club in 6th grade. I vividly remember my dad waving to me as we started the game and although we lost I was never happier. Basketball gave me a reason to smile. There were countless nights of trash talk and one on one games with people who were my rivals, rivals that are now my closest

Cheerleading is a time to represent your school spirit and pride. Ever since grade school I was a cheerleader. I continued to cheer in middle school and up to junior year in High School, for a total of six years. I started off with pop warner cheer then junior varsity cheer and ended with varsity cheer in high school. When you cheer you get to get the crowd involved in the game, you make new friends and you also get to compete in competitive cheer at competitions. Cheerleading was a great part of my life and it is an experience I will always treasure. It has taught me that practice builds stamina, competition proves your teams point and it builds the understanding of why teamwork is important.

Cheer has been around for a long time. It may not be the oldest or best sport in the world, but it is definitely a sport. Cheerleading has gone from cheering on sports to All Star cheer, competing. Many people have said cheer isn’t a sport, but there are rules and requirements that make cheer a sport just like football or soccer.

This debate has been constant for many years on if Cheerleading is a sport or not. In this paper I will tell you why it is using these three key points. First I will talk about how many hours and practice is put into cheer, then I will talk about how Cheerleaders do hard Competitions. And last but not least, I will give you the definition of sport and bring you along a road you haven’t thought about yet.

“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.”

In addition to everything that happened prior to my high school years, my freshman year was one, if not, my most memorable when it comes to sports. Track may have been my only sport in high school but I took a great deal or pride and passion in what I was doing and the team I was on, felt like another family. We had a track meet in Eudora, Kansas, and I was on the four by one team relay, which is four people that each run a 100 meter dash and pass off a baton. I was the anchor of the team and we were in first place in the event. When I got the

“Our members can train up to six hours during rehearsals where we take on cardio, conditioning, stunting, and gymnastics- and if i call extra rehearsals they never say no, they're all so dedicated (“Three Cheers For the Knights!” 1).” Some say Cheerleading is a hobby, not a sport. One may say this because cheerleaders cheer on the “true” sport, cheerleading is a element of looks, and no other “sports” take place on the sideline of other sports.

We all have some type of sports story growing up, either you were playing or just watching, you have some story to tell. I have been playing sports ever since I can remember, I started when I was little and then I just never stopped. I played basketball, volleyball, and my favorite sport softball until sadly something happen. Softball had always been my sport and I was planning on playing college ball but the winter of my sophomore year of high school that all stopped.

Cheerleaders start getting their competition routines ready. In High school cheer a number of teams from other high schools including junior varsity and varsity small, medium, and large division compete for 1st place. The cheer routines have to be 2 to 3 minutes long, and stunting, tumbling, and dance should be incorporated into the routine. Every team gets placed from 1st place to last place and is capable of achieving a result. Cheerleading meets all the criteria to be a sport and it does more.

Cheerleading, like many sports has many different aspects to it. There are also different kinds of cheerleading teams; you may participate in a game team, town team (AYC or Pop Warner), school sports team (Middle school, High school, or even college), or all-stars. Many people stereotype cheerleaders as girls running around in little skirt shaking pom poms. A cheerleader that competes is much more than that. On top of standing on sidelines at sports games; both football and basketball, they are working on a routine to compete against many other teams.

I loved doing cheers with my sisters. We would cheer all around the house. When I found out when cheer tryouts were I told my mom that I really wanted to do cheer. My mom said “okay”. So first there was clinecks and there we learned these two cheers. Then we got this paper that said you had to make up a cheer I thought that was going to be hard. Then when we got home my sister Bailey was there I told her “we had to make up a cheer for tryouts can you help me please.”