We may not be broadcasted on Good Morning America or even end up in the black and white newspapers, but we believe that all the hard work we put into practicing will pay off in the long run. We can whip our legs up in the air and do a toe touch, spread our legs different ways and do a herkie, jump high in the sky with our legs together and do a pike, and we can just snap into our splits like a Barbie doll can without straining a muscle. In our hearts we believe that cheerleading is a sport.

In competition cheerleading, a big strong muscular guy lifts cheerleaders up into the air with sometimes only one arm, does back flips across the dark blue mats, and builds sky-high pyramids. Cheerleaders also have to learn fast dances to crazy remix music and learn a short chant to do to the crowd. They travel all around America to compete with other cheerleading squads for a big shinny trophy to be crowned the best of the best. Some competition squads learn a crazy routine and then use the same one over and over again. The competition cheerleaders who do the same routine all the time go to practice and work on their tumbling, sky-high pyramids, and jumps.

High school cheerleading is a different story. We cheer for freezing cold football seasons and can’t feel our toes when we are done. During basketball season we cheer in hot gyms, and we sometimes feel like we are about to die of heat stroke. We also do two competitions. To prepare for football season, we meet for practice during the long steamy hot summer and practice almost three hours each day. We learn over twenty or more chants that get stuck in our heads, about seven dances that we do over and over again, and time out chants to pump up the crowd. At the same time we are working on getting our competition routine learned and trying to get it perfected. Since we have competition and football season to worry about at the same time, we get rushed a little. We have to work as fast as we can to get football season routines and cheers remembered by the first game. Remembering all of that is hard enough, but then we have to remember a crowd chant, two fast, crazy dances, and a long cheer to perform outside in very hot weather with our long-sleeved, hot under armor. When the first football game starts, we start basketball season. In basketball season we have so much more to remember. We have to make up a hello cheer, so we can go over and greet the other squad, a starting five that shows our awesome five varsity boys who play first, six long halftime cheers, eight sign cheers, and over twenty basketball chants. By this time we are all kind of tired of each other and want to pick up that one person and throw her at a wall. At the same time learning basketball chants and cheers, we have to learn a routine to perform at the variety show in front of our community. As soon as basketball season starts, we work on a new routine that will make us better than we were at fair competition. By fair competition we all want to be done and just have a break. We practice even more for this competition every day of the week for three to four hours.

Some say cheerleading cannot be a sport at our school because our team cannot stunt fellow cheerleaders up in the air five feet, and not everyone on our team can tumble all the way down the court. Cheerleaders are just ditzy, blondes who stand on the sidelines and clap their hands together, some may say. Cheerleaders are more than that. We practice almost every day just like any other sport does with sweat dripping down our faces and backs, and we do competitions to those crazy fast remix songs. Our long exhausting football and basketball seasons prepare us for competition. We practice to get our motions so tight that it hurts and our voices so loud that the other team can hear. We work to build up our stamina, so we can own the blue mat at competition and don’t look exhausted. Even though we may not go to ten different competitions, we still do compete. I have been a competitive cheerleader, and I honestly can say that high school cheerleading may not take as much skill as competition cheer does, but we have to remember more. We still have to practice to get our cheers, dances, and chants close to perfect. We cannot stunt because the school will not let us, and many people don’t know that.

Does stunting really determine whether or not we are a sport or not? No, it does not. Football players go out and practice, and they go and compete against teams. Some people say a ball has to be involved to be a sport. Cheerleaders have more than just a ball; we have shiny blue and gold pom-poms, signs that spell out AHS, and even big megaphones. I’m so sick and tired of our haters who talk trash about cheerleading, and we can't say anything back to the immature people. They may not know we have practices for competition every single day of the week, sometimes even on Sundays. We are big sweat balls in our hot unconditioned school and out of breath because we have been screaming our heads off, wiping out jumps every other eight count, and moving as fast as we can to crazy music. The only difference between competition cheerleading and us is every single girl is able to do some type of back flip, and they build those sky-high pyramids. We can still do round offs, cartwheels, rolls, and round- off into a toe touch which many people can’t do.

People only see us when we are cheering on the dirty sidelines and the shiny gym floors; behind the scenes is a different story. Our team has pointless, dumb drama because we are all teenage bratty girls who spend too much time together. When we don’t have dumb drama, we have this sister bond that is unbreakable. Being in a sport does not just mean people play against or compete against another team. Everyone girl forms bonds with another cheerleader, and some people don’t have that special bond. We disagree until our coaches yell at us, and some girls may even storm out and quit. That just makes us stronger as a team. When we practice, not everyone is going to get it right every single time. We have to work hard and practice our butts off. It is not something that just comes easily to people. We have to know names of motions, all of the jumps, and understand cheerleading language, and we also have to know how to perform them.

Cheerleading requires so much out of a person such as flexibility memory, dedication, stamina, and time. A cheerleader has to have enough flexibility so that she can snap into the splits or do a jump at any giving moment. It takes memorization so she is not standing they’re looking dumb and forgetting how to do something. A cheerleader has to be able to run out on the shiny gym court with all of the bright lights above them and do a cheer or dance. Being dedicated is a big part of it all because a person has to want to be a part of something that is truly great to be a part of. We are able to dance and jump without breathing so hard because we are trying to catch our breath. A person has to give up most of her evenings during the week, and every Friday and Saturday nights.

Before people can say it is not a sport, I want them to come to a practice and try what we have to do, and maybe they will realize its not just laughs and giggles. Being able to wear my warm, blue varsity jacket that says “High School Cheerleader” on it is something that I will never be ashamed to wear. Being part of the cheerleading program is a privilege, and I’m proud to say I am Cheerleader no matter what all our haters say. There has not been a trophy won for cheerleading in over twenty years. My team and coaches wanted to change that and show our community what we can really do, so we put in all of our energy into our fair competition. We competed against one of the better squads, and now we can say we beat them. We showed all of our haters that we can win in competitions, and we brought home that first place trophy to display in our school’s trophy case. Being a senior next year is going to be hard. I will have to say goodbye to my coaches, my girls, and the sport. Cheerleading is what I love to do and is my passion. I have been a cheerleader since I can remember and would not trade it for anything in the world.