Cheerleading: Sport or Not?
 

Not so sure I agree with the Judge but then I think Title IX is silly anyway.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Competitive cheerleading is not an official sport that [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]colleges[/COLOR][/COLOR] can use to meet gender-equity requirements, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in ordering a Connecticut school to keep its women's volleyball team.
Several volleyball players and their coach had sued Quinnipiac University after it announced in March, 2009 that it would eliminate the team for budgetary reasons and replace it with a competitive cheer squad.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/21...est=latestnews

Competition.

As is Golf. Baseball's iffy.

Pro-Title IX, but I'm a 'sport' snob.

I did HS cheerleading for three years before moving to competitive.

Go to one practice of a competitive team and there will not be a doubt if its a sport or not.

I just don't understand how people can say "oh yeah gymnastics a sport!" then not agree that cheerleading is.


Side note, in 2008 Rhode Island ruled that it was a sport and now RIIL holds states.

Competition cheering is a sport, for sure, but not sideline cheering. Huge difference.

I don't blame the volleyball players for suing!

At its most competitive level and highest level of difficulty where people have intensive training and can get hurt:*** Sport.

When it isn't competitive and only has a "clap your hands" level of difficulty: Not a sport.


***That isn't the metric for what makes something a sport.

Because they've seen sideline cheerleading that requires minimal training and barely breaks a sweat. Even cheerleading that equates to dancing and requires coordination training isn't a "sport" unless all forms of group dancing could be sports.

Sideline cheerleading isn't just "clap your hands" level of difficulty, even if it isn't competitive. Many sideline squads do all of the same elements and have the same difficulty level of competitive squads. In the college ranks, it's usually the sideline squad that competes (i.e. Kentucky, LSU, Alabama, Louisville, etc.).

Also, it should be noted that the judge ruled that competitive cheer is not a sport in its current form for Title IX purposes. It is not fully developed in that format. He writes toward the end of the case:

"In reaching my conclusion, I also do not mean to belittle competitive cheer as an athletic endeavor. Competitive cheerleading is a difficult, physical task that requires strength, agility and grace. I have little doubt that at some point in the near future – once competitive cheer is better organized and defined, and surely in the event that the NCAA recognizes the activity as an emerging sport – competitive cheer will be acknowledged as a bona fide sporting activity by academic institutions, the public, and the law. As the evidence in this case demonstrates, however, that time has not yet arrived."

</soapbox>

I'm obviously talking about the cheerleading (sideline or not) that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GdWr8n90X4

On the actual case, I think that it's fair to have cheerleading as one "sport" but to cut volleyball and replace it with cheerleading as if that's an equal swap is stupid.

But I also have an issue with treating college athletes as money makers while requiring them to maintain amateur status to retain eligibility.

If you read the article carefully, you'll see that the issue was that the competitions are not inter-collegiate but instead, sponsored by a vendor of cheerleading gear. Bottom line, there are not standings, rankings, playoffs, etc. of college cheer teams. There is not an official schedule of Team A vs. Team B, Team C vs. Team D. It is not structured as a college sport.

My other question about this is ... aren't most cheer teams in college co-ed now? They certainly were even when I was in school and when I watch college football there are men on these teams. So, how do you count that against women's volleyball even if it were structured like other sports? There are lots of male cheerleaders.

Did it occur to anybody else that the college probably spent more on fighting this in court than it would cost to run the volleyball team anyway?

If competition cheerleading is a sport, so is competition marching band.


/band geek

A lot of them are, but not all (Smaller schools, for example, usually can't get the guys). The schools that are going this competition-only varsity team route -- Maryland was the first to do so -- are making them all-girl. The hope, as Quinnipiac had, is that it counts as a "female" team for Title IX purposes.

And Dee, you're spot on about the "disorganization" of cheerleading in the competitive sense. We've shot ourselves in the foot with 5,000,000 cheer companies all sponsoring competitions and "national championships." There's no one overriding body.

I did both. Competition marching band was a lot easier than competitive cheerleading.

I disagree. Marching band, drum and bugle corps, indoor color guard, indoor percussion ensembles and everything in the competitive marching arts blur the line between art and sport, but I feel like calling it either devalues the other portion of it.

I may be running around a football field with a 30lb horn on my shoulder marching with added ballet-esque dance 12 hours a day, but I'm still playing music.

I'm more bothered by the fact that they have been fudging their numbers about Title IX then about a judge saying cheerleading isn't a sport. I agree with his ruling, and also with his statement that cheerleading could one day be a collegiate sport. I think if the NCAA adopted it, that it would change a lot.

I also think there is a distinction between an activity that requires athleticism, and an actual team competition sport.