Is Cheerleading a Sport? Updated

The U.S. District Court in Bridgeport Connecticut is currently hearing a case that asks the question, “Is cheerleading a sport? ”

Five members of the women’s volleyball team plus the coach at Quinnipiac College in Connecticut filed a lawsuit after the school cancelled the volleyball program in favor of a competitive cheering squad. The move was a budget decision but sparked a Title IX debate. Title IX is the 1972 law requiring gender equity in all federally funded sports programs.

The suit is being heard as a class action for all female athletes at Quinnipiac and the judge will determine if the school manipulated its rosters to comply with Title IX and if cheerleading meets the definition of a sport.

Competitive cheerleading certainly requires athleticism and it is widely considered to be dangerous. According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, cheerleading is responsible for 65 percent of all catastrophic injuries in girls’ high school athletics. When cheerleading is done competitively, it seems obvious it could hold its own against any other sport. Certainly all of those jumps, flips and gymnastics moves require as much skill and stamina as spiking a ball over a net or swimming in a pool or certainly, curling.

Perhaps the issue with cheerleading is the baggage it brings. I confess I always vowed that no daughter of mine would ever join the squad – unless they started cheering for the girl’s team. The idea of a group of girls in short skirts rooting for the boys only makes me nuts. I want to see my daughter in the game –  both literally and metaphorically speaking – not on the sidelines.

But competitive cheering is altogether different. There’s an interesting article on the topic in the Sports Journal  from the United States Sports Academy. It raises the idea that because cheerleading is so widely perceived as an activity for girls that it is difficult for the sport to earn respect. Certainly the NFL cheerleaders we see on our television sets every Sunday in the fall and winter don’t help  the cause.

It will be interesting to see how this case in Bridgeport plays out.  Me? I’m cheering for the cheerleaders.

Update: Wednesday, June 23 is the 38th anniversary of Title IX. Is your school in compliance?

Tags: cheerleading, Title IX, women's equality

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 am and is filed under Feminist Forte. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.