Cheerleading: It IS a Sport
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by Lydia Hartshorn
published 2/15/21
Standing there in my uniform with my cheer shoes tied, body sore, hands shaking, I am scared. I look up at all the people in the stands. The judges shuffling papers. I’m trying to remember to do everything perfect. I hear our name get called loud over the speakers: “BOW HIGH SCHOOL TAKING THE MAT!” We all know what is about to happen. We hold hands as we start running out to the mat with smiles on our faces hiding the adrenaline. It's showtime. It is time to show all of these people what we can do.
This. Is. Cheerleading.
A sport with many misconceptions. Yes, I said sport. Cheerleading is a sport that is mentally and physically hard. You are constantly pushing yourself and your teammates to the best you possibly can. You may see us on the side of sporting events cheering on our teams, and as much as we love that, we are so much more than what you see there. Almost 100% of the time when we are in the gym, we are working hard on jumps, tumbling, stunting, dances, our endurance, and the routine in general. We may make it look easy, but it’s not. Those three minutes of competing are the most tiring three minutes of your life.
At competitions, we get scored in many categories. We get scored on how creative we are, how difficult the routine is, and how well we all execute our skills. One fall from a stunt or one person that messes up the counts could mess it all up. This is why our practice is so important. I asked my coach what she thinks makes cheer so hard. This is what she said: “I think cheer is hard on the body. It’s a sport that combines weight lifting, dance and gymnastics. On a social aspect it is difficult for others to understand how demanding this sport is. It does not get the common recognition like football. Cheer is supposed to look easy when done correctly. This leads others to think it may not be as difficult to do. It is a highly competitive sport.”
I then asked her her perspective on being the coach and seeing the routine come together. “There are two sides to this,” she said. “The first is the technical aspects. Figuring out each athlete's potential and what goals they will accomplish. Also team goals as a whole. Conditioning and building those muscles so the athletes can physically do a very demanding 2-3 minute routine with aerobic and anaerobic activities. The second side is the mental endurance. The athlete needs to trust the process. When you have a team that comes together through team bonding and supporting one another it is an amazing and rewarding experience. When I see my team take the mat at a competition I do look out and see individual kids who maybe one was failing in school but brought up their grades, a kid who has struggled because her parents got a divorce, a teen who has been struggling with an eating disorder. Cheer isn't just about a back handspring or wearing a uniform, it's about evolving and becoming a whole person.”
I then talked to our team captains for this season, Olivia Mielcarz, who explained how cheerleading has impacted her mentally. She said, “Cheerleading has pushed me mentally by teaching me skills like communication, discipline, confidence, compassion for others, and learning to be a part of a team as well as building up others when they are struggling and learning.”
I think she speaks for all cheerleaders when it comes to how much this sport has built us to be stronger mentally and taught us how to build up each other as a team. Olivia then explained her love for the sport, saying, “I have made the best of friends and couldn’t be more grateful for the sport.”
I asked our other captain, Sierra Mason, about how cheerleading has impacted her physically. She said, “Physically it’s pushed me to learn to trust myself and know that if I put my mind to something, my body will do the rest.”
As cheerleaders we have to trust our bodies and build strength to do what we do. She also explained why she loves cheer. “I love cheer because it truly is a team sport. We work so hard building each other up pushing ourselves to try new things only to show off what we got and compete for a little over two minutes, yet those two minutes are the most rewarding part about it.”
Cheerleading is a sport that comes with lots of hard work and dedication but is certainly a lot of fun and I hope you have learned a bit about this sport!
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