Published: 03:54 PM, Thu Jul 01, 2010
Is cheerleading a sport?
By Earl Vaughan Jr.
Scholastic sports editor
Cheerleading coaches and supporters shared divided opinions on the question of whether or not officially labeling cheerleading a sport would make it a safer activity.
The question was raised nationally recently in a program on the Showtime cable network featuring illusionists and comedians Penn and Teller. The basic argument of the broadcast was that cheerleading needs official status as a sport to force more training and accountability for coaches.
The show argued that an odd conspiracy between proponents of Title IX and within the cheerleading industry were opposed to cheerleading being a sport. The Title IX supporters don't want cheerleading added because it would cut into federal funding going to schools.
Amanda Willson, cheerleading coach at Terry Sanford, is among those that agree with some of the positions the program took. "If all the schools considered it a sport, it would be more likely they would get appropriate funding,'' she said. "I feel the biggest safety issue is a lack of funding, be it for equipment or coaches.''
Safety was a key issue brought up in the program, which claimed there were some 30,000 injuries among cheerleaders last year. But Gwen Holtsclaw, president of Fayetteville's Cheer Ltd., thinks those figures are misleading.
Holtsclaw noted that the number of total injuries should be compared to the total number of athletes who actually take part in cheerleading. When that is factored in, Holtsclaw said cheerleading ranks 11th in injuries per athlete compared to other high school sports.
She thinks the issue of whether or not cheerleading is a sport is a battle of semantics, and the real question is whether or not cheerleaders are athletes. "I would challenge anybody who has watched them to say this is not athletic,'' she said. "If you want to say it's a sport or not doesn't change the complexion and the reality of the fact these young people are athletes.''
Holtsclaw agrees with the program that safety is a major concern, and adds that her organization puts a major emphasis on it, and she is unaware of any major cheerleading company in the country that doesn't.
"We've gotten together with five other cheerleading companies and formed the National Council for Spirit Safety and Education,'' she said. "They offer a series of four courses, a half-day each, and at the end of those four courses, you get certified.
"Does it guarantee that no one is going to be injured? Absolutely not. But it does create a much safer environment because coaches understand.''
Coaches' call
If the issue that cheerleading needs to be called a sport is so critical, one would expect there would be a cry for that to happen from cheerleading coaches themselves. That's not the case in North Carolina, according to Carolyn Shannonhouse of the N.C. High School Athletic Association.
When Shannonhouse joined the NCHSAA staff in 1986, a survey was conducted to see if cheerleading coaches wanted their activity to be considered a sport. They declined. Since that time, Shannonhouse said there has been no push by the coaches or anyone involved in athletics in North Carolina to change it.
Cheerleaders fall under the supervision of the NCHSAA in eligibility and academic requirements, but otherwise are considered an activity.
Shannonhouse said individual school systems have the right to consider cheerleading a sport if they choose, and that's part of the reason the state association doesn't feel a need to get involved.
Shannonhouse felt many of the problems the Penn and Teller program touched on spring from so-called all-star cheerleading, which she compared to traveling soccer programs or AAU basketball. "Parents do spend a lot of money on those,'' she said. "Our invitational cheerleading competition has met many of the needs as far as state recognition is concerned.''
Cheer Ltd. runs a state cheerleading competition for the NCHSAA that is held in Raleigh in November and is open to any squad in the state that wants to participate.
Room for improvement
Even with some improvements, cheerleading coaches feel there are things that could be done better. Alexis Crabtree, cheerleading coach at Jack Britt High School, likes the safety and certification training offered at the annual N.C. Coaches Association cheerleading clinic in Greensboro each summer. But she'd like it better if more people at her school understood cheerleading.
"They don't realize we need to have mats in place and a certain place to practice,'' she said. "They don't realize the difficulty of the skills we're learning and that we can't learn some of them because we don't have the right safety precautions.''
Arlene McMillian, coach at South View High School, said sport or no sport, certain things should be required of all cheerleading coaches. "Every coach should be safety certified and know the limits of their athletes,'' she said. McMillian took issue with one segment of the Penn and Teller program that showed a young cheerleader paralyzed from the neck down because she performed a stunt while trying out for a squad and didn't have any spotters present to catch her.
"That should never happen,'' she said. "Young people should never be put in that position.''
McMillian said Cumberland County's rules on cheerleading are among the toughest anywhere, in some cases, too tough.
For example, county cheerleaders can't perform the popular basket toss, where a cheerleader is thrown into the air by her teammates and then caught as she falls. County cheerleaders are also prohibited from doing mounts that go any higher than standing on one cheerleader's shoulders.
"It limits us when we compete on any level,'' she said. "We'd like to be able to do that.''
But when it comes to changing the position of whether cheerleading is a sport, most seem to feel like Shannonhouse.
"We're just really proud of cheerleading,'' she said. "We serve the membership. They obviously must think it must be working okay, or we'd be hearing back from them.''
Scholastic sports editor Earl Vaughan Jr. can be reached at vaughane@fayobserver.com or 486-3519.