Competitive Cheer and Dance as Sports
Athleticism and Year Round Competition Define these Sports
May 1, 2009
The dictionary defines a sport as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature”. According to this definition, competitive cheer and dance teams should be classified as sports. These sports require a tremendous amount of training and skill, and they compete on a regular basis against other schools.
The confusion stems from the historical perspective of cheerleading. Historically, the focus of cheerleading was as a sideline support group. Today’s competitive cheer teams are nothing like their sideline peers.
Today's Cheer and Dance Teams
A competitive routine takes hours of practice and months to perfect. Whether dance or cheer, high skill levels are required of these athletes. The individual skills required to compete on these teams take years to master, with many athletes taking additional technical and/or tumbling courses outside of their team practices.
Hours of practice, competing through pain and injuries, and a high level of training all characterize these athletes. These athletes practice year round and are required to participate in summer camps and multiple competitions throughout the year.
Competitive cheer and dance teams need to be recognized and treated as sports at both the high school and college levels. Along with giving the athletes the recognition they deserve on their own campuses, recognition of these sports would also provide with much needed oversight for safety rules and regulations – especially in light of the number of catastrophic injuries seen in the sport of cheerleading. It would also provide for much needed funding at both levels.
Recognition at the Collegiate Level
In July 2008, the “University of Maryland became the first Division I-A school to recognize competitive cheerleading as a varsity sport and count it toward its Title IX requirements," according to Wayne Drehs of ESPN. This school split its squad into two teams. One team is a cheer squad that cheers at football and basketball games. The other is a 22-member team that performs at intercollegiate cheerleading competitions.
The athletes on the competition team receive the same benefits as any other student-athlete at the University of Maryland including scholarships, academic advisors, strength coaches, on-site certified athletic trainers, and locker rooms.
This is a first step for programs at the collegiate level. Other collegiate programs will be closely monitoring the University of Maryland to see the impact of recognizing competitive cheer as a sport. Hopefully, this will be a positive trend that will spread throughout the conferences.
Recognition at the High School Level
As dangerous as competitive cheer is at the college level, there are even more catastrophic injuries at the high school level. Until state associations and athletic directors recognize the changes that have taken place in cheer/dance, and recognize these teams as part of their sports programs, these teams will continue to go unregulated at the high school level.
According to Susan Loomis, National Federation of State High School Associations, “individual state athletic/activity associations govern high school sports in this country. Most associations do not see cheer as a sport so they do not govern nor regulate cheer.” (Written Communication, April 28, 2009).
Recognizing these competitions as sports will provide safety regulations, additional training, and additional resources that will make these sports safer for the thousands of athletes who compete every year.
