Reading the posts in this thread, i have to wonder if the people replying are aware what cheer leading is. Cheer leading is not just the preppy girls from your local high school shouting tired lines to an uncaring crowd while the home team puts on a display of epic mediocrity. Okay maybe thats what its like allot of places, I'll make that concession. And maybe posting about cheer leading on a gaming culture website would naturally draw allot of ignorance. I would wager most people here only think about them as side line decoration in Madden *year* (or other sports game). However whether you recognize cheer leading as a sport or not is irrelevant, cheer leading is a sport, and here is a couple reason to care.
Firstly cheering is a form of group dance. Performance dance on is always a challenging experience. to make that performance exciting to the audience coordination is forged in the fires of unending practice. A single routine may take months to hammer out before its ready to be preformed for an audience. Long hard hours of potentially dangerous practice that comes down to a brief few moments where precise execution is required or else failure, humiliation, or worse injury. Which leads to the next point, Danger.
Cheer leading, on a professional level can and often does require extensive gymnastics, without a safety net. Accidents happen. More accidents happen to cheer leaders than most other athletes, and what else would you expect. On top of that those gymnastics are made to be done at precise moments to coincide with music. Throwing and catching people flying through air all for the sake of entertainment, glory, And to see the face on the rival team. Bringing us to what makes cheer leading a sport rather than just an extreme form performance art.
Cheer leading is a sport tied to another sport, the cheer leaders travel with the "main" team so that when the face there rivals they can be more exciting than their foes cheer leaders. Direct competition between teams. The face off to try and be more exciting than their adversary, and if nothing else that fact alone makes cheer leading its own athletic event. In fact there are events that are solely dedicated to cheering. teams get together and preform their most complex and intricate routine in hopes of winning a trophy. Hear that, teams spend months on choreography, planning, training, and all for a trophy. just like any other sport.
Next time your bored look up some cheer leading on you-tube, you can find some incredible things.
Edit: saw some one say "cheerleading has no judges, there fore not a sport". in the case of non-cheerleading specific events the audience is the judge. if the audience remains more entertained by one group over the other there is a clear "win". some times theres not, but just because there isn't a standard judge, or even a reward at the end of every event does not make the other points of cheer leading any less valid as a sport.
