Urbana High School Cheerleading

Throughout the years, cheerleading has been portrayed as a girly little frou-frou ‘sport’ through movies, T.V. shows, and even school athletic events. However, this is not true. The way in which movies such as the ‘Bring it On’ series and ‘Fired Up’ represent the sport of cheerleading is in an extremely misleading demeanor. In the world of pompoms, midriffs and clean white shoes, the sport of cheerleading has been a very controversial topic—for all ages. In the words of Mr. Greg Hall, “cheerleading is a physically strenuous sport in which you must be physically fit and able.”

Cheerleading is one of the top priorities in my life. It takes up a lot of my time and effort, causes me to lose sleep and stress out, but honestly, I would not drop it for anything. In the past, cheerleading was not as important to me as it is now. When I cheered in 7th and 8th grade, I had no real incentive to push my hardest and give it my all. But after getting accepted onto the varsity cheer squad here at Urbana High School, I completely changed my attitude towards the sport.

When I received the text from my friend saying I made the varsity squad, I was completely taken aback. The tryouts had been for JV and, although Coach Shannon Mulvey had mentioned varsity had three spots open, I hadn’t considered myself to be acceptable for that squad. After the parent meeting, the practices began the next Monday. We had not expected what came next. We started out practice by running the perimeter of the school grounds, one mile total. We then went into a week of conditioning and learning sideline cheers. Starting Friday morning at eight we went through four strenuous hours of stunting, jumping and competition formation. These practices lasted every day throughout our three-day weekend. By Monday morning, the whole varsity squad was full of complaints of sore muscles and sleep deprivation. And people say cheerleading isn’t a sport.

Cheerleading to the outsider may look like it’s just an extracurricular activity for the girls who don’t want to be beat up by basketballs or other sporting equipment, but cheerleading causes numerous bruises, huge headaches, and a plethora of other bodily injuries. Not only do we receive bruises, etc., but we also take in people falling onto us, the fear of not catching our flier and the possibility of everyone not being as devoted and ruining our chances at competition.

Even though cheerleading is sometimes not considered to be a legitimate sport, the IHSA website includes cheerleading listed under the ‘SPORT’ section. Cheerleaders endure as much if not more pain than any other sport. So next time you think about saying ‘Oh, that’s not a sport,’ think about it and remember we go through just as much work and put in just as much effort as you do.