Cheerleading: From Yell Team in 1870s to Sporting Activity - Essay Sample

Introduction

Cheerleading is an activity that involves at least one participant to cheer up another person or a team like football players. In was discovered in the 1870s where a gentleman whose name was Thomas Peebler jumped in front of a cloud to cheer up a team of footballers. He then got for himself a group of six guys who made it so lively that it became like another sport because it used energy of the body just like the sport. It was nicknamed as the yell team because all it entailed was yelling, jumping, shouting, and cheering at your team. With that brief overview o what cheerleading is a about we can therefore delve into our subject matter.

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Is cheerleading a sport? Well, what makes a sport? Sports are anything that involves physical exertion while competing against an opponent, whether that be a team or a single competitor. Score is another factor that must be within the definition of sport, as without score, how do you determine the "better" competitor? The last, most important factor that makes a sport what it is, is entertainment. Does it entertain its viewers? If a sport doesn't entertain its audience, then the sport loses viewers. Without viewers, no ticket sales, no funding to support the competitors.

So, is cheer a sport? Does it involve physical exertion while competing against another opponent? Physical would be anything that involves bodily contact or activity using the body. Exertion is defined by any form of applying force to an object. Whether that be physical or mental, exertion requires effort. The involvement of physical exertion in cheer result in acrobatic, team effort, that uses pushes and pull on humans or the floor, with muscles such as the bicep, the triceps, the quads, and calves using support from the hips, and tendons such as the achilles and the lateral epicondyle. These stunts, as they're called, are performed in arenas around the US by many high school, middle school and or club cheer programs, all against each other. These teams come together under a spotlight to perform routines that display skills to be compared by one another. Just as a weight lifter pushing 225lbs off of his chest, and his opponent pushes 255 off of his/her chest. Just as an offensive lineman pulls a defensive lineman down with his own momentum, heck even a tennis player swinging his racket to hit a ball across a court, strength is a required from the legs to exert one's body or multiple bodies from the ground and into the air in different forms and fashions, against different teams and organizations. With cheer involving physical exertion and competition, it's hard to make the argument that it doesn't have a major role in the world of sports. Stunts as they may sound, must be considered a form of physical exertion. With this statement being made and the competition in various locations, this must mean that cheerleading requires just as much training and exercise that any other sport requires. No one just wakes up out of bed and becomes the greatest receiving leader of all time, so on that same note, no one ever just wakes up and becomes a flyer

Performance is another huge piece where it dictates score as well and the ability to perform the actual stunts. Scores are based on the difficulty of the stunts and if done simultaneously, difficulty of the pyramids performed, and how well conditioned these athletes are. With all this taken into mind for scoring, it's hard to make the statement that cheerleading isn't a sport. There's plenty of competition, plenty of scoring, and much training and physical exertion that takes place either at or before national events.

Is cheerleading a sport? Does it entertain? Though entertainment may be a bias, "nearly 230,001 people attended the State Cheerleaders Connotation All-Star State Championship" in Dallas, 2018, according to CNN.com. That's more than the most fans to ever attend a Super Bowl. That record is "104,667 followers, on January 20, 1980, to see the Pittsburgh Steelers overthrow the Los Angeles Rams 31-19, at the Rose Bowl". With a number so large, it's hard to say that a cheer event involving twice as many people as those who've attended a Super Bowl, America's Primetime Event, doesn't entertain.

With these huge factors that define a sport, seeing that Cheer matches up with each category, if someone were to make the claim that it isn't a sport, that can be compared to someone saying the Super Bowl doesn't happen every year. That's impossible if at-least 200,000 are watching. That's impossible if they're watching at a National Championship event. National Championship events are, sports events. Grand sports events such as the Super Bowl, the Final Four, the NBA Finals, The College Football Playoff Championship. All championships are competitive. In each competition a score is taken. Scores are determined by the levels of physical exertion to success rate of the athlete's and sport's desired performance. So, Is cheer a sport?

Works Cited

"Bases." Stunting Definitions | Cheshire Junior Football & Cheshire Junior Cheerleading, leagueathletics.com/Page.asp?n=89832&org=CHESHIREJUNIORFOOTBALL.COM.

Driscoll, Kelsey. "These Are the 10 Most-Attended Super Bowls of All Time." AOL.com, AOL, 31 Jan. 2018, www.aol.com/article/news/2018/01/31/the-10-most-attended-super-bowls-of-all-time/23349322/.

Mezzofiore, Gianluca. "Thousands May Have Been Exposed to Mumps at a National Cheerleading Contest." CNN, Cable News Network, 9 Mar. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/03/09/health/mumps-cheerleaders-nca-health-trnd/index.html.

"Varsity Spirit - All Star Scoring & Judges." Varsity.com, www.varsity.com/all-star/competitions/scoring-judges/.

Walker, Brad. "Cheerleading Stretching and Flexibility Exercises." Cheerleading Stretches to Improve Your Performance and Do Away with Cheerleading Injuries for Good., 6 Oct. 2016, stretchcoach.com/articles/stretches-for-cheerleading/.